University Communications
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322

Release date: Oct. 24, 1999
Contact: Elaine Justice, Assistant Director, 404-727-0643, or ejustic@emory.edu

Carter, Young Share Insights on "Religion in the American South"

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter spoke of the influence of his Christian faith, while former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young called poverty the single most important moral and practical problem facing the world today at a gathering on "Religion in the American South," Oct. 21-23 at Emory.

Carter, known throughout the world as a man of deep religious convictions, surprised several hundred gathered for the conference opening on Oct. 21, by admitting there was a time in his life when he doubted his own convictions. In a talk titled "Reflections of a Southern Christian Layman," Carter said that after his defeat by Lester Maddox in the 1966 Georgia governor's race, "I have to say that I basically lost my faith in God."

Carter credited his sister, the evangelist Ruth Carter Stapleton, with helping him turn in another direction. "I told her my political life was over," Carter recalled. "But Ruth told me what I needed to do is get involved in other things." Carter plunged into mission work, witnessing to others about his faith, helping to start a church and, during a time of de facto segregation, organizing an integrated Billy Graham film screening-the kind of activism that still is his hallmark.

Speaking to the conference Oct. 23, former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young said that "America cannot continue to survive with people isolated on lonely islands of poverty in the midst of this vast ocean of material wealth." Asserting that the enormous extremes of poverty and wealth globally is the major threat facing civilization, Young called for scholarship of the 21st century to help churches, the courts, government, and most of all business, to recognize that poverty "is not only immoral, it's unnecessary, it's overly expensive; in fact it's downright stupid."

Young pointed out that ending poverty, in addition to being a moral imperative, makes sound business and intellectual sense. "The economic markets of poor blacks, Hispanics and whites in America are desperately underserved," he said. "The largest market in the world is the market of the American poor. If we can just serve that market with access to capital and investment, it would create a boom in the stock market that could last for the next 50 to 75 years."

To catch Carter's or Young's presentations on the web, go to the Journal of Southern Religion's website at: http://jsr.as.wvu.edu.

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