Life can be so ineffably sad sometimes, and when I recently read about the suicide of a high-profile pastor I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It made me angry even as it broke my heart. Commenting on a situation like it is fraught with danger in an age such as ours, so I will tread as lightly as I can. The reason for my trepidation is that our secular age imposes certain values and interpretations of reality upon us that are antithetical to our faith, and Christians have imbibed many of them. It’s very difficult not to because that’s the way culture works; you breathe it’s air, you absorb its values, and its way of seeing things, its interpretation of reality.
Why did this particular suicide confound me? Because a young (30), handsome man with a beautiful wife and three very cute little boys decided to kill himself, and not only that but he was a Christian and pastor of a large, dynamic church. Looking at the pictures of those three boys and their mother, our heart breaks. It makes us angry that he left them without a father and husband. Reading about this 29 year-old widow trying to explain to their little boys that their father is never coming home again is beyond heart breaking. I’m also angry like Jesus before Lazarus’ tomb because life in a fallen world in a fallen body among fallen people is really hard, often harder than we can seem to bear.
Trying to explain why something like this could happen is where it gets difficult, and the thing I know most in life, especially as I get older, is how little I actually know. One thing I do know, however, is that we live in a time of The Triumph of the Therapeutic. Every challenge we face is seen through the lens of the therapeutic; it is ubiquitous. Simply defined, it means “of or relating to the treating or curing of disease; curative.” Everything is some sort of illness from which we seek to be cured. This includes the psychological, emotional, and behavioral aspects of our lives, not just the physical. And it is all based on the secular assumptions of materialism, that there is no spiritual reality that impacts our existence, and even if there might be one, it is irrelevant.
The problem with the therapeutic being applied to the non-physical facets of our lives is the implication that we are no longer responsible for anything we think, feel, or do. So, for example, people who are seriously addicted to alcohol are no longer drunks, which implies agency and responsibility, but alcoholics. It transforms this lack of self-control from a character defect and moral failing, to a disease. And who is responsible for a disease? Sure, certain lifestyle choices could have contributed to getting the disease, but it’s a physical thing. And the goal is to get it cured, which can be especially perilous when dealing with depression and anxiety. Here is why.
The goal in therapy is to feel better, and possibly find a cure. If we don’t feel better then something is wrong. That’s why when we have a problem with our bodies, we go to a doctor to get a diagnosis because something must be wrong with my body. So just as we can be in a sense be victims of our body, so we can be victims of our psyche or emotions. This mentality tends to mitigate against personal responsibility, and thus our ability to heal our mental and emotional issues with right thinking. In many cases it is our secular, therapeutic age that is killing people like this young pastor, not some malady called depression or anxiety. There is obviously such a thing as mental illness, but the therapeutic default is too often to illness, and not personal responsibility.
I don’t know where medicine might come in, and how much of these things are physical or not. But what I do know is that our thoughts are the most powerful things about us, and that we have agency to choose those thoughts. We are in economist Milton Freedman’s words, Free to Choose our thoughts. Nothing but sin compels a negative, self-destructive thought. If we are told, however, that we have some disease, that something is wrong with us, then we lose the most precious thing about us, the glory of being made in God’s image and the ability think and order our lives according to his will. Something, of course, is wrong with us: sin! We are sinners.
One of the most important things I’ve learned in life and taught my children is that we can never feel sorry for ourselves. We are not victims, but if we think we are then self-pity is a logical if destructive response. Most of the time such negative, self-destructive thinking won’t lead to suicide, but it will lead to misery in one form or another. One of my favorite verses when I’m talking to others, including my children, about the vicissitudes of life (or the crucible that is existence, as I often call it) to counter this temptation is Romans 8:28:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
I joke that Paul surely can’t mean all things. Maybe 95%, but all is awfully inclusive. But of course Paul does in fact mean all. All things most definitely are not good in themselves, but our sovereign, all powerful God who died for us in Christ turns them into our good both now in this life, and for eternity with him. We could not have a more powerful antidote to depression, anxiety, and any self-destructive thoughts than this truth. Unfortunately, because we are fallen creatures in a fallen world bad stuff happens. So let us pray for this young widow, her children, family, and their congregation.
Update: John Stonestreet at Breakpoint concisely makes my point in his, “Diagnosing Fallen Humanity”.
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