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Michael Jackson memorial a wakeup call for the church
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Not since Elvis Presley has the world mourned the death of a celebrity as much as it is mourning the death of Michael.jpg)
Jackson.
Tuesday, inside Staples Center in Los Angeles 20,000 people paid tribute to the King of Pop who lay in a gold casket with a shaft of light in the form of a cross cast upon it. Millions more from around the world watched via television or the Internet.
Several members of the media commented that Jackson’s memorial service contained a spiritual tone– the gospel choir, the golden casket, the cross of light. At the height of the Beatle’s popularity in 1966 John Lennon commented that the group was “more popular than Jesus.” Today one could easily have inferred that Michael Jackson was more popular than both the Beatles and Jesus combined.
While the theme of Michael Jackson’s memorial service was indeed spiritual, it certainly could in no way be mistaken for a Christian funeral. During the performance of We are the World which was sung by a Who’s Who of musical icons, symbols of every major religion were displayed on a giant screen behind the stage including a larger than life picture of Jesus. The message could not have been clearer.
From Raleigh, North Carolina to Los Angeles, California, London, England to Tokyo, Japan, we are one world. However, we are not the children of one God as the song We are the World clearly implies: “We are all a part of God's great big family. And the truth, you know love is all we need.” I beg to differ.
Yes, God has indeed called upon all people to bear the burden of meeting the needs of his fellow man; truly, we are our brother’s and sister’s keeper. The world however is not one “great big family.” If anything the world is the personification of spiritualism wrapped in an ecumenical blanket.
The BBC estimates 2.5 billion people watched the Michael Jackson memorial service. If just half of those people buy into the message of “We are the World” that means that 16% of the world’s population sees no need for a distinction within spirituality. By comparison, worldwide in 2008 33 % of the world’s population claimed to be Christian. A little more that 17% of those Christians were Catholic, while Muslims accounted for just over 19% of the world's religious population.
Clearly it is time for the Protestant Church to wake up and realize that the world is finding faith apart from the fulfillment of the Great Commission. While I am no fan of the Southern Baptist Convention, I applaud Danny Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, for his call for a Great Commission Resurgence that recognizes “the lordship of Christ and the centrality of the Gospel in Christian ministry.”
I admire the work of Michael Jackson and mourn his passing. Truly the legacy he leaves behind is immeasurable. But holding hands and singing to the glory of a dead pop star will never replace the spiritual needs of the human condition. The world needs to hear the truth of the Gospel message of Jesus Christ for only under the blood of Jesus will we be part of God’s great big family.
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