Carter, an outsider even as he sat in the Oval Office as the 39th U.S. president, is being honored with the pageantry of a funeral at Washington National Cathedral.

Mr. Carter said his spiritual rebirth was an “evolutionary thing” rather than “a flash of light or a sudden vision of God speaking.”

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, will be honored Thursday with the pageantry of a state funeral in the nation's capital, followed by a second service and burial in his tiny Georgia hometown that launched a Depression-era farm boy to the world stage.