Green says that knowing and loving the Creator of the Universe changes his perspective on the scheme of things, and that out of that love naturally grows a commitment to serve God.

Green expects Carter to be more populist than corporate in his interests as a born again Christian. Since the Bible teaches compassion and that all are created in God's image, Green says he would expect a born again president to try and deal fairly with the needs of all people.

Careyleah MacLeod, who attended Eastern Nazarene College, says that she was raised in a Northern Baptist church that taught conversion, but that she had a blinding born again type of experience in her early twenties, through the use of drugs (LSD). At that time, the "cobwebs" were cleared from her head, and her thinking and perception became clearer. This experience represented to her a culmination of spiritual quests. She recognized the beginning of a new lifestyle, which is more in tune with the way she wants to live and interact with others.

MacLeod admires Carter for being honest enough to say he is born again. She says institutional sin exists on a large scale, and there's no individual to take responsibility or feel the guilt. Carter wants to make the American people believe he is morally responsible; he is direct about that, she says.

What makes better sense, she says, than an upright and moral Baptist to appeal to the Republicans who can't respond to the Republican Party because of the institutional sin that Ford just swept under the rug?

Kenneth Clauser, who teaches at Barrington College, regards "born again" as a catch-all phrase, almost a cliche in Fundamentalist church circles, that can result in a cliched experience because the words lose their meaning.

He calls someone who has a personal relationship with the historical Christ a born again Christian. This person accepts the New Testament vision of Christ as a pattern for his life. If followed carefully, a radical lifestyle can emerge. Some of the New Testament calls for change in the social order. Christ spoke in behalf of the oppressed and poor, the social outcasts. He was not a "corporation man" but a radical figure, Clauser says