As we think about what issues arise that demand a Christian worldview consideration, certainly there are huge geopolitical issues, war and peace, treaties, royal visits, the nature of government, constitutional interpretation. Yeah, they’re huge things. We also know that there are pressing issues, say, on the biomedical front, assisted suicide, abortion, the transgender revolution. Huge issues. Sometimes, however, it comes down to popular culture, and today I want us to look at one big, very revealing development in popular culture, and that has to do with the biopic, the movie looking at the life of Michael Jackson sort of. Sort of looking at the life of Michael Jackson.

Jaafar Jackson, who is a relative of the late Michael Jackson, evidently does a pretty remarkable job in terms of representing the singer. That’s not the controversy about the film. The controversy about the film is the fact that the film exists as it is, and the message that it sends, and what it says, and what it doesn’t say, what it reveals, and what it doesn’t reveal. Just to give you an example of the kind of conversation going on about the film, you have The Telegraph in London putting out a major story, again saying, “What’s interesting here is not what’s here, but what’s not.” Here’s the headline, “Who’s bad? The Skin-Tingling Michael Jackson Biopic has a Fatal Flaw.” And the fatal flaw is what they also refer to here as the elephant in the room, and that is the, let’s just say, horrifying behavior of Michael Jackson when it came to children, and in particular young boys.

Now, let me be clear, he wasn’t convicted of a crime, although he went to trial over a crime. He was accused by many, many, many. Even what came out in the trial and is incontrovertibly true is enough to cause, let’s just say, a very, very serious reconsideration of anything connected to Michael Jackson. I think most people even recognize that, even people who evidently went to see the movie. Okay, so there was a lot staked on this movie, a lot of money staked on this movie, and obviously it was controversial, and yet the estimation was that the film would gross something like $15 million in terms of its first days and the first weekend. It wasn’t that, it was almost $100 million. As a matter of fact, it is a blockbuster of a movie. No one can doubt that. It also is rightly the cause of all kinds of controversy.

So why are people drawn to this film? Are they drawn to the film because of the music? Some are saying that. Some are saying that they were drawn because they get to celebrate the music that had a lot to do with the story of their lives. It was very much a part of their childhood, their teenage years, their young adulthood. They’re just trying to reconnect with the music. The problem with that is that it’s not just a concert. It’s a movie telling a story. It has a narrative, and that narrative unquestionably is celebrating Michael Jackson. But not only that, the movie celebrates Michael Jackson as the hero, so to speak, and the villain is Michael Jackson’s father, who’s presented as a very oppressive and manipulative father figure, and Michael Jackson is basically presented as the successful young man who liberated himself from his father’s oppressive influence and of course became one of the most famous people in the world. The big shock is that the moral factor hasn’t played a larger part, and this has caught even secular attention.

Here’s the front page of The New York Times, “Jackson’s Music Proves Too Big to be Canceled by Scandals.” That’s the headline. That’s interesting. That’s very telling. Here you have the nation’s most influential newspaper, clearly on the cultural left, that is expressing some surprise that so many people are liking the movie, going to the movie, and they are very frank about the scandals. This is how they begin the story, “Seven years ago when two men made detailed unsettling accusations in an HBO documentary that Michael Jackson had sexually abused them as boys, the music industry pondered a striking question: could Jackson, one of the most popular and beloved artists of all time, really be canceled? The answer it turned out was a resounding no.” 

All right. In other words, here’s an issue that perplexes even the secular world. I think that’s really a tell to us. It’s really revealing to us. Even the secular world, even, say, the secular world was represented by The New York Times is telling us that it is surprised and puzzled by the fact that there’s so much affection for Michael Jackson and for his music after all these scandals have actually been, well, let’s just say, undeniably revealed.

All right, there’s something else that has caught my attention. For example, when it comes to the controversy over this particular film, it is very interesting that there’s some common ground that you might not expect. Common ground, for example, between The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, because you’re talking about a newspaper that in the shape of The New York Times is very liberal, undeniably liberal. When it comes to The Wall Street Journal, far more conservative and representing more corporate America and its interests. Okay, here’s what The New York Times says in a movie review, “Without the Ugly Bits, it’s Just a Fairy Tale.” Well, how’s that for candor? Here is the subtext, “A Michael Jackson biopic produced by his estate flattens him to scrub his reputation.”

All right. I find it really interesting that even one of the most influential media sources on the cultural left seems to be appalled that Michael Jackson is presented so positively, and frankly, shocked and surprised that so many millions of Americans and others around the world are going to be paying money to go and evidently celebrate a man about whom so much evil is known. Furthermore, The New York Times goes so far as to suggest that the point of the movie is not just to make money, but to rehabilitate the reputation of Michael Jackson. Let’s just say that’s going to be something that should face insurmountable odds, but the Jackson family estate, the Jackson interest, has a great deal of investment in this movie.

It’s not an accident that is a relative of Michael Jackson is playing the lead. It’s not an accident that the movie has come about as it has. Here you have an article, this is from The New York Times magazine says that, “With the new biopic, Michael Jackson’s estate continues to turn a tarnished icon into a lucrative asset.” Okay, what does that tell you about the way the world works? I repeat those words. “Continues to turn a tarnished icon,” let’s just say it’s an understatement, “into a lucrative asset.” We live in a world in which even a scandal on this scale can happen and the estate find a way to make money off of it. We’re not talking about a little bit of money. We’re talking about estimations of the estate, which was in trouble at the time of Michael Jackson’s death, now being worth several billion dollars.

Okay, I mentioned that statement in The New York Times. Here’s what Kyle Smith of The Wall Street Journal writes, “Even so than most great artists, Michael Jackson was a horrible human being.” How’s that for a lead? Normally you look at the secular press and you say they’re kind of reluctant to make a moral judgment. Again, I read, “Michael Jackson was a horrible human being.” That’s the first sentence in a major article in The Wall Street Journal. The article goes on to say, “The splashy biopic in his life until 1988, Michael deals with this problem by ignoring it, providing no hint of the many credible accusations that he molested children.” Okay, that turns out to be also really interesting. That’s because the story ends in 1988.

Okay. A couple of interesting things in the background here. The film originally went further and that ran into all kinds of complications, including complications with some of those who are identified as the victims of Michael Jackson during his lifetime, so they had to go back and repackage the film. And you know what? The film comes out now as to say, “Problem? What problem? There’s no problem. Buy your ticket. Add even more wealth to the Jackson estate.”

I think for Christians, there’s another consideration here before we leave this issue, and that’s just what we see here affirmed in the power of popular culture, the power of music in popular culture. Let me just give you a comparison here. For example, you have a major article that appeared, again, in favor of seeing the movie, “I still can’t quit Michael Jackson.” Okay. Well, let’s just change the name to Jeffrey Epstein. I don’t think anybody out there is going to write a piece saying, “I just can’t quit Jeffrey Epstein.” I think that would be considered so scandalous and unthinkable. No one could possibly write the article and no one would run it, but all of a sudden you have it with Michael Jackson, and I’m not saying they’re exactly the same. That’s not the point.

My point is the difference is the impact of popular culture. No one’s singing songs that are associated with Jeffrey Epstein. No one is tapping their toe to music by Jeffrey Epstein. No one is talking about the music of Jeffrey Epstein. And evidently, just in terms of how culture works, that matters. When we think as Christians about culture and the power of music and all the rest, well, it just reminds us far more powerful than we might often think. This movie oddly gives us the opportunity to reflect on that.

Okay, now let’s turn to questions. I always appreciate the questions and I’m often moved just to recognize the quality of the questions that are posed. The first question comes from a listener in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, and it’s very moving to me that this question comes all the way from South Africa, and it comes down to this: “Is it right and wise for the media to share Trump’s would-be assassins, details and manifesto? Are we not rewarding him for his efforts and encouraging similar acts in the future?”

Okay, I think that’s a very legitimate question, and let me just say, it has to do also with the change that has taken place in law and in media. This is a perceptive question. You could consider a time in which the public would not have access to these materials, and that would be in a sort of paternalistic age in which people say, “We just need to keep this. The public doesn’t need to know this. It might become germane to a prosecution. It might come out in terms of the government’s actions or in a court,” but that’s a different thing, whereas what we now have is that even before the government had affirmed the individual’s name, even before the suspect had been named officially by the government, you had media sites who were not only giving his name, but were also releasing information.

A part of that has to do with the fact the information was out. So let me just state that I think right now we’re in a different environment, and as much as I sympathize with the man asking this question, and as much as I think he makes a very logical moral point in that he gains a victory by having this manifesto released, I’ll simply say this, here’s the point: I think in this immediate environment and in the digital age, it’s virtually impossible for the government not to come out with an authorized statement about such things, because once they are out, the government really then bears a responsibility to say that’s accurate or that’s inaccurate.

You also have public demand these days coming from, by the way, the left and the right. Coming just from the population at large, we want to know the answer. We want to know why, and if there is information, we think we are owed that information. I really appreciate this question coming from South Africa. I think someone my age in the United States hears this differently because at least a part of what I have to factor in here is the controversy that has continued for more than a half-century, now for more than 60 years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, November the 23rd, 1963. I mentioned that because the government was only very slowly forthcoming with some of the evidence and some of the details about that crime. Of course we’re talking about something that happened decades ago. The standards of criminal investigation and media relations and all that were very different. But my point is that it has fueled not a decrease in speculation, but an increase in speculation.

One of the dimensions of that increase in speculation has been the popularity and the widespread influence of conspiracy theories suggesting the government’s not telling the whole story. So I do look at this somewhat differently. Maybe it’s just a factor of my age. I can still remember, because I lived through it, the fact that, well, we’re still living through it, by the way, it’s not over, but it was certainly very intense, a matter of two or three decades ago, that there among the American people was a significant portion who absolutely believed the government was lying and withholding information.  Of course, that can relate to other things such as the Apollo Moon missions, where people have conspiracy theories. 

But when it comes to something like the assassination or the attempted assassination of the President of the United States, when someone has a manifesto like this and that someone gets it out, it is virtually impossible to imagine it’s not going to be out. At that point, I’m going to speak in defense of the US government here, I think once it was out, the government had no real choice but to say, “This is real,” because in another context, they might well have to say, “This is not real.” 

But we live in a fallen world, and I appreciate the fact that this very informed listener from South Africa notes that in a fallen world that sometimes evil gets a lot more say than it deserves, and that’s just a part of the predicament we live in right now.

All right, a very interesting question coming in from a listener. He says, “I’m an elder in a Southern Baptist church and I’ve been one for 15 years. For the past 10 years, many of my fellow elders, pastors, church leaders and fellow brothers and sisters have encouraged me to pursue becoming a pastor. I was even graciously offered by a church member and also by a pastor friend of mine that they would pay for my seminary education. However, my wife is not supportive of me being a pastor because she doesn’t want to be the wife of a pastor,” and goes on to say their financial considerations and all the rest. I won’t read the rest, but you can figure out where this goes.

This is a pressing question. I think one of the things we have to think of is the fact that just a New Testament sensibility about this I think drawn from texts like 1 Timothy and Titus tells us very clearly that the elder who’s going to be an elder who teaches and certainly is a pastor of a church. I think this is actually a rule for all presbyters, all elders, according to what we find in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 2: they’re to have a well-ordered household. One of the marks of that well-ordered household is support for the elder in that role.

I detect there probably is already a problem, but I understand that the context here could be not this man serving as an elder, but this wife who’s opposed to him serving as a pastor with that particular responsibility, and so I want to be really careful in dissecting this question a bit. At that point, I would simply have to say, it seems very difficult for me to imagine how this can go forward, how this man can go forward into pastoral ministry if his wife is not supportive. I really think this is a big issue. I think that’s one of the reasons why the Apostle Paul makes it a big issue. It’s also a big issue to me personally. I cannot imagine how I could possibly operate in a role of leadership in Christian ministry if my wife were not entirely supportive, and I mean sacrificially and lovingly supportive, and I mean just supportive every single day, every single hour and supportive in every single way she can imagine. I just can’t honor Mary enough for that.

But opposition from one’s wife, I just think, again, 1 Timothy 3, Titus 2 would raise huge issues. I think practical reason raises huge issues. Now, I don’t know the depth of this problem, and so I want to say that it could be that this is something that can be worked out over time, and as you pray and the word does work in your wife’s heart, it could be a different situation, but I have to respond to the question as you ask it. My heart goes out to this brother, but again, I would say, in the context of the local church, I would hope your fellow elders really help you to think this through, and also, by the way, help your wife to think this through in a way that will bring honor to God and bring health to your family and to a congregation.

Okay, another very important question, and this requires our utmost sensitivity just in terms of what we’re dealing with here. A 34-year-old man writes about his mother who has passed away in September of last year. He says he is struggling with her death because of things she wrote and expressed in the time leading up to it. It appeared that she was really questioning her assurance of salvation. She said such things as, “I hope I’m remembered for my faith and I’m undeserving of anything.” She made Christian statements, but she also, he says in the time before her death, when she was homebound and unable to attend church, “It felt as though her life had been taken from her. She began to doubt whether she was saved and felt like a heathen and believed she was undeserving of God’s love. She also felt that God was far away.”

My heart goes out. My heart goes out to this brother. I want to say, I think you’d be shocked how many Christian families have experienced something very much like this, particularly with an older loved one, particularly in the time before the end of life. I can tell you that when I was a pastor of a local church, this was one of the most, well, surprising things to me as a young pastor is how many older Christians seemed to feel neglect, and I mean just to wonder about their salvation at the end of their lives. A part of it was because of diminished capacity. I had to experience that. I’ve experienced that in my own family, where I’ve had loved ones who mean the world to me who’ve had diminished capacity, sometimes with Alzheimer’s, and they’re no longer able to hold their thoughts in a pattern of Christian faithfulness.

But I do believe that salvation is of grace. I do want to say that the doctrine of perseverance, the perseverance of the saints and the accompanying gift of assurance, it just reminds us that salvation is all of God’s mercy, and those he redeems he holds unto himself. I will just tell you, I think, I guess maybe this is an odd reassurance I would share with this Christian brother, I think you would be surprised to know that at the end of life, there have been many Christians throughout the course of Christian history who even in a moment that could very well be or at a stage of mental incapacity, losing those mental functions, they’ve wondered about some of these things. That’s where, again, the doctrine of perseverance reminds us that the Lord holds us unto himself and we cannot hold ourselves to him, and he will hold us not only to the end, he will hold us for eternity. Those who are his are forever his.

I also want to come back on one thing, and I think some listeners heard it, I bet they did, one thing that this man says about his mother, and he mentions that she, quote, “believed she was undeserving of God’s love.” That’s just actually an honest statement of a Christian. We are not deserving of God’s love. He loves us when we do not deserve that love. He holds us unto Himself even as He has saved us by the blood of the lamb, and He holds us unto Himself. So I just want to say, none of us is deserving. Grace only makes sense if it is undeserved, but it is granted to us by the grace and mercy of God. That’s what makes grace grace. I’m going to claim that for your mother, and I’m going to claim grace to you in thinking through these issues. I hope to give you some assurance and peace. If your mother came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and she ever belonged to Christ, she belongs to Christ for eternity.

All right. Sometimes questions are very specific. One listener said, “What’s your opinion on Baylor University allowing the group All Are Neighbors, an LGBTQ+ organization, host a campus event in opposition to the Turning Point event?” She goes on to ask other questions about the Baptist General Convention of Texas. I’m simply going to say this: inviting a group like that on the campus, a validly pro-LGBTQ is a moral statement I do not believe any Christian university should make, particularly when they’re speaking on their own terms. There could be a context in which there could be a debate or an exchange that could be justified, but when you have an organization that is pro-LGBTQ, and I mean avidly pro-LGBTQ holding an event on a campus, I think that’s a matter of grave, moral significance, and I think it would be unfaithfulness on my part not to answer the question once asked.

Okay, last question. This one comes from a 16-year-old young man in Georgia, and I underline the words young man. That turns out to be really important here. This young man says, he has an earnest question and it’s about some female students delivering a biblical message in a parachurch context for teenagers. He cites 1 Timothy 2:12, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man.” He then says, “I’ve been told growing up that it’s okay for women to be Sunday school teachers because they’re teaching children, not men,” but he goes on to say, “It appears in this context that this is young women teaching young men of the same age.”

Okay. I get the question, and I think the most important answer I can give is that I think this young man who asked the question answers it rightly by the way he asked the question, and that is, that at a certain point, there is a line that is crossed. Let’s just say I think the line’s been crossed when you talk about girls delivering a biblical message in a context in which you have young men present. Okay. To make this point, I want to go to what this young man says where he was told growing up. Now I love this. I’ve heard this said many times too. “I’ve been told growing up that it’s okay for women to be Sunday school teachers because they’re teaching children, not men.” Okay, okay, I actually think that’s right. I think that’s right. I think that’s rightly ordered, but that also makes a distinction between boy and man. I think that’s a necessary distinction. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with women teaching little boys. I don’t, period.

But I think it is not biblical for women to teach men in this context, and at some point, a boy becomes a man. So when is that? I would say, in the rightly ordered church, that has to come with the arrival of adolescence. So I would simply say that at that point, there’s a male identity that is very, very clear and it is at that point, it is really clear in the home, in the home, in the school, in the church, you just go down, most importantly, in the home and in the church, it needs to be men teaching boys. It needs to be men teaching each other. It needs to be males who are in this teaching role. I think one of the key distinctions here is not just between, say, boy and man. It’s not just the distinction between male and female. It’s the distinction between what could be in this parachurch’s context, giving a word of testimony or delivering a biblical message.

So I do want to say this is not exactly the context of a local church, but that’s a part of the awkwardness in all of this. I think the pattern nonetheless should prevail. I know I may get in trouble for this. It’s all right, I’ll be in trouble. I think the pattern the Lord dictated that is given to us on apostolic authority from the Apostle Paul 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 2, other passages, too, that I think are complementary, I think that that should apply to Christian ministry, period. I do think it is very much tied to the role of an elder and biblical exposition, so I am not saying that a woman can’t teach algebra. That’s just categorically different than a woman doing biblical exposition and biblical teaching in the context of a congregation and in the context in which there are both men and women present. That is not Albert Mohler’s rule. I believe that is coming to us on apostolic authority. I do think it’s our responsibility to seek to understand it accurately and to hold ourselves and our ministries accountable to it.

I really appreciate this young man asking the question. It’s a good reminder to us that a lot of life in terms of Christian faithfulness is making the right discernments and understanding how in a context to know, well, this is what we must do here, this is what we must do here, here are principles that are to apply here and here, here are distinctions that are made in Scripture that are now commanded in Scripture and are to be reflected in our lives and our families and our ministries in a local congregation. Those distinctions turn out to be of tremendous importance. And I’ll just say for Christians, this is not just grounded in 1 Timothy 3 or Titus 2. It’s grounded in Genesis 1, from the beginning.

As always, I appreciate the questions. We’ll try to get to more and more in weeks ahead.