Carter did know a far more realistic hope than that offered by John and Yoko. Upon learning that doctors had found four kinds of cancer in his brain, the former president shared his personal “attitude toward death” with his Sunday school class: “I found that I was absolutely and completely at ease with death. It didn’t really matter to me whether I lived or died. … I have since that time been absolutely confident that my Christian faith includes complete confidence in life after death.

On Dec. 29, 2024, the 39th president of the United States, James Earl Carter Jr., died at the age of 100 at his home in Plaines, Ga. On Friday, thousands of mourners—including all five living U.S. presidents—gathered at the Washington National Cathedral to pay their respects. “Paying respects”—the phrase to describe our attempts, however imperfect, to honor the life and legacy of those we lose—took an odd and some would say outrageous turn at President Carter’s ceremony.

While his positions on Biblical inerrancy, abortion law, and other vital matters left him out of sync with many, he identified as a “born-again Christian” and an “evangelical.” The Jimmy Carter who wanted to be remembered not only as a great president but as “the best Sunday school teacher ever” was hardly reflected when Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood performed John Lennon’s “Imagine” at Friday’s service, a song that the deceased Beatle himself described as “virtually the Communist Manifesto.” In another interview, Lennon expounded that the song (to which he gave his wife, Yoko Ono, cowriting credit) is “anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, and anti-capitalistic, but because it is sugarcoated it is accepted. … Now I understand what you have to do. Put your political message across with a little honey.”

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