Review
Books
Culture
Politics
4 min read

Is it OK to pray for the death of a dictator?

What happens when the mighty lose their thrones.

Simon is Bishop of Tonbridge in the Diocese of Rochester. He writes regularly round social, cultural and political issues.

Bullet holes on a wall and white paint outlines mark the site of an execution
The wall where Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were executed.
NPR.

The end, when it comes, can be nasty, brutish and filmed. 

Muammar Gaddafi, self-styled Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution, spent the last moments of his life cowering in a Libyan sewer after an air strike on his convoy. On discovery, a mob subjected him to some ghastly final abuses before death – the kind of ending he had mercilessly condemned thousands to. It was almost biblical in its parabola, and it was recorded on a wobbly camera. 

But it was not the first of its kind in this generation. On Christmas Day 1989, the disfigured face of Nicolae Ceausescu was broadcast on TV following his summary execution by hastily assembled opposition forces in Romania. Only days previously, he had been an unassailable dictator.   

Vladimir Putin has spoken about Gaddafi’s ending, and it clearly troubles him, but perhaps Ceausescu’s death is lodged in the dark recesses of his mind because it was the one bloody end of all the communist leaders of eastern Europe. 

Being a dictator is an all-consuming job. Too many domestic and foreign enemies are made along the way for the dictator to drop their vigilance. And their downfall often comes at the hands of those closest to them; by definition, these people know the dictator’s movements and weaknesses better than others and are best placed to exploit them. The military must be equipped to suppress dissent, but give it too much power and the generals pose a risk to the dictator. Yet if the military lacks the hardware, control of the population becomes harder. Many dictators surround themselves with specially trained loyal guards to defend against the military, but the rule of terror means no-one speaks the honest truth and so risks appear everywhere. No wonder dictators are usually paranoid and themselves racked with the fear that a culture of capricious violence induces in everyone.     

These and other theories are explored by Marcel Dirsus in his compelling book How Tyrants Fall (John Murray, 2025). Dirsus notes how dictators require money, weapons and people to survive in office and for the elites around them to believe these goods will remain in place. They also need to immerse the surrounding elites in blood guilt, so that their fate becomes entwined with the dictator’s; Saddam Hussein compelled others to join him in the murder and execution of opponents. 

For Dirsus, there are two ways to topple a tyrant. The most direct is to take them out, but this is rarely straightforward. Coup attempts are often shambolic in their planning and even well-orchestrated ones usually fail; the consequences for those implicated are always horrendous. The second route is patient and pragmatic, looking to weaken the tyrant, strengthen alternative elites and empower the masses. External powers often have minimal influence unless, like the US in Iraq, the country is invaded and the tyrant deposed. Sanctions often fail to hurt the elites; a state’s geographic proximity to the tyrant’s nation can be useful, as it gives a base from which opponents of the regime can work. 

Modern technology is changing the face of political action, making it easier for large groups to mobilise against regimes, as seen in the short-lived Arab Spring. It also enables dictators to track opponents more successfully than even the feared Stasi in East Germany. Right now, it feels like the tyrants are ahead in this game. 

Shortly after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a friend said to me that he was praying for Putin’s death or downfall. I asked him how sure he was that the person who replaced Putin would be better. If the pragmatic route for toppling a dictator involves strengthening different elites and empowering the masses, the likelihood is that the elites will take over, not the masses. Dictators never allow the components of civil society to form; democratic institutions take decades to build.  And they rarely anoint successors in advance, for fear alternative power bases are created. When dictators fall, it usually leads to initial chaos and violence before another elite can establish itself from which a new dictator will emerge.   

In her inspired song of praise at the news she would give birth to the long-awaited Messiah, Mary observes how God ‘has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly’.  It is a role reversal typical of St Luke, recorder of Mary’s song, a gift of eschatology many want realised today, not just in the world to come.  When the powerful are brought down from their throne today, they are typically replaced by the next most powerful person, and if the throne remains vacant or is contested, what follows often feels like the spirit that went out of a person in Matthew Gospel returning with seven other spirits more evil than itself, meaning ‘the last state of person is worse than the first’. 

This need not be a counsel of despair, but a call to informed intercessory prayer which is short on controlling advice for God’s geo-political strategy, and long on the wisdom and patience of the one throne that endures.  

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Article
Character
Comment
Leading
Politics
9 min read

Jimmy Carter: five takeaways from a life well-lived

Lessons for budding politicians and the rest of us.

Roger is a Baptist minister, author and Senior Research Fellow at Spurgeon’s College in London. 

Jimmy Cater stands on a convention stage looking out over the crowd.
Accepting the presidential nomination, 1980.
Carter Center.

The year was 2014. Jimmy Carter was writing his concluding remarks for a new book of reflections to mark his 90th birthday. He and Rosalynn had already been married over 68 years. He wrote: 

“The life we have now is the best of all. … We are blessed with good health and look to the future with eagerness and confidence, but are prepared for inevitable adversity when it comes.”

Amazing. 

Of course, I am partial when it comes to Jimmy Carter. He was one of a small handful of people who I’ve found to be genuinely inspirational. Here was a man who seemed to epitomise decency, hard work, public service and humility. 

Yet his failure to be elected for a second presidential term led to him leaving the White House to calls of derision and a common assessment that he was, ‘the worst president ever!’ By contrast, his subsequent work as a peacemaker, housebuilder and humanitarian was exemplary.  

Since his death on December 29 a great deal has been written. From factual obituaries to celebratory eulogies the column inches have been vast. The tributes have been fulsome. 

“He was a committed public servant, and devoted his life to promoting peace and human rights. His dedication and humility served as an inspiration to many, and I remember with great fondness his visit to the United Kingdom in 1977.” 

King Charles 

 

 “… he taught all of us what it means to live a life of grace, dignity, justice, and service.” 

Barak Obama. 

 

“… he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for. He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect.” 

Donald Trump 

In more recent years his time in office has been subject to a re-evaluation. His presidency in no longer seen as the debacle of a ‘hapless and weak’ leader that it was caricatured as for so long. Not given to short-termism and often ahead of his time, as Stuart Eizenstat wrote in 2018, ‘[he] delivered results, many of which were realized only after he left office.’ 

So, what are the lessons that Jimmy Carter’s life can offer budding politicians and, indeed, the rest of us too? What is there to be learnt from this life well-lived in which Playboy Magazine, the Guinea Worm and a ‘killer rabbit’ all feature? 

Here are five takeaways from Carter’s life and experience. 

# 1. You can never control what happens

There is an apocryphal story in which a journalist asks Prime Minister Harold Macmillan what the most difficult thing was about running the country. Macmillan’s insightful, if fictional, response was genius, ‘Events, dear boy, events!’ 

In many ways Carter’s election to the White House was clearly a reaction against the events that had engulfed the previous administration. He was very definitely not ‘Tricky Dicky’ Richard Nixon. Yet it was to be events that undermined his presidency. 

From double-digit inflation of over twenty per cent to the oil crisis and the soaring price of fuel following the Iranian revolution, the economy was not in good shape. His policy was ridiculed as ‘stag-flation’ (low growth, high inflation) and the experience of ‘gasoline lines’ alienated many who had supported him. 

The nation’s anxieties about energy were only further heightened by the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979. 

In many ways Carter was ahead of his time on environmental issues. He had solar panels installed on the White House roof. His successor, Ronald Reagan, had them removed. 

Then, when an Iranian mob seized the US embassy in Tehran and 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days, the clamour was for something to be done. The attempted rescue mission was an unmitigated disaster. Two aircraft collided on the ground in the Iranian desert and eight service personnel were killed.  

It all added to the narrative that Carter was not up to the job.  

He was president at a particularly difficult moment of history and was himself a hostage to events. Sometimes you can do your very best, make the best calls available to you and still lose.  

Part of the reassessment of his time in power is that his economic strategy did work, it was just that Reagan benefited from it.  

It is also believed that there were politics involved in the timing of the release of the hostages from Iran. Carter had completed the negotiations, but their release on January 20, 1981, minutes after Reagan’s inauguration was certainly no coincidence. 

#2. Honesty is the best policy

During his presidential campaign in 1976, Carter famously pledged: 

“If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president.” 

There is no doubt that Carter’s reputation for speaking the truth underpinned many of his administration’s successes.  

The Camp David accords brought an enduring peace between Israel and Egypt. His role as a trusted, truth-telling mediator for their leaders was pivotal for the process. It also anticipated much of his post-presidential work that ultimately led to his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. The Nobel citation lauded him for: 

“… his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” 

Carter, however, also learned that truth-telling was also a double-edged sword. In his first presidential campaign he did an extended interview with Playboy magazine. The interviewer raised the concern that some voters were uneasy about his religious beliefs and feared he would be an unbending moralist. Carter attempted to say that he was no better than anyone else. He confessed: 

“I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust in my heart. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something God recognizes I will do – and I have done it – and God forgives me for it.” 

On the TV Saturday Night Live mocked him; secular pundits painted him as a ‘redneck Baptist with a hotline to God’, while Conservative Christians questioned whether he had the moral character to lead the country having granted an interview to such a salacious publication. 

Then, while in office in 1979, concerned about the mood of the country, he held intense discussions with a cross-section of guests at Camp David to help address the situation. It resulted in a speech where he talked about the “crisis of the American spirit”. He suggested, “we are at a turning point in our history” and warned against choosing 

“… the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.” 

Initially well received, media coverage quickly turned it against Carter. They maintained he was blaming the American people for the failings of his own administration. They labelled it ‘the malaise speech’’. Now political pundits see its forewarning of political paralysis and fragmentation as ‘prescient’. 

Over the decades Carter’s commitment to tell the truth has borne fruit. Truthful consistency over the years established a secure foundation for trust. Such trust has then provided the opportunity to work for good outcomes in difficult, dangerous and demanding situations.  

#3. ‘All people are equal’

Carter grew up in relative poverty with no running water or electricity in Archery, Georgia. His mother was the community midwife, and his father farmed. Of the 200 residents only two families were white. The boys he played with and worked with were all African American.  

In his 1971 inaugural address as Governor of Georgia, he made his stance and agenda abundantly clear: 

“I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.” 

This was no mere sloganeering or political positioning. As governor he appointed more minorities and women to state government positions than all of his predecessors combined. This was a habit he continued as president appointing a then-record number to federal posts.  

Civil rights activist, Andrew Young, said of Carter: 

“All the liberals I had worked with got nervous in a room full of Black people, and Jimmy Carter didn’t” 

#4. Reputation is about character, legacy is the result of hard work

It is a wonder that any politician aspires to high office. The attention of the media is relentless and their scrutiny forensic: mistakes are highlighted, misjudgements castigated and personal flaws relentlessly scorned. 

Carter never courted the media, and they did him no favours. When he left the White House after his landslide defeat to Reagan, his standing and reputation were shot. But he did not take up lucrative opportunities in industry or the world of celebrity. Rather, through the Carter Center he established in Atlanta, he set about his peace-making and humanitarian work under the banner of ‘Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope’. 

The work accomplished is impressive from the monitoring of 125 elections in 40 countries to their leadership of a coalition of agencies committed to the eradication of the Guinea Worm parasite. With the latter, the 3.5 million cases reported each year in the 1980s, by 2023 had fallen to a mere 14. As James Fallows observed in The Atlantic

“… as unglamourous as it sounds, [it] represents an increase in human well-being greater than most leaders have achieved.” 

For over 40 years since leaving the White House, Carter put in the hard yards. His consistency of character, integrity and respect for others have ensured his reputation as well as his legacy. As Rolling Stone headlined in their obituary,  

“the 39th president will be remembered for his extraordinary decency and philanthropic legacy.” 

#5. A moral centre

Jimmy Carter was clear about how his faith defined, motivated and sustained him.  

Speaking to a convention of Methodists he shared: 

“I am a peanut farmer and a Christian. I am a father, and I am a Christian. I am a businessman and a Christian. I am a politician and a Christian. The single most important factor in my own life is Jesus Christ.” 

It was his grasp of the message of Jesus that inspired and animated his life of service. It was his faith relationship with Jesus that nourished and energised him.  

On another occasion he was quite clear: 

“My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference.” 

That just leaves the tale of the ‘killer rabbit’.  

While out fishing in 1979 a swamp rabbit began swimming toward his boat. Taking an oar, Carter chased the creature off with a few flicks of water. It was the sort of stupidly trivial incident that no one involved would ever normally remember – until the press got hold of it. The Washington Post ran the headline “President Attacked by Rabbit” along with a cartoon entitled “PAWS”, parodying the hit movie “JAWS”. 

The story was a PR nightmare and was milked by a hostile press for a week. It reinforced their narrative of Carter as a helpless laughingstock, a bumbler flailing around and not up to the task.  

The story was a cheap shot. But Carter appeared not to have been left bitter about it. When his biographer Jonathan Alter raised the story for discussion, “He smiled ruefully.”  

Jimmy Carter (1924-2024). As his friend Bob Dylan said: 

“He was a kindred spirit to me of a rare kind. The kind of man you don’t meet every day, and that you’re lucky to meet if you ever do.” 

 

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