11/08/2026
A Peanut Farmer Who Never Stopped Teaching Sunday School: Remembering Jimmy Carter's Faith
JIMMY CARTER'S political legacy will always include the presidency, the Camp David Accords, and a Nobel Peace Prize. But those closest to him, and the history books alike, may remember something more enduring: a faith he never set aside, even for four years in the Oval Office.
Historians routinely cite Jimmy Carter as the most religious U.S. president. The 39th president was a devout Southern Baptist who openly identified as "born again," taught Sunday school for decades (even while in the White House), and integrated his Christian faith deeply into his daily life and public service.
Carter grew up on a farm outside Plains, Georgia, where his family grew peanuts, cotton, corn, and sugar cane. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy and serving several years as a naval officer, including work on the Navy's early nuclear submarine program under Admiral Hyman Rickover, Carter returned home in 1953 following his father's death to take over the family peanut warehouse business, Carter's Warehouse. He spent nearly two decades building it into a successful operation, weathering a difficult first year when a drought nearly wiped out the harvest.
Carter's faith wasn't a campaign talking point โ it was a lifelong practice. He was a third-generation Southern Baptist who began teaching Sunday school as a young man and continued the tradition for the rest of his life, drawing hundreds of visitors to tiny Maranatha Baptist Church well into his 90s. Even after a cancer diagnosis in 2015 that spread to his brain, Carter returned to the pulpit to teach, telling his congregation that when life's burdens grow heavy, the answer is to ask God for strength.
His convictions weren't without controversy. Carter's 1976 admission that he had "committed adultery" in his heart, quoting Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, nearly derailed his campaign โ a moment that revealed just how seriously he took Scripture, even when it cost him politically. Decades later, he broke publicly with the Southern Baptist Convention over its stance on women in ministry, aligning instead with the more moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, though he never left the pew he'd occupied his whole life.
After leaving office, Carter's faith found expression in action: building homes with Habitat for Humanity, monitoring elections across the globe, and working to eradicate disease in the world's poorest regions. Even critics within the denomination he parted ways with came to honor his example. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president R. Albert Mohler Jr. said no U.S. president demonstrated a longer-standing commitment to the Christian faith and the teaching of Scripture than Carter.
He died in December 2024 at the age of 100 โ a Sunday school teacher to the very end.
