Friday, January 10, 2025

Yesterday, in the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., a state funeral was held to honor former President Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States. It was a traditional Christian service in terms of its structure and in terms of its context, but it was a very interesting affair, and it was a state funeral, so let’s just talk about that for a moment. There are funerals, there are memorial services, and there is in a very few cases, a state funeral. What’s the distinction?

Well, the distinction between a funeral and a memorial service generally is whether or not the body is present. In a funeral, which is by far the majority Christian tradition, the body is present and it is considered an official act of Christian worship. Memorial services generally are held when the body is not present. That’s the distinction. And at least in terms of how these things came about, memorial services were often held when the body was not available or when the date had to be after an appropriate period of holding onto the body after death or some kind of similar circumstance.

And then, you have a state funeral. What’s the distinction between a funeral, again, the body present, and a state funeral? And the answer is a state funeral is an affair of state. It is an affair of the government. In the United States, state funerals are rare, and in terms of our national life, they have to come with some kind of federal authorization. Generally, in the United States, that means a president or a former president of the United States, but there have been 45 individuals, and I know Donald Trump is about to be inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States, but Donald Trump and Grover Cleveland will go down in history as the two presidents who served non-concurrent terms. And so, Donald Trump will be both the 45th and the 47th president of the United States.

But nonetheless, we’re not talking about two people, we’re talking about one. But in the case of presidents of the United States, official state funerals held in the National Cathedral, number only five. There have only been five presidents of the United States whose state funerals have been held in the National Cathedral, and that started with Dwight Eisenhower whose funeral was held in 1969, then Ronald Reagan in 2004, Gerald Ford in 2007, George H.W. Bush in 2018, and now Jimmy Carter in 2025.

So, you notice a pattern here. And there are reasons why many previous presidents did not have state funerals or did not have a similar kind of state funeral in the National Cathedral, but there are multiple stories here with a lot of worldview implications. Let’s look, first of all, at the service itself. The funeral, held there in the context of what is known most popularly as the National Cathedral. The service was largely shaped by the traditional Book of Common Prayer that goes back to the Tudor era in terms of the Church of England and now the Episcopal Church in the United States. It was a more modern form, dated in 1979, and the service was not just structured around the Book of Common Prayer, although it was largely at least shaped by the influence of the Book of Common Prayer and by the Anglican or Episcopal tradition.

Now, Jimmy Carter famously identified as a born-again Christian, and Jimmy Carter was a Baptist, and so, there’s a little bit of incongruity there. Jimmy Carter, the individual, probably under no circumstances would have a funeral in the Episcopal cathedral there in Washington D.C. It’s Jimmy Carter, the man who was elected president of the United States and served as the 39th president of the United States. It is a state funeral and that explains the location, it explains the formality, it explains the presence of the United States military, and it explains the presence of five men who have served as president of the United States. That includes the incumbent president, Joe Biden, who offered a eulogy statement. It also includes former presidents, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. That shows you something of the stature of a state funeral. It is a state funeral, a state event. It is the most formal of all state events other than the inauguration of a president of the United States.

Now, a couple of things. We live in an increasingly secular or secularized age, and yet, it tells you something that in a moment of national grief and a moment of the death of a former president, there is a perceived, a felt need for something that is incredibly stately and incredibly formal. And when you do that in the context of what is called nonetheless the National Cathedral, well, that just underlines the fact that you can say you live in a secular age, but in moments of deep need, it doesn’t look so secular after all.

A second observation is that you had commentators looking at the images coming from the National Cathedral, talking about the fact that Donald Trump was sitting next to Barack Obama and they appeared to be at least at points, deeply involved in conversation. As a matter of fact, some media sources said they had more conversation than the other former presidents. That might have something to do with the fact that Barack Obama was attending alone. Michelle Obama, we are told, was in Hawaii and missed the service. But in any event, it’s hard to imagine two figures on the American political landscape more different than former President Barack Obama and former president and President-elect Donald Trump.

It tells you something about the fact that when you are looking at human beings, human beings when they’re sitting next to each other in a formal occasion, behave quite differently than they do in another circumstance, and I think we understand why that’s so. You’re not going to sit next to someone at an occasion such as a state funeral and just fold your arms and sit in diffidence. That just doesn’t work. That tells you something about human nature. Something that on the one hand is puzzling, something that on the other hand is actually rather encouraging.

In terms of the content and the structure of the service, it was, as I said, mostly structured as a Christian service according to the Anglican or Episcopal tradition as reflected in the Book of Common Prayer. It also followed some traditions that have been established for state funerals, particularly state funerals of former presidents of the United States, but it also included some elements that were not to be expected. But let’s think about the testimony. Several testimonies were given along with one homily. The homily was given by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young, and he had been a close friend of the president going far back before he became president of the United States.

But there were also two testimonies given, read by sons of the individuals who had written them. The first was given by Steven Ford, son of the late former President Gerald Ford, and the other by Ted Mondale, son of former Vice President Walter Mondale, who also died just a few years ago. And so, both Walter Mondale and Gerald Ford preceded Jimmy Carter in death. But here’s the historic nature of what was reflected there.

Number one, when you look at those who have served as president and vice president of the United States together, frankly, there has often been something of, let’s say, a lack of warmth in the relationship. And sometimes, that lack of warmth has become accentuated after the time out of office. But when it comes to Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, Walter Mondale, who had been a very liberal Minnesota senator before he was chosen as his running mate back in the 1976 election, Walter Mondale and Jimmy Carter had a very close relationship, and the words that were said by Walter Mondale, prepared for Jimmy Carter’s state funeral when Walter Mondale obviously was still alive, but knew he might die before Jimmy Carter, there were very moving words. But even more moving was the fact that Steven Ford, the son of former president, Gerald Ford, read a statement from his father.

Now, here’s the thing. Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter both served as president to the United States. They developed a remarkable friendship after they were both out of office, and that friendship grew so deep, one a Republican and one a Democrat, that they agreed that whoever died second would give the eulogy for the one who died first. Now, Gerald Ford died at the end of 2006, Jimmy Carter died at the end of 2024, and so, it was Gerald Ford who had to leave a written eulogy for Jimmy Carter.

Now, here’s the other thing. If you remember in the 1976 presidential campaign, it was Jimmy Carter who defeated Gerald Ford for the office of president of the United States, and running against one another for that office does not lead in general terms to a natural friendship. But when it came to Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, that friendship developed and obviously it was very authentic. That’s the kind of development at the human level that ought not to go without notice when you look at the state funeral of Jimmy Carter held yesterday.

But we also need to talk about a couple of different issues. Number one, let’s just talk about the building, the National Cathedral. How does a structure come to be known as the National Cathedral? Well, number one, the official name of the building is the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and the Diocese of Washington. So, in other words, it is officially the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Why do we call it the National Cathedral? Well, here’s a very interesting story. That goes back to 1893 when the Congress of the United States offered the charter to establish this church. It was from the beginning an Episcopal cathedral, but it was also from the beginning designed as a building, a structure of formal worship in which national services could be held.

Now, here’s something that’s even more interesting. If you go back to the 1700s, you go back to Pierre L’Enfant’s design for Washington D.C., he put right on what we call the National Mall, the proposal for a national church. That did not happen. It didn’t happen for two reasons. It didn’t happen for one thing because of expense. It didn’t happen for a second thing, because there was really no way for the U.S. Congress to build a national church given the constitutional structure of the United States of America and the prohibition of the establishment of religion. And so, there had to be a way that something might emerge that would be called the National Cathedral, but it wouldn’t actually be an extension of the government itself, but it was chartered by Congress.

By the way, Pierre L’Enfant had designed that national church or church for the nation to be right there on the mall. Instead, we have the National Portrait Gallery. The National Cathedral, as we know it, started in the 19th century, concluded, by the way, in terms of its construction, 83 years later. That National Cathedral, as it is known, was chartered by Congress. It is on Mount St. Albans, a very high spot, and it is the second-largest building of its kind for worship in the United States. It is the second-largest religious building in terms of interior space. It is also one of the tallest and most elegant of the neo-Gothic cathedrals to be found anywhere.

As a matter of fact, the model of the National Cathedral, many people don’t know this, is Westminster Abbey in London. That’s right down, by the way, to the twin towers, although you have the National Cathedral in Washington, which also has the elements of more traditional Gothic cathedrals, including the Great Tower at the center.

One the ceremonial first stones for what became the National Cathedral, by the way, it’s made of Indiana limestone, that sets it apart from Westminster Abbey in London. One of the first stones was set by President Theodore Roosevelt. The last in this sense was set by President George H.W. Bush. And the distance in history between Theodore Roosevelt and George H.W. Bush is basically the long construction period for the National Cathedral. The interior space, and most of the exterior was finished decades before. But as is the case in the building of so many of these very large cathedrals, it actually takes a very, very long time to finish the plan. And by the way, as soon as you do, you’re going to have to spend millions of dollars just to keep up what you’ve got.

But the other thing I want to note is that when you look at the service held in the National Cathedral yesterday, what you don’t see and what you do see, well, those are two things we need to keep very much separate and distinct. What you do see is a continuing influence of historic Christianity. Even the historic influence of the Book of Common Prayer, historic language, Scripture readings, two major Scripture readings and a homily. And of course, you had the choir, you had the priests and the prelates in vestments. You had all kinds of representations. The Gothic cathedral, in terms of its architecture itself was crying out the transcendence of God. It just looks like Christianity.

But when you look at the picture more closely, it looks a little less like Christianity than you might first think. For one thing, in terms of church history, just about no one would understand what women dressed in those priestly robes were doing there. And of course, in the Roman Catholic Church, that wouldn’t be seen even now. In the Anglican communion, in the Episcopal Church, well, things are a bit different now. And the Bishop of Washington, Mariann Edgar Budde, is not only a woman, she’s a very liberal woman at that. And as a matter of fact, in the National Cathedral and in the Diocese of Washington, there has been an enormous amount of theological liberalism. And there has also been in that very same building, not only state funerals and state occasions, there’s also been the commissioning of the leadership of the Metropolitan Community Church, which is an openly LGBTQ denomination.

So, you’re looking there at massive theological transformations. But I can’t leave the Carter funeral, the state funeral of Jimmy Carter, without discussing the most incongruous development in the entire service. It wasn’t the beginning, it wasn’t the processional, it wasn’t the recessional, it wasn’t the Scripture readings, for sure. It wasn’t the historic prayers. It wasn’t some of the language from the Book of Common Prayer. No, it was John Lennon’s song Imagine sung in the service. Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood sang the song together, but it’s not their voices that is the issue, it’s the words of the song.

The song Imagine was released by John Lennon on October the 11th, 1971. It has become one of the most familiar tunes of the 20th century. John Lennon, however, wrote those words understanding that what he was trying to imagine was a world without many traditional structures, and that explicitly includes Christianity. The lyrics to the song, and by the way, for decades it was thought to have been written by John Lennon alone, later he said that Yoko Ono, who became his wife, had also been a part of writing it. But the words begin with these, “Imagine there’s no heaven. It’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today.” And then he goes on to say, “Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.” He then goes on to say that that would be a world of peace, and that’s the world that he was calling people to.

And so, it was even John Lennon who said later, “Imagine that there is no more religion, no more country, no more politics.” He said, “Is virtually the communist manifesto, even though I’m not particularly a communist and I do not belong to any movement.” It was understood to be a direct rejection of religion, of heaven and of hell, and particularly, rejection of Christianity as the overarching religion in Western civilization. So, the irony is that at the funeral, the state funeral of a former president of the United States, one of the centerpieces was a song that declared that the world would be better off if Christianity did not exist.

But then notice also, it is a declaration that nations should not exist. And so, if anything is odd, it is that this song would be sung and frankly celebrated with former presidents humming along, when it declares that the world would be better off without a state, without a government. So, so much for a state funeral. It was known for years that Jimmy Carter had been an admirer of the song. At one point he said that he heard it very much sung almost as a national anthem in some countries. I don’t know exactly what the former president meant, but in any event, it was known that the former president and his wife had planned this service beginning back in 1986. So, it wasn’t an accident. That tells us something.

It was a Christian service in some sense. It was not a Christian service in other senses. And that tells you a lot about the melding of so many of these issues in what’s an increasingly secular, confused, and even in some cases post-Christian America. We’re not so post-Christian we don’t have a state funeral in a cathedral. No, we’re not there. But we do change what is said or what is sung in the cathedral. And biblically-minded Christians ought not to let that pass without notice.

The events related to the state funeral of former President Jimmy Carter took place yesterday and the day unfolded very quickly with the state funeral in the morning, and then the president’s body was flown on a special Air Force mission, flown to Georgia where it was then taken to Plains where a brief service was held in Maranatha Baptist Church where the president and the former first lady had been members, and then there was the internment. Jimmy Carter was buried with appropriate Christian ceremony yesterday. All that took place in terms of those formal events in one day, a rather remarkable day, and one we do well to reflect upon.

Before turning to questions, we need to recognize that the fires in the Los Angeles area still burn out of control, and we’re now looking at thousands of structures being destroyed. We’re looking at entire neighborhoods basically being reduced to dust. It’s almost like a picture of mass bombing during World War II. It’s hard to imagine something like this happening in a major American city, and it shows you just how nature is so much more powerful than we are. The human scale never seems smaller than when we try to fight something of this magnitude.

The firestorm there in Los Angeles has been described as a hurricane firestorm, and just the pictures not only humble us and grieve us, but they make us appear very, very small. The death toll as of last night was six, but the likelihood is that that death toll we’ll discover is actually much higher. We continue to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ there in Los Angeles. We pray for all human beings there in Los Angeles. We pray for the preservation of property, but far more than that, we pray for the preservation of life.

Next, we’re going to turn to questions. First of all, from a listener who asked a question about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. He says he believes in the resurrection and he believes it to be essential to the gospel as the Scriptures instruct. But he says, “I’m struggling with the details of why it is essential.” Well, that’s a good, honest question. Why is it essential? 1 Corinthians 15, just to take one classic text says that it is essential. In that text, it begins by telling us that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that God raised him from the dead according to the Scriptures. And the Apostle Paul says that he preaches that those two points as a first priority. And you’ll notice it comes together. And I think that’s the point, 1 Corinthians 15 as a totality makes this point.

You ask the question, “Why is the resurrection an essential in that sense?” Well, it’s essential because the Apostle Paul tells us inspired by the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 15, that if Christ was not raised from the dead, then we are still dead in our sins and trespasses. That’s the point. And so, when we talk about the saving work of Christ, we need to be very careful. We need to be very careful talking about the saving work of Christ, pointing to the cross, yes, but like the Apostle Paul says, “You don’t point merely to the cross, you point to the cross and the resurrection.” Remember Paul said of first priority, we preach that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that God raised him from the dead according to the Scriptures.

Elsewhere in the New Testament, we are told that the Father raised the Son as the vindication of the Son’s sacrifice. If that vindication had not come, again, the Apostle Paul says we would still be dead in our sins and trespasses. So, I guess, the most pointed thing I could say is that if it is essential to Christian preaching, then it is essential to the gospel. It is essential for the Christian faith. It’s a good faith question, however, and so, I just want to point out that it’s essential precisely because the New Testament tells us, number one, that Christ was raised from the dead bodily, physically, historically raised from the dead. And secondly, that it is essential to the gospel to the extent that if Christ is not raised from the dead, then we are still dead in our sin. That underlines the issue.

All right. Sometimes the hardest questions come from the youngest listeners. For example, I have a mom writing in about a 7-year-old son. She says he has a very, very tender heart for animals. And then she says, “As we go through the Old Testament with him using a variety of doctrinally strong children’s books,” that’s a good qualifier, “he is so upset to think of the horses perishing in the Red Sea, the foxes whose tails were lit on fire by Samson, all the animal sacrifices,” she says, “and the list goes on.” She says, “It troubles him so deeply.”

Well, Mom, I just want to tell you that there’s something very sweet about that and there’s something very right about your son’s concern, because even as we are given in the Garden of Eden, by God’s command, the responsibility of dominion, we’re also given the responsibility of stewardship, and we are to treat our fellow creatures, not our fellow creatures confusing them with human creatures, humans alone being made in the image of God, but we are to treat other creatures with respect.

At the same time, they are different than human beings. And one of the things we have to watch is the natural tendency to anthropomorphize. And of course, you know what that means, to try to read on human characteristics or human personality to animals. I realize that without that you wouldn’t have Disney and any number of other things. You wouldn’t have fairy tales. You wouldn’t have Aesop’s Fables. But you do understand, we do understand that at least a task that we face as parents is to help our children understand that animals don’t actually talk to one another that way. But that doesn’t mean they’re not precious, they’re not important to creation, they don’t show the glory of God, because they do.

And one of the things that’s right about your son’s concern is that the last thing we want is for Christians to feel at all that the mistreatment or maltreatment of animals is acceptable. No, that the stewardship of animals is God’s command. And that includes a couple of things. Number one, in Genesis 9 in the Noahic covenant, it is clear that animals are for us to eat. Now, again, that’s not all animals, but some animals are for us to eat. They are good for us. And that is very clear in Scripture. There you again, look at Genesis 9.

But it’s also important to recognize there’s the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, and that was absolutely right because God the creator said it is to be this way. And so, mistreatment of animals, especially cruelty to animals, is something that certainly is not compatible with the biblical worldview, but the right use of animals is. And so, I want to tell you, my heart goes out to you. And as you serve as mother to this seven-year-old who’s got such a sensitive heart, you don’t want to make that heart less sensitive, you just want to guide that heart according to Scripture in such a way that he comes to understand things more and more, by and by.

Okay. On a similar theme, sort of a similar theme, I want to take a question sent in by a grandfather. I just love this. Listening to The Briefing this grandfather writes in and asks a question on behalf of a nine-year-old grandson, we’re told that he loves reading about dragons and dinosaurs and has a question, “Were dinosaurs before or after Adam and Eve, and what does the Bible say about dragons and dinosaurs?”

Well, I love the question. Let me tell you why I love the question. It’s because I was once a nine-year-old boy with the same kind of interest. And you know what? Growing up does not mean you get over the interest, because as I am recording this right now, on the recording table with me is a replica skull of Tyrannosaurus rex. That’s right, I’m still a nine-year-old at heart.

But let me just give you the quick answer to the question. I believe that humans and dinosaurs were on the Earth together. I think the only way we can understand these things according to scripture is to understand that all of the animals on the land and human beings were created on the sixth day of creation. I think you also see this echoed in other passages in scripture. And so, you have Noah’s Ark and the animals going in two by two. I see absolutely no reason why some of what we call dinosaurs … And remember, that that’s a somewhat antiquarian category. It goes back only, by the way, to the 19th century. But there were certainly, I believe, some of those animals we would call dinosaurs two by two on the ark.

I think they clearly did die out. We think most of them did die out. We have fossil evidence that many of these creatures did die out. But we’ve also seen the extinction of any number of species and lines of animal development. Nothing particularly surprising there, especially with climate change. You have all kinds of changes that have taken place since the sixth day of creation. But I also think you have echoes in scripture. And so, for example, you have in the Book of Job chapter 40, and just look there at the center of that chapter, you’ll notice a reference to behemoth. And so, you also have other biblical references to dragons and to animals that seem to be inexplicable except for the fact that human beings had an experience with giant animals, some of which appeared to be quite threatening, that simply underlined to them the glory of God.

And remember this, God takes delight in his creatures. So, that means you have full warrant as a nine-year-old, and I would also say to the grandfather here, you have full warrant as the grandfather of a nine-year-old to celebrate the dinosaurs and to see God’s glory in them. And that’s just a part of the biblical story.

I can’t answer every particular question, but I will tell you this. I don’t believe the so-called theory of evolution is doing any better at explaining the dinosaurs. I’m going to trust the word of God. I’m going to trust the Book of Genesis. And I’m going to look right now at a replica skull of Tyrannosaurus rex before me and I’m going to be thankful that in this skull I see the glory of God reflected. I’m also thankful that I’m not looking at a live Tyrannosaurus rex.

All right. With the state funeral of former President Carter, we had less time today for some of these questions, but I’ll tell you, I enjoyed these questions very much. You can send your own questions simply to mail at albertmohler.com and week by week we will get to as many as possible.