First Lady

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Rosalynn Carter memorials, with coverage about faith, family and, yes, political fashions

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Rosalynn Carter memorials, with coverage about faith, family and, yes, political fashions

The public drama of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter continues this week with a public memorial service and a family funeral, the kind of events that pull people into church sanctuaries, especially in the Bible Belt.

It’s safe to say that the more private funeral today — in the couple’s home church, Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia — will be a worship service in a progressive Baptist congregation. It will be interesting to see if footage is provided featuring the eulogy, along with the hymns and scriptures chosen by the Carters.

The memorial service was held in Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church, near the Carter Center at Emory University. The 99-year-old president — 10 months into home hospice care — spent Monday night at the center, close to where is wife’s body lay in repose. Atlanta is 164 miles from the Carter home in Plains.

Let’s give credit to the Associated Press for getting some mention of the couple’s faith into the lede of its story about the public, rather political, memorial service:

ATLANTA (AP) — Rosalynn Carter was remembered Tuesday as a former U.S. first lady who leveraged her fierce intellect and political power to put her deep Christian faith into action by always helping others, especially those who needed it most.

A gathering of first ladies and presidents — including her 99-year-old husband Jimmy Carter — joined other political figures in tribute. But a parade of speakers said her global stature wasn’t what defined her.

Later on, there was this, as well:

Family members described how Rosalynn Carter went from growing up in a small town where she had never spoken to a group larger than her Sunday school class to being a global figure who visited more than 120 countries.

Kathryn Cade, who stayed on as a close adviser as Rosalynn Carter helped build The Carter Center and its global reach, called Rosalynn Carter’s time as first lady “really just one chapter in a life that was about caring for others.”

GetReligion readers may recall that I chided AP for producing a stunningly faith-free obit for the former First Lady.


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Jill Biden's reborn Christian faith: Washington Post dug for some key details (AP didn't)

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Jill Biden's reborn Christian faith: Washington Post dug for some key details (AP didn't)

Since I grew up Southern Baptist, I have heard many, many people give “testimonies” about how they embraced faith and were “born again.” Now that I am Eastern Orthodox, I have heard many people tell similar stories about how they came to embrace ancient Christian doctrines and beauty of sacramental worship.

Most of the time these stories include some details about history of the person’s faith or lack thereof. One part of telling the point to which a believer has travelled is to share some background information about where the journey started.

I would certainly think that this would be true when the person who is “testifying” is America’s current First Lady. Thus, I had a few expectations when I started reading the Associated Press report that ran with this headline: “Jill Biden says SC ‘prayer partner’ helped change her life.”

The hook for this story was the surprise visit that President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden made to West Columbia, S.C., to honor the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Charles B. Jackson becoming the pastor of Brookland Baptist Church. The focus of the story, however, was on Jill Biden’s “prayer partner” relationship with the pastor’s wife, Robin. Here is the crucial passage in this AP report:

The first lady doesn’t usually speak publicly about her faith but said Sunday that “it’s always been an important part of who I am.” She recalled being a teenager who “fell in love with the peace of the quiet wooden pew,” the “joy of the choir” and the “deep wisdom of the Gospels.”

She said prayer helps her “connect to the people that I love and to the world around me.”

“But in 2015, my faith was shaken,” the first lady said, her voice breaking as she described watching “my brave, strong, funny, bright young son fight brain cancer.”

“Still, I never gave up hope,” she said. “Despite what the doctor said, I believed that my son would make it. In the final days, I made one last, desperate prayer and it went unanswered.”


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The First Lady is Catholic? It would appear this story may have been hiding in plain sight

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What we have here is a strange story about a missing news story.

To say that the press has dedicated a large amount of ink to Citizen Donald Trump over the past two years would be the understatement of the century.

Under normal circumstances, when a man runs for president, the press also does quite a bit of digging into the life and times of the woman who would become the First Lady. This digging only intensifies after the election.

You can say that the quiet supermodel named Melania Trump received her share of press attention, but most of it merely raised some rather nasty questions about her past (she won damages from the Daily Mail after one set of accusations). As always, her fashion choices as First Lady have been treated as international news. That's normal.

But it appears that journalists missed a rather interesting personal fashion choice long ago on her wedding day -- she was wearing her mother's rosary. The Palm Beach Post team noticed that rosary at the time (photo and story here), but no one investigated that detail.

She brought that same rosary, it appears, with her when she met Pope Francis -- even though pool reporters (see this USA Today story) apparently thought that the pope gave it to her. Actually, it appears that the First Lady asked Francis to bless the rosary, which he did -- with a broad smile.

Later, it appears that -- ironically -- someone at The Daily Mail asked a rather obvious question: Is Melania Trump a Roman Catholic? 

As it turns out, she is. One would have thought that hidden fact about her life -- her family maintained a Communist/atheist public image in Slovenia -- would have been uncovered by now.


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