I think Carter knew what he meant when he said "holy people"- note not "chosen race" or anything like that. He would have used the same phrase to describe the vile bigots who describe themselves as "Anglican traditionalists", and who reserve their venom for good women who are priests and loving couples of the same sex, while being studiously silent about torture of homosexuals in Africa.

To his generation, the "holy people" included the Anglicans who had failed to stand up to fascism, condoned mass unemployment, and blessed the cold war, and he was clearly making a direct comparison between suchlike and the hypocritical Pharisees of the Bible.