Cox mentions the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, another populist group in the Southern tradition from which Carter has emerged. That group was a tenant and farmer organization that the Southern Baptists and Presbyterians formed many decades ago. Cox says they were "swimming against the stream of racism" and prejudice against poor whites long before that became a popular middle class Northern cause.

Reverend Paulanne Balch is also a member of the Old Cambridge Baptist Church and is a graduate of Andover-Newton School. She is presently a chaplain at Mt. Auburn Hospital. She says that "born again" is the experience of psychic birth marked by a profound sense of self-recognition and participation in one's life and culture. There is an acknowledgment of the condition of one's life and an experience of pain connected with the loss of illusions. Then a descent, a letting go. Finally, she adds, there's a resurrection where the body is healed; "the scales fall from the eyes," and one is no longer confined by the old ways of seeing things. The growth process can then begin.

She says it is similar to psychotherapy, because the person is willing to face herself, and is committed to liberating herself for a healthier, freer life. In the midst of contradictory, alienating experiences, a surrender makes possible a deeper unity in living.

Balch found that this spiritual break-through implements a sort of mind expansion whereby one no longer needs to define his life by the limitations of his past. He is born into his inner world and finds there the potential to become what he wants to be.

Of course, she says, the individual decides whether she will use the experience to relate to her social and political milieu or provincially shut out her neighbor from her private experience.

She believes that the born again experience energizes hope in one's life. She suggests that Carter's born again encounter possibly unlocked that hope in him, which, combined with drive and ambition, has facilitated his political ascent in the last five years.

Jean Mullen, who has taught at Eastern Nazarene College, compares the steps in conversion with the Alcoholics Anonymous program in which one admits she's helpless and can't help herself. That's the beginning of being able to face onself and be healed, she says.

She says one exposes the wrongs of his past and basically clears up the record when he accepts pardon from God through faith. She says that baptism, an integral part of the Southern Baptist church, symbolizes the old life being cleansed and the new emerging.

Mullen has a born again experience that involves a communication with God through prayer, in which she tries to be open to God's "nudges" or direction. She does not expect miraculous changes in her life, but rather a developing awareness of the right timing and a sensitivity to others' attitudes and feelings.

She said she believes that the ability to know when to enact social reforms depends on that type of timing. If the people are ready for a reform and pushing for it, a president who has been reborn can sense that the social climate is ready for new legislation.

Mullen, however, is uncertain if Carter is actually in tune with the people, although he does show concern for the unemployed. But she views him as humanistic, and would expect him to be an honest president, rather than a scoundrel.

Reverend Jack Daniel, associate minister of youth and education at First Parish Church in Westwood, calls the born again experience a touchstone. It is the beginning of faith, an overwhelmingly real metaphysical and psychological experience that lends a feeling of zeal and confidence to one's life.

He speaks of the new dimension of life that is opened by being born again. The change is just as radical as the baby moving from the uterus environment to the air-breathing environment. One is shaken to the roots of his life; he finds a whole new orientation.

Daniel correlates the Second Great Awakening, a period of spiritual revivalism in the early 1800s, with social movements. At that time revival leaders encouraged the establishing of institutions like many schools, hospitals, orphanages, and homes for unwed mothers.

Steven Green, a member of the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Watertown, converted from Judaism to Christianity after researching Christ's teachings. He says he knows God through being born again, in a way that is comparable to falling in love.