“A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power” (Simon and Schuster), by Jimmy Carter

NEW YORK — In his new book, “A Call to Action,” former President and longtime Baptist church deacon Jimmy Carter says prejudice and discrimination against women and girls is perpetuated in America and around the world by religious authorities who twist holy texts to assert male dominance.

Carter famously broke with the mainstream Southern Baptist Convention in 2000, denouncing it for drifting into doctrines he called sexist and racist. He now worships at a New Baptist Covenant church in his hometown of Plains, Ga.

The 89-year-old Carter recalls how in his Deep South childhood the Bible was cited to justify white supremacy and asserts that patriarchs now twist the Bible, Koran and other Scriptures to denigrate and control women.

As a Bible teacher for more than 70 years, he tackles some of the passages cited by male supremacist Christians, notably St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, which preaches: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church ...”

Carter contrasts this and other Old Testament writings that consigned women to male-property status with the four Gospels that “never report any instance of Jesus’ condoning sexual discrimination or the implied subservience or inferiority of women.”

While Carter’s case that Jesus’ example in the New Testament demonstrated fairness and equality is persuasive, Christians who cling to chauvinist Bible passages are unlikely to listen to his interpretation of Scripture.

After assigning the cause of much of today’s discrimination to religious intolerance meant to preserve male dominance, Carter documents the vast array of effects.

And he writes that by bringing men into the discussion with women and enlisting fair-minded religious leaders, progress has been made against obstacles that had seemed insurmountable.