Claim:
Former US President Jimmy Carter once said or wrote: “Christianity has been hijacked by people who wanted to give Jesus he himself would get the boot if he knocked on their door.
Rating:
Context:
The quote is a paraphrase of statements Carter made to a Star Tribune reporter as part of a November 11, 2005 article promoting his book “Our Values in Danger.” The statement appears without quotation marks in this Star-Tribune article, and the book in question does not include the phrase.
In October 2023 and several years before, a popular quote about alleged hypocrisy in far-right evangelical Christian circles was attributed to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in even form:
The origin of this statement is dated November 11, 2005. article in the Star Tribune. At the time, Carter was promoting his recently published book “Our Values in Danger: America’s Moral Crisis.” A Tribune reporter interviewed Carter for the story, paraphrasing the broader point of his book (emphasis added):
Taking on the role of alarmed prophet in “Our Values in Danger: America’s Moral Crisis,” the 81-year-old former president is promoting the book, which implores Americans to reject the fundamentalist values that now permeate domestic politics and foreign.
Often referencing his own brand of evangelical Christianity, Carter said he could no longer remain silent about the Christian far right and its influence on the government. Evangelical Christianity has been hijacked, he says, by people who would give Jesus himself the boot if he knocked on their door.
This is not a direct quote from Carter. If so, it would be contained in quotation marks. Rather, it is a colorful paraphrase by the journalist of the opinions contained in Carter’s book.
According to his editor Simon and Schuster, Carter’s book “offers a passionate defense of the separation of church and state, warning that fundamentalists deliberately blur the lines between politics and religion.” This bookand importantly, does not contain a statement that evangelicals theoretically give Jesus “the boot.”
Because the words in the meme come from a journalist and not Carter, and because there is no documented evidence that Carter said or wrote these words, Snopes concludes that this quote has been falsely attributed to Jimmy Carter.
Sources:
Carter, Jimmy. Our values in danger: the American moral crisis. Simon and Schuster, 2005.
Carter warns against fundamentalists. November 24, 2005, https://web.archive.org/web/20051124232539/http://www.startribune.com/stories/614/5721784.html.
Evelyntheowl. “Evangelical Christianity has been hijacked by people who would have given Jesus the boot if he had knocked on their door. ” -Close. Jimmy Carter. iFunny, https://ifunny.co/picture/evangelical-christianity-has-been-hijacked-by-people-who-would-have-e7r7CfXuA.
Our values in danger. 2006. www.simonandschuster.com, https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Our-Endangered-Values/Jimmy-Carter/9780743285018.
