Matt Barber calls Jimmy Carter 'An Apostate' for Backing Marriage Equality

Liberty Counsel deputy Matt Barber attacked former president Jimmy Carter, who in a new study Bible writes that he supports marriage equality for gays and lesbians, as “an apostate” in an interview with LifeSiteNews. Barber told the conservative outlet that Carter is using his influential position “to push heretical notions,” and Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission called Carter “hopelessly confused as a theologian”:

At the same time the 39th president has highlighted his more moderate stance on abortion, Carter has endorsed same-sex “marriage.” He told The Huffington Post, “I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies” but he added he drew the line, “maybe arbitrarily, in requiring by law that churches must marry people.”

Dr. Richard Land said, “I’m not surprised that he holds that view. He is hopelessly confused as a theologian.” Carter has said his favorite theologians were liberals Rienhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich.

“Homosexual conduct, is listed over and over again in black-and-white as sin,” said Barber.

“There’s a word for what Jimmy Carter is doing. That’s apostasy,” Barber told LifeSiteNews.com. “That’s a strong word to use, but Jimmy Carter is an apostate in that he is leading the least of these to sin against what Scripture clearly condemns in terms of homosexual conduct.”

“He is not just fooling himself with this,” Barber told LifeSiteNews. “Unfortunately he’s using the goodwill he has developed over the years and his history as the leader of the free world to push heretical notions.”