When Depression Leads Pastors to Suicide

When depression leads pastors to suicide

One out of four pastors is depressed

Dec 01, 2009
 

"What kind of personal pain would cause a 42-year-old pastor to abandon his family, his calling and even life itself? Members of a Baptist church in Hickory, North Carolina, are asking that question after their pastor committed suicide in his parked car in September.

Those who counsel pastors say Christian culture, especially southern evangelicalism, creates the perfect environment for depression. Pastors suffer in silence, unwilling or unable to seek help or even talk about it. Sometimes they leave the ministry. Occasionally the result is the unthinkable.

Experts say clergy suicide is a rare outcome to a common problem. But Baptists in the Carolinas are soul searching after a spate of suicides and suicide attempts by pastors. In addition to the recent suicide of David Treadway, two pastors in North Carolina attempted suicide and three in South Carolina died by suicide, all in the past four years".   THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY

What would cause a Christian Minister, Pastor or Cleric to take their lives?  On the basic level, the reasons would be the same as for anyone who makes the conscious (or unconscious) decision to end their lives.  Despair seems to be the bottom line and is simply a condition a human being arrives at after they have spent years perhaps in denial over their reality, choices or personal failures or circumstances in life.

Let's get this out of the way.  Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  Easy to say and certainly those who "would never think of such a thing..." can see the truth in that.  However, when lost in the fog of despair, it seems like THE solution to a permanent problem.  And in answer to the impolite question most would ask me is...yes I have.  I find that almost everyone I have asked about this topic say "yes" at one time in life or another.  So the thought is common among humans evidently.

I know several COG ministers who have committed suicide over the years of WCG drama, scandal and disappointments.  They are not listed on the sites that note such things.  More have ended their lives than those whose lives ended by suicide are noted.  The men I knew put on a good front.  Intelligent guys with hearts for ministry and their congregations.  Men, who as young men or even kids found hope in the teachings of the WCG.  It took years to realize that the more you looked at the details of the "Big Picture," the more disheartened you could become.  These men drank themselves to death.  I believe they meant to and of course the fog of drink to delay the pain felt makes getting out of the hole of despair almost impossible.
 

Over the years as a Pastor, several members committed suicide. One very nice fellow came to see me to talk, drove around the block I lived on, never stopped and drove home to end his life.  I did have one man hang himself from his CB tower, rather unsuccessfully.  He hung enough to not be able to get out of hanging but did not hang enough to die.  When EMS rescued him, he called me to say he wanted me to remarry him and his wife.  I guess he had a revelation hanging around on that tower.  Probably a common thing but few get to undo what they have done.

I always quoted the Old Testament account of Saul falling on his sword.  It simply says "and the battle went hard against him..."   That explains it all.  That is the definition of despair.

At any rate, I don't intend this to be a study in anything.  I would like to express my own thoughts, based on my own experiences on why a minister would commit suicide.
 

A.  First of all, because or she is human first.  Those who minister well and sincerely until the despair and disillusionment hit really want to teach and encourage others in the hope that lies within them.  That was my goal and no matter how many times I am told "but you were one of them,"  I know my heart very well.  I am not speaking of the nut cases who see themselves in the pages of the Bible, both Old Testament and New.  These men are mentally ill and need meds not contributions.  But I spare you.  The pastoral types I knew were generally and probably healer types all their lives.  They tended to put others first and themselves last. They probably had a temperament very close to ENFP (Extrovert, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceptive)  Job descriptions for these types are along the lines of "pastors, social workers, ministers and yes, even massage therapists...I'm not making this up)  They have a heart for pastoring no matter the denomination. 

The problem can be is that they are idealists and get totally befuddled over the concept of "I wouldn't do that to you, why did you do that to me?"  They believe the best until they can't and then when they can't, they go into denial hoping against hope time will heal or change what they see but have a hard time accepting.  They are also good followers IF they believe in the leadership.  They also tend to be the leaders worst critic when they wake up.

About 20 years ago I ended myself up in a counseling program for depression.  One morning my little group of equally depressed types were told to show up at the gym.  When there, we could see there was a regular wooden pallet in the middle of the gym floor and we all were simply told to all make a way to get on the pallet and get our feet off the floor for 30 seconds.  There were almost too many humans for a bit too little of a pallet.  At any rate, feeling like fools, we all did as asked.  When finished, we went back to the group session and the leader asked us one question.  "Where did you find yourself on the pallet?"   It hit me right between the eyes and I got it.  Some were smack in the middle assuring their place. You can't fall off the middle.  We were all scattered from the center of the pallet to the edges.  Guess where I was?  Yep...on the very edge, hardly able to stay on, arms around all I could embrace to hold them on with me.  I have been doing that all my life.  Caretakers when in despair tend to feel life is all or nothing.

B.  Ministers take their lives because they have to live a double life.  By the way, this is true of every member as well.  I have met NOT ONE MINISTER who did not have two ways of being once we got acquainted.  There is the way one thinks they are supposed to be and that bangs up against the way one also is.  Both are sincere and both exist in everyone actually.   When you join a church, you put on the mask and hope to keep the other side at bay.  I don't believe we have "an evil side," just the "other side."  ....the human side.  Every minister I know and knew has topics that he feels strongly about but has to balance that by saying,  "but if I teach that, I'll lose my job."

The problem is that while members in a congregation demand forgiveness and understanding when they fall short, that grace is not generally extended to the minister who is just like them.  The minister tends to be the sacrificial goat and the member expects him/her to be and do what they generally have no intention of being or doing.  Its why we don't think it's such a big deal for the Pope to forgive the guy who tried to kill him.  HE"S THE POPE!  HE HAS TO FORGIVE HIM!  THE POPE IS A PROFESSIONAL FORGIVER!

It's the rejection and despair of having to pray others won't find them out that leads to ending one's life at times.  I at least have to credit the Apostle Paul in his writings in Romans with admitting to this duality and pain.  Paul was a very guilt and shame ridden human being.  Conveniently we aren't told by him what the thorn in the flesh was or what it was that he should have done, but couldn't do but I understand it.  You only let out the fact that there is a struggle.  But the nature of the struggle or the despair it causes is often just something that most don't trust to share about.  Admitting one's struggle to some types can also be a form of suicide.  You know..."twas not a foe who did deride for that I could endure....."

C.  Ministers take their lives literally because when their faith tanks no matter the reason, there doesn't seem to be anything else.  It has been their career, job, calling and inspiration for decades.  Finding out or suspecting one has wasted a life teaching the wrong thing, or being with the wrong group, or sacrificing for the wrong cause can bring despair.  Or as one of my counselors said once when he first met me...."Wow...you got fired by God!"    At the time, it wasn't funny.

D.  Ministers take their lives because of their sense of personal failure and also letting others down.  I always admired those who really seemed not to give a flying leap about what others think of them, and that is probably better mental health, but most pastor types do care.  It goes with the turf and their idealism and healer tendencies.  Most genuine ministers, regardless of what denomination of which one Jesus and God  really like, are healers by nature.  These healer/idealist types are NOT the ones who rise to high position in organizations.  They are not the type who declare themselves to be Prophets, Priests, Apostles or Witnesses.  Many men who rise to these positions do so on the backs of the healers and idealists.  Healers and idealists do not become gurus or dictators.  When things fall apart, they generally and quietly slip away unnoticed.  Some are overtaken by their idealism gone bad.  They may lack the balance to accept certain realities in the world of people.  I find the solution to this sometimes misplaced idealism to be curable by abiding by the Four Agreements by Ruiz.

The Four Agreements are:

1. Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

Well, this is not all there is to this topic, but some of the more personal reasons, in my experience and even in my own struggle with all the losses and change that has exploded my own idealism and caretaking tendencies.  It's a big topic.  We're all in this together even if we can't quite figure out anymore what "this" is.

The Spa beckons and I have to go rub someone the right way for a change..Gotta go....:)

DenniscDiehl@aol.com   

 

The Boy In The Box: Child Abuse in Armstrongism

I ran across this tonight.  I do not remember this story at all.  Sadly, this is just one of many hundreds of child abuse cases that went on in Armstrongism.  Just one more sad legacy of the church.

This is from what I assume is a UCG member's blog:  This Hurts You More Than It Hurts Me

Tim’s mother, Debra, wanted to make a better life. She’d had two children, Tim and Donna, in her teens and tried to raise them as a single mum in Washington, USA.

She decided to move state, seeking to reunite with the children’s father and try to have a proper family. Her step-mother, Retha Skyles, offered to help. She said she would look after Tim and Donna in Washington while Debra established a home interstate. She arranged for Debra to sign a document giving her temporary legal custody.

While Debra was away, Retha moved state and told Debra she had signed over all her parental rights to Retha. She wouldn’t tell Debra where her children were. Six years later, with Debra having given up any hope of getting her children back, Retha Skyles returned to Washington with Debra’s children, Tim and Donna, still in her care.

Donna was a child who, by her nature, tended to be obedient with little urging or discipline needed. Tim, however, was a boy who needed more explicit discipline to understand and accept boundaries on his behaviour. Unfortunately for Tim, his new “mother”, Retha, did not know how to discipline a child.

When Tim, now around six years old, disobeyed Retha this is what would happen: He would be made to bend over, bare-bottomed, and receive beatings administered with a wooden cutting board. If Tim cried, the beating would intensify to punish him for crying. This abuse didn’t stop until all crying and negative facial expressions had ceased and Tim was in silent submission.
Retha was confused when this approach didn’t seem to be working with Tim. It had “worked” with her own children, and it seemed to be effective with Donna. But Tim’s behaviour wasn’t improving. He was starting to behave oddly and have strange tantrums of inhuman screaming. Retha took her to a doctor, telling him that Tim was in her care because her daughter had used drugs. The doctor suggested Tim “might” have mild brain damage from the in utero exposure to drugs. Retha, knowing that she did not have legal custody of the children, didn’t dare seek any further professional advice. She determined to devise new methods of discipline on her own to manage this ostensibly brain-damaged child. She was determined to eradicate all roots of his evil, while keeping him protected from his “drug-abusing” mother.

When Tim was 8 year old, Retha moved in with her own mother. Retha’s son, Glen, was already living there. Glen recalls, “One would almost not know that Tim was there. Except for periodical screaming and butt-beating sessions, he’d be virtually invisible except [at church], where he sat quietly, and was always known as a remarkably “good little boy.’”

Retha had discovered isolation seemed to have some effect on Tim. She would seat him inside a circle of chairs draped with blankets. Tim’s behaviour came increasingly odd. He would bite his fingernails and chew holes in the blankets.

Tim had learned not to cry when punished, holding back with a grimace. However, his grimaces were seen by Retha as defiance, and he was beaten more severely for them. Retha asked her son Glen to build a box four feet by four feet by seven feet, with a bed on top. Glen built it, as asked, with one side open. Retha then closed the remaining side and kept Tim inside the box, only allowing him out to attend church and to defecate. He had a jar in the box with him to urinate in. Retha was calling him “the devil’s child.” He was occasionally cleaned with a wash-cloth, and wasn’t allowed to wear clothes. In his box there were no blankets or pillow – nothing for comfort. He would sleep curled in a tight ball.

To pass the time, Tim would imagine what it might be like to go outside. He thought all children lived in boxes, but imagined some mother’s were a little nicer than Retha. One day Glen gave him a stuffed toy dog. It was the first soft thing Tim can remember. “I used to talk to it,” says Tim. “I dreamed that it would come to life and break the lock. I thought maybe it would help me.” Later, Retha cut the toy to pieces with a knife.

Eventually Glen, who had been a victim himself of abusive “discipline”, realised the seriousness of what was happening to Tim. He went to his minister for advice. The minister, having heard his story, sat in silence for a moment. He then accused Glen of a variety of sins and warned him to stop speaking evil of his mother, threatening that there would be serious consequences if Glen told anyone else.

Glen finally went to Child Services, who within reasonably short time removed Tim and Donna from Retha’s care. The story of the “boy in the box” soon exploded in news reports around the world. It was 1987.

The above story was reconstructed from the following accounts:

• Poison Doctrine: the Dichotomy of Armstrongism by CW (contributing writer) on the blog As Bereans Did
• Years locked in boy spur boy’s search from The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, June 9, 1996
• Accusations about boy in box denied from The Daily Record, Ellensburg, Washington, October 12, 1987
• Woman claims boy-in-a-box story ‘twisted’ from the Spokane Chronicle, October 14, 1987.

Retha Skyles was a member of the Worldwide Church of God, a predecessor of my current church. The minister from whom Glen sought advice was a Worldwide Church of God minister in Tacoma, Washington.

Armstrongism, British Israelism, Two House Messianics

I found this interesting little family tree of the silliness that is British Israelism and how it came into the COG.

It is from the Ephraimite Deception web site

By the 19th Century Anti-Semitism was rampant throughout most of the civilized world and the Jews of the diaspora had become a people rejected by most of the civilized world. Against this backdrop an Irish Minister of the 19th Century, John Wilson, published his essay entitled "Our Israelitish Origin" in 1840. Wilson attempted to provide empirical information that supported British- Israelism. His arguments suggested that similarities to English ways in certain elements in Hebrew language and social institutions were not merely coincidental.. British-Israel organizations formed during the 1870s on account of slow, but growing acceptanceof Wilson's teachings. The linguistic argument is still the principle argument used today to support this theory. Such concepts as Brit-Ish meaning "Covenant of Man" and the Gaelic word for name being "Shaim" have become cornerstones of the Brit-Israel concept. The reality is that most of these borrowed words can be traced to the documented Semitic origin of the Celtic people. A history which shows them to be Phoenician in origin. For more detail please read my page on The History of the European peoples.

Wilson's claims that the Irish were the residue of the lost tribes found it primary acceptance amongst the Millerites. The followers of a false prophet from New York named William Miller who proclaimed that "Jesus" would return on October 23, 1844 (Sukkoth) when he failed to appear he moved the date 6 months to approximently Pesach, 1845. After the failure of his prophecies the Millerites tended to fall apart but historically many of their adherents moved were instrumental in the forming of the Adventist Sects later in the 19th Century.

By the early 20th century these beliefs had migrated to America and tended to follow two distinct pathways to the modern day. First the Millerites had become the American Adventists which continue to this day as the sect known as Seventh Day Adventists. An offshoot of that sect developed in 1927 as the Worldwide Church of God under American Adventist Herbert W. Armstrong. In 1928, Howard B. Rand became the National Chairman of the Ango-Saxon Federation of America. Rand was a notorious Anti-Semite and by the 1940s he influenced Pastor Wesley Swift of Lancaster California to adopt a mixture of British Israelism and Racial Hatred that became the modern day Christian Identity Movement, the spiritual arm of the Ku Klux Klan. The Identity movement emphatically believes that the modern day Jews are of the House of Judah, while Anglo-Saxons are of the House of Israel.  The movement maintains that only the Anglo-Saxons, of the House of Israel, have a covenant with God, thereby inducing pro-white attitudes.

So the etymology of Anglo-Israelism traces the movement from one teacher using linguistic games in the early 19th century... through a false prophet to the formation of a strange legalistic sect (the Adventists) to a full blown cult (WWCOG) and its derivatives (COG) into modern day where we have seen that it produced as a sub-branch and anti-Semitic hate group

Further information debunking British Israelism can be found here: Debunking British Israelism