WAS MICHAEL JACKSON SAVED?

In all of these, however, I have been more concerned for the soul of this wonderful performer. Is Michael Jackson in heaven or hell? We may not know for sure, unfortunately. He was born and raised, at least by their mum, a Jehovah’s Witness, but there were rumours that he converted, like Jermaine, one of his brothers, to Islam last year, and took the name Mikhaeel. Whether that is true or not, reports about his meeting with two Pentecostal pastors, Andraé and Sandra Crouch three weeks before he died give room for hope. Although they have denied that he specifically asked to be led to say the sinner’s prayer, as earlier suggested by Mary Mary on her Facebook page, the following quote from Dave Nassaney, Andraé Crouch's Facebook page administrator, points in the direction of salvation for the one who sought to heal the world with his music and philanthropy.

What a week that was – the last full week of June 2009. It had everything: pace, drama, passion and the very stuff of history – change. Consider the line-up: Farah Fawcett fell to the terror attack of anal cancer; the Anglican Church of North America formally came into being, pulling 100,000 conservative Anglicans out of the liberal Episcopal Church; President Umaru Yar’Adua proclaimed Amnesty to all Niger Delta militants, and Michael Jackson died.

You can be forgiven for yawning at some of the items, possibly all but the last, after all the media generally speaking, simply buried every other item the moment the demise of “Wacko Jacko” happened! KPerspective isn’t about to be different. But before we join the frenzy, let’s at least give each of these items, its brief moment in the sun.

On Monday June 22, conservative former members of the Episcopal Church, TEC, gathered at St. Vincent's Cathedral in Bedford, Texas, US for the first provincial assembly of the newly established Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). By Wednesday June 24, they had ratified their constitution and elected an archbishop in the person of Robert Duncan, who had been in the vanguard of the struggle against the liberal policies of TEC, including ordination of gay priests and recognition of intra-gender marriages.

ACNA, which as at April 2009, had 100,000 members from about 700 parishes in North America and Canada was formed by member bodies of the Common Cause Partnership such as: American Anglican Council, Anglican Coalition in Canada, Anglican Communion Network, Anglican Mission in the Americas, Anglican Network in Canada, Convocation of Anglicans in North America, Forward in Faith North America and Reformed Episcopal Church. Others are the Missionary Convocations of Kenya, the Southern Cone and of Uganda which were established to provide provincial oversight for disenchanted former Episcopalians.

While ACNA is not yet a member of the Anglican Communion because that requires a long process, both the Church of Nigeria and the Church of Uganda, with combined membership of about 26 million, are in full communion with the new province. This translates easily to recognition from about a third of the Communion.. This is a significant development that has potential for shaping not just for the future of the 77million-member Communion, but ultimately the Church in general. We shall return to this issue at a later date.

As ACNA was being dedicated on Wednesday, actress Farah Fawcett was taking her exit from this side of the great divide. Felled by anal cancer, a disease she had famously described as a terrorist, she was 62. Fawcett rose to fame on the wave of her blonde hair, when a Hollywood talent agent spotted her among "10 most beautiful co-eds" in a student magazine at the University of Texas in Austin, where she was a student.

She subsequently moved to Los Angeles, began a modelling career and eventually posed for a poster in 1975 which was to catapult her into international stardom becoming something of the ultimate poster blonde. The poster, which sold over eight million copies, was Farah’s doorway to acting fame. Ace television producer Aaron Spelling, was so fascinated by her persona that he cast her as one of the crime-fighting babes of in the famous television series, Charlie's Angels in which she starred as Jill Munroe.

Charlie’s Angels, to refresh your memory was that television series featuring three belles working for a private investigation agency to unravel all kinds of crime. It was a trail-blazer in the sense that women were acting that kind of role for the first time. It ran in the United States on the network of ABC Television from 1976 to 1981 before it made its way to Nigeria in the mid-80s. One of the unforgettable features of the series was that you never got to see the face of Charles Townsend or Charlie, their boss. The best glimpse of him you ever caught were scenes where the back of his head and his arms are visible, surrounded by pretty women, assigning cases to the Angels through a speaker phone.

Farah was nominated for two Emmys and five Golden Globes, winning critical acclaim for her characterization of an abused wife in The Burning Bed. The story of her battle with cancer was widely aired in May through a two-hour documentary, Farrah's Story. In it, not even the pain she went through as the cancer progressed from her anus to her liver could rob her of her humour. As the doctors shaved off the last bit of the blonde locks that brought her to fame, she was quoted as telling the doctors, "You wouldn't stop until you got my hair." In the words of her publicist, “Farrah has passed to a better place and left the pain and confines of her bed behind…She is free to be the woman we all knew and loved; so few have touched so many."

Thursday of course was Amnesty proclamation day in Abuja, Nigeria. President Yar’Adua evinced the proclamation and signing ceremony with the solemnity of a historic event. Militants who laid down their arms within 60 days were to go home unmolested while he handed those being tried a get-out-of-jail-free card. It was all like Jesus telling the woman caught in adultery in chapter 8 of the Bible book of John: “go, and sin no more.” And I remember my Shakespeare: isn’t it the “naked truth” that, like King Lear, the people represented by these militants, (as distinct from the criminal elements), are “more sinned against than sinning?” The Amnesty, preceded as it was by the now suspended military operation of the Joint Task Force, with its clearly disproportionate collateral damage, has all the trappings of pacification. Will it work? God have mercy.

Thanks to the sense of balance of the Nigerian media, this subject is still on the front burner, at least one side of it. The announcement later that Thursday night of the death by cardiac arrest of pop music king, Michael Jackson, has since overthrown everything else. And like I said earlier not even this column can ignore such a momentous event as the passing of this iconic character.

So much has been said and written about his life, music, dance, lyrics, fashion, marriages, cosmetic surgery, his philanthropy and much more. The Guinness Book of Record proportion of the sales of his works including “Thrilla” has been chronicled. So has the eleven-tickets-per-second sale of his now aborted farewell concerts at London’s O2 Arena. The circumstances of his death are still been investigated and there are no shortages of hypothesis.

In all of these, however, I have been more concerned for the soul of this wonderful performer. Is Michael Jackson in heaven or hell? We may not know for sure, unfortunately. He was born and raised, at least by their mum, a Jehovah’s Witness, but there were rumours that he converted, like Jermaine, one of his brothers, to Islam last year, and took the name Mikhaeel. Whether that is true or not, reports about his meeting with two Pentecostal pastors, Andraé and Sandra Crouch three weeks before he died give room for hope. Although they have denied that he specifically asked to be led to say the sinner’s prayer, as earlier suggested by Mary Mary on her Facebook page, the following quote from Dave Nassaney, Andraé Crouch's Facebook page administrator, points in the direction of salvation for the one who sought to heal the world with his music and philanthropy.

He wrote: “He wanted to know what makes your hands go up, and makes you ‘come out of yourself' and what gives ‘spirituality' to music. He then requested to hear his favorite song that he loves, and wanted [them] to sing to him, so they sang that song to him, and joined hands and sang together, and he said, ‘It was beautiful.'. Crouch told me Jackson ‘definitely had an encounter' during the visit…He did NOT reject Jesus or the prayer when they prayed, and gladly joined in prayer. Crouch said, ‘He usually doesn't touch anybody, but he touched them, and held their hands in a circle as they sang and prayed. There was NO actual ‘sinner’s prayer,' however, but they did talk and pray about Jesus and the anointing of the Holy Spirit…” Would that this is true.
PIXES: Michael Jackson...As I like to remember him and
Farrah Fawcett...Charlie's Angel in the poster that brought her fame