Friday, August 16, 2024

Part I

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Over the Top? Big Developments With a $600 Million Wedding in India and a Shrinking Number of Weddings in the United States

Well, have you ever felt left out that you didn’t get invited to a wedding? Well, I’ll tell you one thing you and I probably share in common, we probably were not invited to the wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. We’re talking about an Indian wedding that is to say a wedding that took place in India that is believed to be the most expensive in human history.

Now, how expensive would the most expensive wedding in human history be? Well, it is estimated by some that the wedding cost, get this, a million dollars, 600 times, $600 million for a wedding. I know what you’re thinking, you’re feeling better about yours. You’re feeling better about the last wedding you had to contribute to or pay for, and you’re understanding, we thought there were some extravagances, but not a million dollars, 600 times, $600 million.

So this did make headlines all over the world and it attracted people from all over the world. Hollywood celebrities, politicians, you got on the list. This is the son, the youngest son of India’s richest man, rich beyond your imagination, spending untold millions of dollars, some say $600 million for a wedding. And yes, I wasn’t invited. I bet you weren’t either. You would think with $600 million, we might’ve gotten at least some kind of notification.

But no, we were just not a part of the picture. How many people were there? Well, it was a civilizational event there in India. And as I said, it made headlines all over the world. The Wall Street Journal headline, “Lavish Indian Wedding Cost is Sky High.” The economist of London again drew attention to, “What a $600 million wedding says about India’s attitude to wealth.” Let’s just say that this redefines conspicuous consumption.

The New York Times headline, “India Offers the World a Wedding Extravaganza.” 2000 guests we’re told attended this wedding at the Jio World Centre in Mumbai. The guest included Nick Jonas and just a number of Hollywood celebrities and international who’s who to a wedding you did not want to miss, evidently. We’re told, “The red carpet was in a room adorned with lanterns and colorful garlands and floral arrangements.”

One of the top Bollywood paparazzi, that is to say a celebrity photographer identified with India’s version of Hollywood. Well, this photographer is very much at work. “Had already shot several of the couples pre-wedding functions, which began in March.” Here’s the next sentence. “It’s not everyday that Kim and Chloe Kardashian, John Cena and Boris Johnson,” that’s the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, “Gather in Mumbai for an Indian wedding. All four were in attendance as the wedding took place.

Mr. Zala photographer was one of about 100 members of the media, we’re told, clamoring next to the red carpet. “But given this sheer number of celebrities present, Bollywood superstars, several members of the Indian cricket team, former prime ministers and billionaire businessmen, and the fabulous Indian clothes on display, a runway seemed in order.” So how do you spend that much money on a wedding?

Well, it lasted for several days of festivities, and you’re talking about everything being done with an opulence beyond imagination. You’re talking about stages that would make Hollywood feel embarrassed and settings for the events. The New York Times Sadiba Hasan reports, “While the Ambani’s enormous wealth and influence are well known in India, many people outside the country might not have heard of them before Rihanna performed at the couples three day pre-wedding bash in March.”

That was in Jamnagar, a town in Western India’s state of Gujarat. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates were also in attendance. So there you have two of the titans of international technology, both of them Americans of course, and they were invited and evidently they went. Now listen to this. The report continues, “In June, the festivities continued on a cruise ship in Europe with performances by Katy Perry, the Backstreet Boys and Pitbull,” whoever that is.

And on July the fifth, the extravaganza we are told, “Kicked off in Mumbai with a performance by Justin Bieber at the Sangeet,” traditionally a night of music and dancing leading up to the nuptials. And we’re also told, “The Ambani family is playing a role in showcasing Indian culture and fashion to the world,” that according to one observer. Okay, again enough, we’re talking about a $600 million wedding, which I think should be a moral scandal. This is far beyond our imagination to be honest.

This is sort of like looking at the parable, the rich man and Lazarus where the rich man and his brothers feasted sumptuously every day. Yeah, a $600 million wedding? It would appear to fall right in line with the parable. But I think we also have to understand that what’s going on here is a bit of a show of wealth, of ostentatious wealth, of conspicuous consumption. In other words, you do this because you actually want these headlines.

These headlines are not considered by the family to be criticizing at all. They’re considered to be a tribute. It was a successful public relations program. You spend $600 million on a wedding, guess what? The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal not only gives you headlines, but the Wall Street Journal puts you on the front page. That’s how you do it. That’s worth a couple of those $600 million.

But the other thing we just need to note is that, well, on the happy side, this does least point again to the importance of marriage. And at least we are talking here about a man and a woman, and at least we’re talking here about a man and a woman who were getting married. So at least they had that much clear. And we’re talking about the fact that weddings bring about a celebration and that’s as old basically as humanity and for good reason.

The celebration of the coming together of a man and a woman in the sacred covenant of marriage. Remember that the New Testament tells us that Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. So there’s something very right about at least what’s at the heart of this. But clearly in a fallen world, things get out of hand and this wedding got out of hand. But I’m giving it this much attention not just to point to a spectacle in India and say, “Wow, a $600 million wedding.”

I want to come back to another headline that’s a lot closer to home. And this one appeared in the Washington Post and it tells us that the American wedding is actually shrinking, is shrinking in terms of scale. It is shrinking in terms of crowd. It is shrinking in terms of wedding party in many cases. And it’s shrinking, at least in part in terms of money. That’s a fairly new thing because for a matter of time, weddings in the United States were just getting more and more expensive.

And yet this headline story in the Washington Post tells us that because of soaring costs, smaller weddings are being planned. “Couples are downsizing,” says the post, “Because of inflation.” And we are told, “Inflation is shrinking. The American wedding guest lists are dwindling. Cakes are getting smaller and bridal shops are stocking simpler, shorter dresses.” Okay, I want to back off a moment because the Christian worldview importance of all of this is that if no one else is clear about marriage, the Christian Church must be clear about marriage.

If the rest of the society decides to dishonor marriage, we are called–indeed commanded–to honor marriage. And this means that even as we think about a wedding, it’s right, it’s right to have a wedding. It’s not wrong to have a wedding. It’s right because that is the public statement of the man and the woman coming together. The Bible both implicitly and explicitly just honors the idea of a wedding.

The return of the Lord Jesus Christ is described as the bridegroom coming to claim his bride. If we didn’t know what a wedding was, we wouldn’t even know how to understand that biblical teaching and biblical promise. But at the same time, the wedding is not the marriage. The wedding is the public declaration of the marriage. It’s the public entering into by an exchange of vows of a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage.

That’s a public thing. It needs to come as a public event in this sense. But the wedding is not the marriage. The marriage continues, the wedding’s over. Everybody eventually goes home. Even from a $600 million wedding, everyone eventually has to get on his or her private jet and go back home. And of course, say you’re against global emissions after you get home from your private jet trip.

But I’m going to make a statement that might be a bit controversial. I just want to say that out of concern for the spiritual health and vitality, not only the Christian Church, but of civilization, I just want to encourage Christians to consider the fact that your wedding should be respectful and wonderful and joyous. It does not have to be expensive. We do not have to play the rules of the world. I’m not saying it’s wrong to have an expensive wedding.

I am saying there are moral limits to everything. And as we think about this, I think just about everyone would immediately say $600 million is a tad much. But the fact is that I am often morally concerned, and I say this as someone who works with an awful lot of Christian young people. When I see Christian young people sometimes feel like they have to delay a marriage because they can’t yet afford a wedding. That is getting things, if not backwards, then horribly confused.

I just want to encourage Christians to be those at the front of the line on pressing back on the logic that it has to be about an extravaganza of a wedding, because it doesn’t have to be any such thing. And even if it is, people are going to go home as much as they would go home from a non extravaganza wedding. It is an event. It can be a wonderful, joyous holy event, but it is an event. Marriage is a covenant.

Long after the wedding is over, when the photographic images and even the memories begin to fade, the moral importance of the marriage continues generation by generation till Jesus comes. 

Part II

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Does Complementarianism Allow for Female Leaders in the Political Sphere? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

But next we’re going to turn to questions and glad to receive all your questions. We can’t get to every one of them, but we’d love to hear from every one of you. Just send your question to mail@albertmohler.com. 

A listener from Pennsylvania writes in and identifies as a pastor outside Philadelphia.

And he says that in his congregation he has both broad and narrow complementarians. “I am curious about the perspective on whether the president of our country or of any country should be a woman.” The pastor continues, “Does complementarian theology when applied to the role of commander in chief suggest that Christians should reserve this position exclusively for a man or is it a matter of Christian conscience?” 

Well, that’s an interesting question. It’s kind of a complex question. It’s the kind of question I think some people wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. But I’m going to take a stab at it here. And I want to say this, I think that in creation order there is a different assignment given to men and women in the context of comparing public life and private life, most importantly comparing public life in the world, with the private life in the home.

And so I know there are some Christians who are going to do a headstand when I say this, but I think that a fully developed complementarianism has to include that distinction. And so I would say the best way to understand this is you really can’t reverse this as a matter of universal practice without creating massive problems. 

Just to take the process of pregnancy and the needs of an infant. Just to take two things we can understand in this picture. The reality is that you just can’t send all the women into the workplace and all the men into the home and think things are going to turn out happily. That hungry baby’s going to know otherwise. Now, I think it’s actually more than that. I think there’s just kind of one kind of catchy way of thinking about it. But I think the other thing to think about here is that in the normal situation, I think God has called men to serve in most of these capacities most of the time.

And I think that’s really verified in Scripture. So it’s not just something that happens by human custom. I think it is something that is clearly in the pattern that is revealed in Scripture, not just the pattern in creation. I think for instance, the pattern in say Israel’s monarchy for one thing, the pattern in leadership in the church for another thing, which is a pattern of male leadership.

Now you can say, “Well, that is just Ancient Near Eastern patriarchy and oppression.” Well, if you believe that you’re going to have a far larger problem with the entirety of scripture. You can relativize any biblical text. I believe it is to be seen as far more than that. I think it’s God telling us in the Scripture what his plan is, and I think we should always see that as the determinative issue.

But even as in Scripture, there are women who sometimes play very important leadership roles, I think it’s important to recognize that at times there are exceptions to this rule. And so if you come to my personal library and have the opportunity to look, you’ll see that there’s a portrait of me and my wife with Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of Great Britain in a context in which we had the opportunity to help host her.

And that was marvelous privilege. But if you know me, you know I’m a big, big fan of Margaret Thatcher in the context of her service as prime minister of Great Britain. She was a conviction politician in an age when most politicians had very few convictions and she stood by them. And by the way, she clearly identified as a Christian in terms of her political role. And that’s not to say I’d agree with her on everything. And there are some policies in which I’d be in pretty radical disagreement with her. But the point is I think she played a very important role in Western history.

And I think when you look at the fact that Prime Minister Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan created such an important duo on the world scene just as the world was changing in what would eventually be the breakup of the Soviet Union and all the rest, it was their conviction politics that really helped to shape what happened in the 1990s, including at the end of the 80s and into the 90s, the transformation of the Cold War into something very, very different, the breakup of the Soviet Union and the most public failure of the communist experiment.

So I just want to say I think that at times it is clear there are exceptions to the rule, but that just points to the rule. Exceptions to the rule just point to the general sense of the rule. And that’s been the case in Great Britain. You ask who is the prime minister of Britain right now? It’s a man and most of the prime ministers have been, and most of the prime ministers since Margaret Thatcher have been.

And I don’t think that’s an accident. Now, once again, we have a democratic nominee who is a woman and would be if elected the first woman president of the United States. My main concern about her is not that she’s a woman, that’s not a concern in every way, but it’s certainly not my main concern. It’s her policies, it’s her political positions, it is her political pedigree that is, to me, most alarming and problematic.

So it’s a good question. I will simply say I think a biblical complementarianism speaks to an absolute principle in the church. And I think as you look at evangelical Protestant theologians, and for that matter, even a lot of Catholic theologians, there’s an agreement that when you get from the abstraction of the family very clearly biblically defined period and the church, very clearly biblically defined period, and then you go to that third arena of the political sphere, I think the principles continue, but the specificity is not so clear.

That means the exceptions would be far less surprising. And I think again, if I had the opportunity to vote for Margaret Thatcher against those running against her, I’m pretty sure I would’ve done it.

Part III

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Should Christians Be Concerned About Women Participating in Combat Sports? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay. I spoke about this briefly as we were talking about the controversy in the closing of the Olympics, the controversy having to do with the two boxers who were insisted by the Olympic Committee to be women boxers.

But I talked about the huge questions related to that. And I said at the time that I think the involvement of women period, and by this I mean actual biological women in some sports is, well, it’s something that makes a lot of us uncomfortable. It’s something that raises some basic issues. And so now we have a listener writing in saying, “What should be a Christian’s perspective towards women’s sports, which have a physically combative nature about them? That is to say sports such as rugby, wrestling, judo, boxing, TaeKwonDo. You look at such things and I’m sure there are other sports I don’t even know about that could be added to the list.” Here’s what I suggested. I suggested that I think the involvement of women in so-called blood sports, that was an old term, use violent sports, things that are pugilistic, I didn’t say competitive, I said pugilistic.

I think a lot of us have an awkwardness with this. And so is it a direct violation of creation order? I don’t have a verse to give you on that. I do think there is a Christian moral instinct on that. And so I don’t want to speak with an authority that is beyond what’s authorized in Scripture, but I just want to say the distinctions in Scripture between men and women and their roles and the way men should treat women and men and women should be recognized as different, I think honestly, there’s some really big problems here, especially in these sports that involve organized violence.

Part IV

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Is the Acquisition of Knowledge an Intrinsic Good? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay, but next I want to take the question. This is my favorite of the week. Sent in by a 17-year-old young woman from California. And she’s in a Christian speech and debate club. And by the way, thank you for listening to The Briefing and the nice comment. And then she writes, “Something that our debate group has been wrestling with recently is whether the acquisition of knowledge is an intrinsic good. My question for you is in light of the near infinite amount of knowledge available to us in the modern world, including detailed knowledge of evil, can the acquisition of knowledge as a whole still be considered an intrinsic good?”

Oh, wow. Thanks for such a good question. And the answer is the acquisition of knowledge is a good thing so long as it is the right kind of knowledge. There is a knowledge we are not to seek. And remember that the original sin was the violation of God’s law having to do with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And as you look at Genesis three, a part of God’s word of judgment and condemnation upon Adam and Eve was that they now by their disobedience, knew things they should not know, things that due to the fall, you and I now know, things that we were not meant to know.

So again, I do love this question. I love the fact that it’s coming from a 17-year-old in a high school debate club. That just makes me happy. And I love the fact this is being talked about by the young people who are involved in that team and in this class. And I just want to say yes, the acquisition of knowledge is a good thing. Learning is a good thing.

The Christian Church, following in the example of Israel and clear biblical commands, understood the God glorifying act of acquiring knowledge and learning truth and learning to discern the true from the false, truth from error. And so in that sense, what’s most important is to recognize that yes in the Scripture, there are objects of knowledge we are not to seek to know. And so for one thing, Israel was not told, “You need to really study these idols.”

And instead, they were told to have nothing to do with the idols, to put them out of sight, to put them out of mind so that they were not thought about. And you can say, “Well, that’s not very good according to the National Geographic or the local university faculty.” No, but I think we all know there are things we’re not to know. We are not to give ourselves to. We’re not to seek to know more about.

On the other hand, getting to know God’s world, getting to know the glory of God and creation, getting to know mathematical formulas, getting to know history, studying literature. And of course, all of this is mixed in a fallen world. But the fact is that learning discernment, learning truth, learning even facts that help us to build a worldview that’s glorifying to God, and helps us to operate in the world, that’s the acquisition of the kind of knowledge we should seek after.

Here’s something else I want to say to this young Christian, and that is the fact that there’s a moral dimension to all knowledge. Given human sinfulness, we can even take a true thing and bend it into something false. We can rationalize, we can commit all kinds of intellectual errors that actually come down to sin. But the question you ask is just reminding us that all of human existence is morally fraught.

All of human existence is morally weighted. There are good things we can do with our hands, there are bad things we can do with our hands. There are good places we can go with our feet, there are bad places we could go with our feet. We can say words that help, or we can say words that hurt. And we can seek after the knowledge that honors God, or we can seek after the knowledge that dishonors God.

And knowing that distinction and acquiring the knowledge that honors God and staying away from the knowledge that dishonors God, that’s a part of our Christian responsibility. And I think the very fact that you’ve asked the question this way means that you’re well down the road of thinking these issues through.

Part V

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Will There Be Work in Heaven? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay, finally, a very interesting question sent in by a listener from Texas. And this particular listener was thinking about Beethoven and wondering if Beethoven was a believer and is in heaven.

She says, “That’s not her question since that can’t be known.” But then she says, “It made me wonder, will we work when we are in heaven? Will composers be writing glorious music for God? Will we be using the gifts God has given us to glorify him perfectly when we get to heaven? It’s hard to see how to expand that out to other gifts though. Will people design beautiful buildings in heaven? Will I bake cookies in heaven?” And then a smile. Yeah, okay.

I appreciate that. Number one, I can’t say categorically whether or not you’re going to bake cookies in heaven. That’s beyond my theological expertise or biblical warrant. But I can tell you that the promise of the kingdom of Christ is of a new heaven and a new earth and of our deployment for the glory of God in the state of perfection, where everything is glorified and made perfect.

So I think we’re going to be in a situation in which all the good things we’re commanded to do and God made us to do in the world before the fall, I think that’s what we’re going to be doing, perfected and glorified in the age to come. Imagine building buildings that termites can’t eat. Imagine doing things at a level that glorifies God in terms of arts and all kinds of things we can’t even imagine.

I can’t draw a picture about this. We are given very clear teachings in Scripture about the fact that the age to come is going to bring such a state of glory that no good thing on Earth will be missing, and no good thing on Earth will be missing any dimension that was intended by the Father in creation in the first place. And so all good things will be there perfected.

So I am waiting with you, I say to this dear listener, to find out exactly what that means. But if chocolate chip cookies are good here on earth in the new creation, how could there not be something that’s even better? And so the knowledge of things here are just a hint of the glories that are to come. I hope that’s helpful. 

I will just say this, to avoid all risk of speculation, I will just say that we are told that the age to come for those in Christ is an age of glorification and ultimate fulfillment in the presence of Christ. That’s a very, very different situation than what we know now. So the good things we know now, they’re just hints of the good things in the age to come, or another way to put it finally is this, it is impossible given the structure of biblical theology to believe that in the age to come, we would miss anything that we know in the present age.