Jimmy Carter1977-1981

In the 16 years after John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, asked the American public to disregard the personal religious preferences of political candidates, the voting public had shown a general indifference to the religious beliefs of the presidential candidates. That changed when Jimmy Carter proclaimed himself a "born-again" Christian in the 1976 presidential primaries in North Carolina. A combination of disillusionment with public morality during the Nixon and Ford years and a kinship they felt with a candidate who spoke their language led millions of evangelical Christians to vote for Carter in 1976.
Describing his beliefs at the 1978 National Prayer Breakfast, Carter said, "For those of us who share the Christian faith, the words 'born again' have a very simple meaning -- that through a personal experience, we recommit our lives as humble children of God, which makes us in the realest possible sense brothers and sisters of one another."
As an 11-year-old growing up in Plains, Ga., Carter had accepted Christ as his savior and was baptized in the Baptist Church the following week. He later recalled that being born again was a process, not a moment: "Rather than a sudden flash of light or a sudden vision of God speaking, it involved a series of steps that have brought me steadily closer to Christ."
Thirty years later, when Carter's pastor preached a sermon in which he asked the congregation, "if you were arrested for being a Christian, ... would there be enough evidence to convict you?," Carter realized the answer would be no. Though he'd begun what would be a lifelong study of Christian theology after the death of his father, he felt he had drifted from his personal relationship to Christ. This sermon led him to recommit his life to Christ.
Following his presidency, Carter returned home to Georgia, resumed teaching Sunday school classes and wrote two books explaining his religious beliefs. When the Southern Baptist Convention, to which he belonged, came to espouse an increasingly conservative Christianity, Carter said, "I feel a threat in my own church from Baptist fundamentalists." He joined the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship when they broke away from the Southern Baptist Convention in 1993.