Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis
by Jimmy Carter

Softcover: 224 pages
ISBN: 9780743285018, 0743285018
Simon & Schuster
September 2006

President Carter has written importantly about his spiritual life and faith. In Living Faith, a huge bestseller, he recounted the values and experiences that shaped his personal and political life. In his companion book Sources of Strength, also a bestseller, he meditated on fifty-two of the favorite Bible lessons he has taught.

In Our Endangered Values (the best one), Carter offers a personal consideration of "moral values" as they relate to the important issues of our day.

He puts forward a passionate defense of separation of church and state, and a strong warning of where the country is heading as the lines between politics and rigid religious fundamentalism are blurred.

Many of these matters are under fierce debate. They include preemptive war, women's rights, terrorism, civil liberties, homosexuality, abortion, the death penalty, science and religion, environmental degradation, nuclear arsenals, America's global image, fundamentalism, and the melding of religion and politics.

Former president Jimmy Carter warns that we stand at the edge of an extensive and profound crisis. In recent years, he insists, the radicalism of the fundamentalists has caused vehement divisions throughout our society.

"Fortunately," he writes, "this disharmony has not yet become final, as the federal courts, members of Congress, religious leaders, and the general public have not solidified opinions on most of these controversial issues." In Our Endangered Values, he implores Americans to reaffirm our traditional national commitments.

"By adding his own voice to the discussion, Carter reminds us of a time when religion was tied to such virtues as humility and to such practices as soul-searching. He may not have been one of our best presidents, but he is undoubtedly one of our finest human beings." - Alan Wolfe - The Washington Post

"Carter speaks eloquently of how his own faith has shaped his moral vision and of how he has struggled to reconcile his own values with the Southern Baptist church's transformation under increasingly conservative leadership. He also makes resonant connections between religion and political activism, as when he points out that the Lord's Prayer is a call for 'an end to political and economic injustice within worldly regimes.'" - Publishers Weekly

You may also enjoy the main books page, where book titles are alphabetized, or browse by subject or topic. To search by author name, you can use the search box on the right sidebar of this page. We also have book reviews listed chronologically here.