How are these practices illustrated in the public work of Jimmy Carter? Perhaps the practice that is least evident is the first. Although heavily influenced by both the Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War movements, Carter was never a participant in any movement of nonviolent direct action, whether or not involving civil disobedience. Nor does the Carter Center, the think-tank and non-governmental organization he founded to promote peace, human rights, and reduce poverty & preventable diseases, study or engage in active nonviolence. However, closer examination does show that Carter has supported the practice of nonviolent direct action. His promotion of human rights, including his work as president in intervening when dictatorial governments persecuted their human rights activists, worked to give space for indigenous nonviolent movements to develop and creatively engage their contexts. His opposition to apartheid in South Africa, for instance, becoming the first U.S. president to impose diplomatic and economic sanctions on the white South African government, lent support to the mass movements for freedom in South Africa, especially the nonviolent ones. Carter also attempted (unsuccessfully) to support the nonviolent, non-Marxist sections of the freedom movement in Nicaragua, efforts which, if successful, might have averted the U.S/Contra conflict with the Leninist-style Sandinista government of post-revolutionary Nicaragua during the 1980s. Still, vigorous support for nonviolent direct action, is a practice of just peacemaking where Nobel Laureate Jimmy Carter could improve.

Carter has often taken independent initiatives to reduce the threat to adversaries. Perhaps he first learned this from his friend, the late Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat, who took the initiative to make peace with Israel by flying to Tel Aviv and making his case personally before the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) while their two nations were technically at war. Carter's independent initiative in going to Haiti in 1992, facilitated a peaceful resignation and exile of the Haitian military dictator, averting war with the United States. In 1994, Carter's independent initiative in going to North Korea to convince them to halt their program to develop nuclear weapons again averted a dangerous showdown with the United States. Most recently, Carter became the first U.S. president to visit Cuba since the rise of the Castro-led communist government. His frank confrontation of the Castro government's abuses of power was combined with a call for the U.S. to end its fifty year old sanctions, lift travel and trade restrictions, and a call for Cuba to support grassroots reform efforts indigenous to the country. The long-term fruit of this initiative has yet to be seen, but it clearly changes the terrain. That is what the practice of independent initiatives does: It changes the shape of the conflict, opening up possibilities for peacemaking that where either absent or unseen before. In this Carter is following Jesus, who told us to go to our brother (or sister) and talk to them when they have "ought against us," and proposed a series of transforming initiatives (turning the cheek, disrobing in the tax court, carrying a pack two piles when given forced labor by the occupying army, giving without thought of return) that both confront injustice nonviolently, and may lead to repentance and peace.

Perhaps the just peacemaking practice that is most obvious in Carter's life and work is the use of Conflict Resolution methods. Carter is a master negotiator and mediator who seeks both justice for all parties and reconciliation between them. His most famous success in using these methods is, of course, the Camp David Accords where Carter bridged the gap between Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin and Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat, leading directly to the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1978, the most enduring peace treaty in the history of post World War II Middle East. During his presidency, Carter also successfully negotiated the SALT II arms reduction treaty with the Soviet Union and laid the groundwork for future arms reductions. Afterward, he has been a successful mediator in Haiti, North Korea, and the Balkans. The Carter Center has an entire program on mediation and conflict resolution.

For much of modern history, political theorists have assumed that repentance and forgiveness were for individuals. Nations neither could, nor should, repent for past actions. Recently, this longstanding belief has been challenged not only by theologians with interest in political matters (e.g., Donald W. Shriver, Jr., An Ethic for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics (Oxford University Press, 1995).), but also by such experiences as the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" of post-apartheid South Africa which worked to heal the wounds of the long years of injustice and conflict in that land. (See Desmond M. Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness.) Confession and repentance promote humility and empathy and invite similar responses from adversaries, leading to the healing of wounds and making peace. Attitudes of blame and self-righteousness, on the other hand, invite similar moves of self-justification on the part of the enemy, leading often to the breakdown of peace talks and the resumption or escalation of conflicts. Carter's humility is well-known and he lived out these practices (normative for professing Christians like himself) in both his private and public life. Indeed, many of his conservative critics during his presidency faulted him for being too humble and not assertive enough with U.S. world power: But Carter is almost universally respected around the world while most U.S. politicians are perceived as arrogant and bullying by the rest of the world. It is clear that Carter's engagement in the just peacemaking practice has been far more helpful in achieving world peace than practices of demonizing adversaries and prideful refusals to admit to any wrongdoing on the part of "our" group or nation.

Carter has clearly engaged in the practice of advancing democracy, human rights, and religious liberty. During his presidency, he angered members of the Religious Right by his staunch adherence to the principles of religious liberty and church-state separation, rooted not only in the American experiment, but in his Baptist/Free Church heritage. He supported the public schools, dismissed all vouchers programs and all attempts to have agents of the government (school teachers and principals) lead in sectarian prayers. Yet, Carter was no secularist. He gave testimony of his personal faith to the ambassador of (Communist and atheist) China at a state dinner and continued to teach adult Sunday School all during his public life. Carter's witness was neither coercive nor forced. He also championed religious liberty around the world, chastising the Soviet Union for persecuting Jews and Christians, Muslim-majority nations for persecuting Christians, China for persecuting the Buddhists of Tibet, and many Latin American countries for giving legal advantages to the Roman Catholic Church over either indigenous religious traditions or Protestant movements. Restrictions on religious liberty have often been a source of conflict, violence, and even war. Promoting religious liberty for everyone is a positive practice of just peacemaking.

Carter's human rights policy as president was legendary. It was not perfect. Cold War constraints and a recalcitrant Congress more comfortable with a realpolitik philosophy that insists that nations should only look toward their own self-interests interfered with Carter's attempt to make promotion of human rights the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy. Further, Carter made misjudgments, most notably, when he believed that it was better to work for reform of the government of the Shah of Iran than to support the populist Iranian uprising against the Shah's cruel dictatorship. The ruinous results of that misjudgment are still with us. But Carter was successful in making support for human rights a vital part of U.S. foreign policy. Many right-wing politicians since Carter's defeat have tried to reject concern for human rights, but the U.S. public has continued to pressure its government to support universal human rights for all. By Carter's own admission, his early support for human rights concentrated on political rights (e.g., free speech, religious liberty, a free press, the right to assemble and petition the government), but has since broadened to include economic and cultural rights as well. Violations of human rights is a major cause of violence and war. Respect for human rights promotes peace.

Democracy can be considered the political equivalent of nonviolence: It requires commitment to self-rule and tolerance and cooperation with others, even adversaries, in shaping the common life and common good of a nation. Democracies, whatever their other problems, seldom if ever go to war with each other. Further, with the major exception of the United States, democracies usually spend less of their gross domestic product on arms and the military since they need not fear revolt by their own people. Spreading democracy (by supporting indigenous movements for democracy, not by conquest and imposition of democracy) spreads "zones of peace" globally. (The U.S. may not be a real exception. Our devotion of more and more of our precious national resources for military buildup -- more than the next 25 nations combined -- has gone hand in hand with corruption of our democracy by big business. It is quite possible that the U.S. is currently more of an oligarchy or plutocracy than a true democratic republic. Reclaiming our democracy will also reorient our spending priorities, reducing our bloated military budget.) Carter has been an election monitor all over the world, ensuring that nations making the transition from dictatorships to democracy have free and fair elections. He was instrumental in the last stages of the movement of East Timor from the military rule of Indonesia to a self-governing democracy.

The Carter Center's health programs, erasing the Guinea Worm in much of Africa, and programs for self-help cottage industries are examples of the practice of fostering just and sustainable economic development. The Carter Center also has domestic programs for economic development, largely overseen by Rosalyn Carter. Sustainable economic development also means reduction of dependance on fossil fuels and a transition to conservation policies and policies of renewable energy development. Jimmy Carter's presidency was excellent in this regard, though not flawless. In my own view, Carter overestimated the safety of nuclear power and promoted it far too much, even after the disaster of Three Mile Island. Nevertheless, he did create the Department of Energy and give the U.S. its first strategic energy policy -- a policy that included the promotion of solar power and other sources of renewable energy, and higher cafe standards on automobiles, reducing dependance on foreign oil and reducing air pollution. Poverty, hunger and its offshoots, disease and degraded environments, breed conditions for revolution and terrorism. Working instead for just and sustainable economic development promotes a stable peace.

Carter clearly works with cooperative forces internationally. The Nobel Committee cited such cooperation and promotion of international law in awarding Carter the Nobel Prize. In interviews, the Nobel Committee specifically contrasted this to the unilateralism of the current U.S. presidency. Clearly, the more forces that tie people together, the less their chances for war. The more institutions and practices that cross borders (whatever their other drawbacks and injustices, transnational corporations do help unite peoples in this way), the more people see themselves as neighbors and part of larger wholes, rather than evil "Others" that must be eliminated.

Carter also worked to strengthen the United Nations. The United Nations is not a perfect body. In my own view, too much power remains with the winners of the Second World War, plus China, the five permanent members of the Security Council. The United Nations needs more democratic reform and a good start would be to eliminate any member states from having permanent membership in the Security Council, making all memberships in that body rotating on an elective basis. This would give far more voice to developing nations and more independence to the UN which tends to be dominated by the U.S. as the sole remaining superpower, despite the U.S.' notorious debt of back dues which began with the Reagan administration. Carter has worked to strengthen the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and other institutions promoting international cooperation and human rights. He has, for instance, spoken out publicly in support of the International Criminal Court, urged its ratification by the U.S., and rebuked the Bush administration's efforts to gain immunity from prosecution by U.S. citizens.

Arms races, loose constraints on arms trade, and arms build-ups, whether of conventional weapons or "weapons of mass destruction," promote war. The old saw, "to make peace, prepare for war," is false. Preparation for war leads to the militarization of life and thought, and thus to military "solutions" to every problem. Arms reductions and reductions or eliminations of weapons trade, helps to promote peace. Currently, the U.S. is the largest arms dealer in the world, by far. Our government has continued to arm repressive regimes and terrorist groups which have later turned on us. Pacifists and just war theorists alike can agree that a nation's troops should not be sent into battle against enemies armed with weapons made and supplied by their own government. We have already mentioned Carter's negotiation of the SALT II nuclear arms reduction treaty during his presidency. Just peacemakers today must build on such efforts. It is notable that Carter has called for the U.S. ratification of the International Landmine Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, as well the International Code of Conduct of Arms Transfers -- the latter a small first step at reducing the weapons sold to nations or groups with massive human rights violations. I would press this practice further and work to eliminate first all weapons of mass destruction -- all nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons everywhere -- and then cut-off all arms sales while introducing massive cuts in conventional arms.

Some of these just peacemaking practices take involvement by government leaders and policy elites. Yet peacemaking cannot be left to such elites. The final just peacemaking practice is key to effectiveness of the whole: encouraging grassroots peacemaking groups and voluntary associations. Around the world, groups like Christian Peacemaker Teams, Amnesty International, Witness for Peace, the American Friends Service Committee, Poland's Solidarity, Latin America's SERPAJ (Servicio Paz y Justicia -- "Service for Peace and Justice"), Britain's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the Mennonite Central Committee, the Brethren Volunteer Service, the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Doctors Without Borders, the Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights, the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, Methodists United for Justice and Peace, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Jewish Peace Fellowship, Nonviolence International, the Muslim Peace Fellowship, International Physicians Against Nuclear War, Las Abejas, Pax Christi International, and many others have initiated peace and justice movements that governments later joined or were forced to cooperate with. The Carter Center is not a grassroots movement, but Carter does work with Habitat for Humanity building houses for the poor, a voluntary association that works on one of the other practices of just peacemaking. The Carter Center does promote the work of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) at the United Nations, keeping links between governmental and grassroots movements for peace and justice.

In all these ways, Jimmy Carter participates in the practices of just peacemaking. His motivation for all of this is his Christian faith, but just peacemaking invites participation by peoples of all faiths and no faiths. We in the Every Church a Peace Church movement may want Carter and others to go further in embracing nonviolence -- not just as a tactic in direct actions for just peacemaking, but as a moral and spiritual lifestyle. But we must ourselves be challenged by the many ways Jimmy Carter embodies the holistic practices of just peacemaking, practices we also must engage if we are to truly be "peace churches" turning first ourselves to peace by more faithful discipleship to the living Christ and then inviting the world to follow these paths to peace. Reflecting on these practices and on the public life of Jimmy Carter, Nobel Peace Laureate for 2002, helps us envision a culture of peace and to strive to build such a culture, "piece by peace."

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