Consider the following two quotes. Here’s the first one:

“…But you never asked me what my paper is about! I’m taking the text about growing up to the stature of Christ and working out an idea which I feel sure you’ll be interested in. I’m going to point out how people always forget that Jesus…was a comparatively young man when he died. He would have outgrown some of his earlier views, you know, if he’d lived. I’m going to ask my audience to consider what his mature views would have been. A profoundly interesting question. What a different Christianity we might have had if only the Founder had reached his full stature! I shall end up pointing out how this deepens the significance of the Crucifixion. One feels for the the first time what a disaster it was; what a tragic waste…so much promise cut short.”

I’m sure many of you recognize this quote; it’s from C. S. Lewis’s classic work The Great Divorce; in this particular passage (found in Chapter 5), a ‘Christian intellectual’ refuses to go to heaven so that (among other reasons) he can go back down to his ‘Theological Society’ in purgatory to read this paper.

And now here’s the second quote, in which former US President Jimmy Carter speculates on how better things might have been if Christ had accepted Satan’s temptation to rule over all the kingdoms of the earth and thus — one has to conclude logically — pass up His own crucifixion (from an article by Shawn Macomber at The American Spectator):

What a wonderful and benevolent government Jesus could have set up. How exemplary justice would have been. Maybe there would have been Habitat projects all over Israel for anyone who needed a home. And the proud, the rich, and the powerful could not have dominated their fellow citizens! As a twentieth-century governor and president I would have had a perfect pattern to follow. I could have pointed to the Bible and told other government leaders, “This is what Jesus did 2000 years ago in government. Why don’t we do the same?”

Anyone else see some eerie parallels here? Beyond that, I’m not sure Carter realizes why Satan’s offer was a temptation and why it was a good thing for Christ to refuse it. [UPDATE, based on personal communications from Shawn Macomber] Or maybe he does: Ed Morrisey over at Captain’s Quarters defends Carter and cites the subsequent paragraph from Carter’s book to indicate that the above paragraph has satiric overtones:

But the devil stipulated fatal provisos: an abandonment of God, and an acknowledgment of earthly things as dominant. … Anyone who accepts kingship based on serving the devil rather than God will end up a tyrant, not a benevolent leader.

On the third hand, Carter in this paragraph seems to still consider the idea a great one — he just rejects the “fatal provisos.” Macomber has his own doubts about Carter’s meaning and intent, as does Micah Tilman, a philosophy lecturer at Catholic University. Here’s a full, continuous extract from Carter’s book, so that you can make your own decision:

The devil’s third and final temptation was his offer to allow Jesus to replace Caesar and other leaders as ruler of the entire world. What a wonderful and benevolent government Jesus could have set up! How exemplary the justice would have been! Maybe there would have been Habitat projects all over Israel for anyone who needed a home. And the proud, the rich, and the powerful could not have dominated their fellow citizens.

It is easy to see the attractive nature of this offer. It would have not just exalted Jesus but also set an example for centuries of later rules. As a twentieth-century governor and president, I would have had a perfect patterns to follow. I could have pointed to the Bible and told other government leaders, “This is what Jesus did 2,000 years ago in government. Why don’t we do the same?”

But the devil stipulated fatal provisos: an abandonment of God, and an acknowledgment of earthly things as dominant. Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him” (Matthew 4:10). Anyone who accepts kingship based on serving the devil rather than God will end up a tyrant, not a benevolent leader.

Hat tip to Jonah Goldberg at National Review Online for pointing me to the whole brouhaha. ..bruce..