From a reader:

The scary part about Jimmy Carter’s speculation is that it eerily echoes a passage in C. S. Lewis’s outstanding work,
_The Great Divorce_. There’s a part in which a (deceased) ‘Christian
intellectual’ refuses to enter Heaven because he has to get back to
Purgatory to read a paper at the Theological Society they’ve organized:
’…But you never asked me what my paper is about! I’m taking the text
about growing up to the stature of Christ and working out an idea which
I feel sure you’ll be interested in. I’m going to point out how people
always forget that Jesus…was a comparatively young man when he died.
He would have outgrown some of his earlier views, you know, if he’d
lived. I’m going to ask my audience to consider what his mature views
would have been. A profoundly interesting question. What a different
Christianity we might have had if only the Founder had reached his full
stature! I shall end up pointing out how this deepens the significance
of the Crucifixion. One feels for the the first time what a disaster it
was; what a tragic waste…so much promise cut short.” (Chapter 5,
towards the end)
Carter is not saying quite the same thing, but somehow he seems to have
missed the whole point that Christ specifically rejected Satan’s
temptation _because it was wrong_ and does not seem to have asked
himself _why_ it was wrong.
BTW, I’m part way through LF, which is outstanding; I consider it and
Amity Shale’s _The Forgotten Man_ to be two of the most important works
of political/economic history in many years. ..bruce..