Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was buried Thursday next to his deceased wife Rosalynn in Plains, Ga., shortly after a state funeral held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The funeral included “syncretistic symbolism of very Christian and then very secular” elements, said Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council, an inconsistent mashup indicating “the confusion that our country is experiencing spiritually.”

“It’s interesting that a lot of our culture wants to move beyond Christianity,” added David Closson, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview, on “Washington Watch,” “and yet … in a state funeral, the Christian vocabulary is really the only thing that communicates the seriousness of the moment, the transitory nature of life.”

Thus, the Carter funeral had “vestiges and vestments of a Christian worship service,” Closson described. “You had Scripture readings, you had hymns, [even] a beautiful rendition of ‘Amazing Grace.’” Even the gothic architecture of the National Cathedral itself points heavenward. “Based on the medieval cathedrals, the idea is that when you walk into a cathedral with these huge, lofty ceilings, the impulse is that you look up,” he said. “That’s intentional. … They’re communicating the transcendence of God.”

“The architecture of a cathedral in indeed is an exhortation and maybe even a tool to help us ‘set your mind on things above, not the things of earth,’” Backholm agreed, citing Colossians 3:2. “It is an encouragement to look up because that’s where we find ultimately our purpose, and our meaning, and our Creator.”

The Christian elements in Carter’s funeral accentuated his Christian profession of faith. “Jimmy Carter was a lifelong Baptist, self-described born-again Christian, an actual Sunday School teacher,” said Backholm. “By all accounts, a good, honorable man. By many accounts, not our best president.”

That disconnect was reflected in jarringly anti-Christian elements present in the funeral, suggesting deficiencies in how Carter thought about applying the Bible to public policy.

The sharpest moment came when country stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood sang John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s song, “Imagine.” For those unfamiliar with the hit, the lyrics muse meditatively:

“Imagine there’s no heaven / It’s easy if you try / No hell below us / Above us, only sky / Imagine all the people / Livin’ for today / Imagine there’s no countries / It isn’t hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion, too / Imagine all the people / Livin’ life in peace / You may say I’m a dreamer / But I’m not the only one / I hope someday you’ll join us / And the world will be as one / Imagine no possessions / I wonder if you can / No need for greed or hunger / A brotherhood of man / Imagine all the people / Sharing all the world / [chorus repeated].”

“That is not a Christian message, to imagine there’s no heaven, and there’s no hell,” noted Backholm, “because Jesus exhorts us to live with a constant awareness of the fact that there is a heaven and there is a hell.” In fact, the song blames all warfare and strife not on man’s sinful nature but on religion, nations, private property, and the idea of coming final judgment.

“John Lennon, by the way, himself admitted that this was the lyrics that would sound a whole lot like The Communist Manifesto,” Closson chimed in.

In fact, the message communicated in “Imagine” was so contrary to the largely Christian ceremony that “it felt like somebody hijacked it,” Backholm responded.

Alas, this was not so. As many presidents are asked to do, “President Carter planned this to the minute,” Closson revealed. “There wasn’t anything that just happened accidentally.” In fact, “Imagine” was Carter’s favorite song by a member of the Beatles, and Brooks and Yearwood also played it at his wife Rosalynn’s funeral in 2023.

Closson proposed a typical explanation for the apparent dissonance between Carter’s evangelical faith and his preference for “Imagine.” “Here in our Center for Biblical Worldview, we talk a lot about how 6% of Americans have a biblical worldview, but 88% have a synchronistic worldview,” he said. This means that “most of our friends and neighbors pick and choose ideas and thoughts from this worldview, then they’ll pick some thoughts from this worldview. They put them together, [and] that’s their worldview.”

“Because they’re picking and choosing — almost like [when] you go to a cafeteria — your worldview is going to have ideas, thoughts that really don’t cohere,” Closson added. “But, again, most people don’t realize that or even care.”

Perhaps this worldview confusion is one reason why, even as the culture becomes post-Christian, so many vestiges of Christianity remain.