Today the world sings "Happy Birthday" to a man who never celebrated it. Michael Jackson would have turned 53 today, but because he was a devout Jehovah's Witness he never blew out candles or enjoyed a birthday cake. Jehovah Witnesses don't celebrate any holidays, as they believe many of them have pagan origins. Now, on what would have been Jackson's 53rd birthday, it might be useful to reflect on the person the world didn't ever know.
Forget for a moment who the media told you Michael Jackson was. "Wacko Jacko," "freak," and "pedophile" are popular, misplaced notions about the world's biggest selling artist. Yes, Jackson was accused twice of crimes against children and may have even been convicted in the "Court of Public Opinion," but he was acquitted of all those charges in a Court of Law. Perhaps after months of testimony, the Santa Maria jurors recognized the real truth about Michael Jackson. The truth is that Michael Jackson, at his core, brilliantly resembles the bedrock American, a familiar portrait of your Midwestern neighbor.
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His humble beginnings from Gary, Indiana speak to the person Jackson really was. The Jackson home, at 2300 Jackson Street, holds only two bedrooms. Remember, the Jackson family was more than simply the Jackson Five. While Joseph, Michael's father, was busy working in Gary's steel mills and developing the talent of the Jackson brothers, Michael's mother, Katherine, a devout Jehovah's Witness, helped develop a deep notion of faith in God in her nine children.
In an exclusive interview with RealClearReligion on June 24th of this year, La Toya Jackson said, as she also details in her new book, the family's faith was particularly formative for Michael. Ms. Jackson said that she and Michael agreed: "It's important to instill religion in kids when they're young. Because this way you set the foundation and they know about life, they know about what's right and what's wrong."
As La Toya recounts, she and Michael took their faith "very seriously." In his door-stopper of a biography, J. Randy Taraborrelli compiled a series of accounts where Jackson leaned on his faith in ways that might shock some readers. Jackson was once sexually propositioned by another man. He responded, "When's the last time you read the Bible?" Or there was the incident when Jackson was heard scolding a man for looking at pornography.
And yet, Jackon's dedication to his family at times put him at odds with other Jehovah Witnesses. There was a time when La Toya had stopped attending services at Kingdom Hall. Michael was asked by the elders, "Why isn't La Toya going to Kingdom Hall?" He told them he didn't know. Rather than getting to the bottom of it, they demanded he no longer speak to or associate with his sister.
Michael, La Toya says, "had a serious problem with this because we were both so religious. He was torn because it didn't make sense." Michael went to Marlon Brando for advice and Brando told him to "forget that religion" and remain close to his family. La Toya claims that this led them both to reject "organized religion." She may have, but he seemed to have retained some attachment to his religion and still believed in God.
Dr. Firpo Carr, one of Jackson's spiritual advisers, accompanied Jackson nearly every time Jackson had to appear in court for his 2005 child molestation trial. Dr. Carr recalls Michael Jackson praying daily and even visiting a Jehovah's Witness congregation near the Santa Maria courthouse. He insisted to RealClearReligion that Jackson was vigorously pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, and pro-family.
In a personal essay for Beliefnet.com, Jackson recalled how he would disguise himself so that he could distribute the Witness' Watchtower magazine. He was especially fascinated with the "magical scenes" of family life. "Having children allows me to enter this magical and holy world every moment of every day. I see God through my children. I speak to God through my children," Jackson wrote. "[Children] are the very form of God's energy and creativity and love. He is to be found in their innocence, experienced in their playfulness."
In knowing Michael's deep spiritual relationship with children, Ms. Jackson seemed particularly distressed by news reports that atheism is on the rise among young people. She said that although "politics is out of the realm for Jehovah Witnesses," Michael didn't think that would ultimately deter her. He predicted La Toya would be a politician one day because of her visceral reaction to social problems.
Michael, too, was quite aggressive in his social activism. "What have we done to the world/Look what we've done," sang Jackson in his 1995 "Earth Song." This has often been used as a big government environmentalist anthem, but Jackson forcefully rejected that interpretation. "People always say, ‘Oh, they'll take care of it. The government will' -- they who? It starts with us," he argued.
Maybe Jackson got this understanding of subsidiarity -- the notion that social problems can best be solved at the most local level -- from President Ronald Reagan. After presenting Jackson with a plaque in 1984 recognizing Jackson's work against drunk-driving, Reagan commended the King of Pop's "deep faith in God and adherence to traditional values." Reagan praised the "moral" of Jackson's song "Man in the Mirror," that whether the problem is "improving education or eliminating drug abuse or helping the homeless -- whatever the challenge, individual initiative and responsibility is always part of the answer." It is no surprise that Jackson had a hand in writing the lyrics to "Man in the Mirror" -- he lived the message.
Indeed, Jackson's own daughter, Paris, affirms that Jackson did his best to hold up the nuclear family -- an effort he began at home. In her brief, revealing testimony at her father's 2009 memorial, Paris said, "Ever since I was born, daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine."
This is quite remarkable considering the kind of strict, allegedly abusive father Joseph was to Michael. In a March 2001 lecture to an Oxford University audience, Jackson expressed forgiveness for his father in an attempt to rid himself of the "goblins of the past." He would not be the father Joseph was to him. Jackson said that in order to "Heal the World" -- the name of his foundation which aided underprivileged and ill children -- folks must first "heal the child within."
In the controversial 2003 documentary "Living with Michael Jackson," fighting back tears, Jackson said, "People don't even eat with their fathers anymore, or their mothers. The family bond has been broken; it's an outcry for attention. Why are kids going to school with guns? They would not -- they want to be touched, they want to be held, but [their parents] are busy off on their day job and they leave them at home on the computer and they're just doing all kinds of crazy stuff."
Back at Jackson's 2009 memorial, Brooke Shields' eulogy vividly showed the world a side of Michael Jackson no one really ever saw. She poignantly compared Jackson to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince and quoting from it, Shields said: "I realized he was even more fragile than I had thought. Lamps must be protected: a gust of wind can blow them out."
Today's culture produces many strong gusts of wind aimed at blowing out the light of the family, but perhaps the example from Michael Jackson -- someone rather unexpected -- can guard the bright, yet fragile flame.
Nicholas G. Hahn III is Deputy Editor for RealClearReligion. He can be contacted here and on Twitter.
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