Atlanta, Georgia Remarks to Members of the Southern Baptist Brotherhood Commission.

President Jimmy Allen, Ambassador Dennis, Reverend Hardy, my good friend Glendon McCullough, fellow members of the Southern Baptist Brotherhood, fellow Christians, my friends:

It was almost worth the trip to Atlanta just to discover that Baptists wrote "Blest Be the Tie That Binds" and the words to "My Country Tis of Thee."

I've been reading about the convention with great excitement. I read about the breakfast plans this morning. I understand that Glendon McCullough was trying to finance a cooperative program. [Laughter] This may have worked with Episcopalians and other wealthy people, but Baptists have a limit on what we can contribute for breakfasts. [Laughter] Perhaps if he had asked Anita Bryant this morning, there may have been more success.

This morning, as a Christian, as a Baptist layman, I'm pleased to be here, but I would like to talk to you from the perspective of a President.

I've been in office now not quite a year and a half, and I've seen very clearly that government touches every life and that what the American Government is touches people in every other nation because of the power, the strength, the influence, the wealth of our country.

This puts a tremendous responsibility on me as a public official, but it also puts a tremendous responsibility on you, every one of you, as American citizens, because in a free society like our own, we are not only blessed with a chance to grow, to learn, to stretch our hearts and minds in total freedom, but our religious convictions teach us how that freedom might be used and the limits of it as we serve others. And in a democracy we know that we shape and control the government to the extent that we are willing to participate and contribute our influence.

So, in effect, as Americans, as Christians, we not only shape our own lives and set an example for our neighbors immediately around us, but we also shape what our country is and what it hopes to be in the future, therefore influencing people throughout the world.

As President, I still look on government in a personal way, which is a surprise to some people. Last year I got a letter from a child who said, "Now that you've been in office for 6 months or so, would you rather be President or a real person?" [Laughter]

That question has kind of preyed on my mind. And as I prepared my remarks for this morning, I thought about it. And as I speak to you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, I'll keep that before me.

In a modern, fast-changing, technical world, we tend to be dehumanized, stamped out in a pattern. Individual traits that give us a uniqueness in God's world tend to be ironed out and smoothed over. This creates conflicts in us, because there is a difference between our attitude toward our private, inward life and our public, outward life, no matter how broad the scope of our participation might be in public affairs.

I remember in Plains, Georgia—that's a small town which is my home—our house was only about 30, 40 yards from the railroad track. And as a tiny boy I used to stand there and watch those tremendous steam engines go by, and the big yellow wheels, and I would watch the connecting rods pushing forward, pulling back, pushing forward, pulling back, and the wheel went around and the train went forward. And I couldn't understand it for a long time, but now I see very clearly that unless a connecting rod went forward and back, that the wheel could not have continued to turn, and the train could not have made any progress.

Well, we as Baptists, as Christians, as Americans, are trying to make progress. The bold mission effort is a new ideal, a new program, a new commitment, a new concept which lets us as a denomination spread our influence in a beneficent way much more rapidly, much more broadly, than we had contemplated a few years ago.

I've noticed this convention has concentrated on how we might use our position in life to greater influence in the service of God. But quite often we are much more interested in using our influence for ourselves, for material benefit, for stature, for a good reputation, for influence, even to win in the competition of life than we were or are or possibly will be in God's service.

When I was a naval officer, a scientist, a businessman, I was intensely committed to doing well. I worked many hours every day. I thought at night about how I might do better. When I was a candidate for public office, particularly the last campaign I ran, I gave a hundred percent of everything in me to win, to let the American people know the good side of my character, perhaps to conceal my defects, to let them realize how badly I wanted to serve.

I didn't waste any time and neither did my family, and neither did many friends. But I have to stand here and confess to you that I've never given that much of a sustained commitment to serving God.

But this is not an inherent limit on human beings just because I or perhaps some of you are guilty of that misapplication of priorities, because there have been many times in the past when individual people adopted in their own lives a bold mission, and not only changed their own lives but were able to use their lives in a way that carried on through history.

Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., were people who used their influence in political ways to correct wrongs, to open up new possibilities for other people to expand their hearts, to expand their minds, to live better lives. They lost their lives through violence in this carrying out of a bold mission for themselves.

In our own denomination, we've seen the same thing. Luther Rice, Annie Armstrong, Lottie Moon ¹ gave their lives, quite often unrecognized, unappreciated while they were alive, but we know that they transformed the concept of Christian missions because they persevered. They had journeys, a journey inward, a journey outward; inward to find peace of one's spirit, to struggle with doubt, to struggle with fear, to lay one's fears on God, to build up strength to turn outward for an expanded life, a more fruitful life to benefit others.

¹ Baptist missionaries.

These two are linked, sometimes shifting from one to another in a matter of a second or two. Sometimes long periods of time are required to shift from an inner finding of one's self to the use of one's self for others. Sometimes Baptists have been too inclined to turn inwardly and to stay that way, within a person, within a home, within a church. That can be a defect, but it's not necessarily good for us to deny, because of a search for inner peace, the rest of the world. As we know ourselves, we know God better. We are able to face fears, leading to a full life.

Some of us in public service turn to politics, to public service on a full-time basis. This is not contrary to Christian beliefs. Isaiah, Jeremiah pronounced God's judgment in the very center of political power.

So, there is no conflict that prevents bringing one's personal religious life together with the political arena. There is a danger, obviously, of conflict, of collusion-Baptists are very much aware of that.

Thomas Jefferson, in the original days of our country, said that he was fearful that the church might influence the state to take away human liberty. Roger Williams, who created the first Baptist church in our country, was afraid that the church might be corrupted by the state. These concerns led to the first amendment, which prohibits the establishment of any official state church, and on the other hand, in the same sentence, prohibits the passing of any laws that might interfere with religious freedom.

Separation is specified in the law, but for a religious person, there is nothing wrong with bringing these two together, because you can't divorce religious beliefs from public service. And at the same time, of course, in public office you cannot impose your own religious beliefs on others.

I have never detected nor experienced any conflict between God's will and my political duty. It's obvious that when I violate one, at the same time I violate the other.

Politics is not unsavory. It's not degrading. It's not something of which we need to be ashamed. In my acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention almost 2 years ago, I said that I wanted an opportunity to translate, aggressively translate love into simple justice. Well, that's my chance as one individual, no better than you, to adopt a bold mission.

All of us in this room, in our own special way, are influential. And we know that Christ says that unto whomsoever much is given, much will be required, and to whom men commit much, they will demand more.

Too many of us as Americans, as Christians, are derelict in the duty of taking our influence, our power, our wealth, our free time, and dealing with those issues that still remain as a great challenge to us all. We tend to even ignore the fact that challenges are there.

I'll just give you one example: human rights. More than a century ago, our ancestors, yours and mine, were in the forefront of those dedicated to the preservation of slavery. More recently, you and I were not in the forefront of those dedicated to eliminating segregation, racial discrimination among our own neighborhood, friends, particularly in the South. We've spoken with a voice on this basic issue that's too timid.

I was pleased this morning to read in the New York Times the absolutely beautiful resolution passed by the Southern Baptist Convention concerning human rights. But the passage of a resolution is not enough, unless we as individuals reach out in our own community, in our Nation, around the world, to detect and to destroy those elements of life which still interfere with the realization of those hopes and dreams of people who are afflicted and deprived.

I hope that our country never again turns its back because of convenience or embarrassment as we did when millions of Jews lost their lives in the Holocaust during the Second World War. Of course, this is just one example, and in my office at the White House, I have to deal with many domestic problems, many other international problems: peace, freedom, nuclear explosives, the sale of weapons, terrorism, rapidly expanding populations without food. But this is more than a list of political problems. These are also for you and me moral problems, because they violate the very precepts of God in which we believe.

Reinhold Niebuhr, in his book "Moral Man and Immoral Society," pointed out the difference between a society and people. The expectations and demands on a person are a much higher standard. A person should have as our goal complete agape love. The most we can expect from a society is to institute simple justice.

So, we as people have to be better, particularly if we are blessed with the opportunity to demonstrate our worth. Leaders also have to be careful not to be too timid.

Sometimes we are reluctant to deal with a complicated issue or a contentious issue; controversy scares us. There's no doubt in my mind that adopting a commitment for a bold mission program is fraught with difficulties and the prospect of failure, and no one likes to fail because you bring upon yourself, if you obviously fail, a bad reputation, derision. scorn, embarrassment. And sometimes the best way to avoid failure is not to try very hard, not to be in the center of a noble effort, or to quit soon enough so you will not be associated in the end with disappointment.

I want our country to be preeminent in many ways, not just preeminent in military might but preeminent in those characteristics of which we can all be proud after careful scrutiny. I want our country to be strong enough in all these elements, military and otherwise, so we never have to prove we are strong.

As you know, a person who is strong and knows it can then afford not to prove it and can be gentle and fair and patient and understanding and generous.

When I leave here in a few minutes I'll go to Panama to exchange documents of ratification of the new treaties concerning the canal, which the Senate has passed now with more than a two-thirds vote.

This has been a difficult issue, but our Nation has spoken, and we've shown that we are strong, powerful, but we are also generous, we are also fair, we treat other people as equals.

We know that our security is bound up with that of others. We cannot any more depend upon the isolation of friendly neighbors and deep oceans. And we cannot any more depend upon a dominant military force, which we did have a few years ago, with a monopoly on nuclear weapons.

So, we cannot ignore others because we are isolated. We cannot dominate others any more because we are strong. We have a new opportunity, a new responsibility. And how we handle this changing factor in an international world will be a measure of our emotional and our spiritual maturity.

Power, wealth, is not enough. We must be willing and able to analyze our own faults. And I think anyone knows that the character of American life has been tested and the fabric held together as we experienced the Vietnam war, the Watergate disgraces, the revelations about the CIA.

Our country was tested, and because our people had an inner strength, our country has not been permanently damaged, but my judgment is that it's now stronger than ever.

So, a country will have authority and influence because of moral factors, not military factors; because it can be humble and not blatant and arrogant; because our people and our country want to serve others and not dominate others. As a person has a conflict with God, we know that because of that we have conflict with our fellow human beings. And a nation without morality will soon lose its influence around the world.

So, to close, let me say this: A nation, like a person, has to continually be on an inward journey and an outward journey, and we grow stronger in the process. There's a relationship between personal leadership and a people.

Moses demonstrated this, as you know, when God called him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. He was not ready to assume that responsibility until he had spent 40 years tending sheep, acquiring a family, discussing the problems with his father-in-law, Jethro. And he finally was able, reluctantly, to turn to God for help and support and a kind of a partnership, and then he was able to work with and sometimes against the people of Israel as they made their long, tortuous journey.

What are the goals of a person or a denomination or a country? They are all remarkably the same: a desire for peace, a need for humility, for examining one's faults and turning away from them; a commitment to human rights in the broadest sense of the word, based on a moral society concerned with the alleviation of suffering because of deprivation or hatred or hunger or physical affliction; and a willingness, even an eagerness, to share one's ideals, one's faith with others, to translate love in a person to justice.

Thomas Jefferson, as he considered what the emblem of our Nation ought to be, the Seal of the United States, suggested that it be a picture of the people of Israel following a cloud and a column of fire, because he saw this inner journey and the outward journey interrelated, and also visualized, although he was not a very deeply religious man on the outside, he saw that dependence on God was good for his new Nation that he loved.

So, the great outward journey of the Israelites, of our own Nation, was based on an inward journey, where peace was derived from an inner strength and an awareness of the will of God and a willingness to carry this will out.

We cannot succeed without this. Moses couldn't. Lincoln couldn't. Lottie Moon couldn't. And neither can we as Baptists, Christians, or as Americans.