Here is Lori Amber Roessner at The Conversation:
Carter continued to share his understanding of the gospel with journalists and their audiences in a plain-spoken manner, even though it was not always advantageous to his political fortunes. For instance, after continued probes about his faith that summer from Playboy Magazine correspondent Robert Scheer, Carter launched into a sermon on pride, lust and lying that would haunt him later.
“I try not to commit a deliberate sin. I recognize that I’m going to do it anyhow, because I’m human and I’m tempted … I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust,” Carter, believing he was off the record, said in attempting to clarify his religious views. “I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.”
Carter referred to Matthew 5:28, the biblical passage in which Jesus shares this interpretation of the Seventh Commandment, with the words: “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
Uninterrupted, Carter continued his salty explanation of the verse: “Christ says don’t consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife.”
“We have heard Jesus’ words all our lives ever since we were 3, 4 years old, and we knew what it meant,” Carter later explained to me. “But, obviously, the general public, when I said, ‘lust in my heart,’ that was a top headline, it looked like I was – like I spent my time trying to seduce other women. Rosa(lynn) knew that wasn’t true.”
Though Carter’s comments were “on solid theological ground,” according to many people of faith, up-and-coming leaders of the religious right, such as televangelist Jerry Falwell, castigated Carter. And, in the end, many folks agreed with well-regarded columnist Mary McGrory – the interview “should have been an off-the-record conversation with God, not one taped by Playboy.”
Read the entire piece here.