High-profile suicides at empty wells
I wish I was more surprised than I am, though I don’t feel as if I should be. A couple days ago, as I was enjoying Christmas break and indulging in one of my favorite activities – expressing my distaste for televangelists, especially those of the health and wealth variety, my mom asked my southern Californian brother if he’d heard about the suicide in the big glass church. Not being familiar with the big glass church in California, but correctly assuming that it was part of the word-faith family, and also being ready to hear anything bad about said movement, I further interrogated my mom, and later the Internet, as to what happened.
Johnnie Carl, 57, incredible music career, played piano for such people as Celine Dion, John Tesh, and the London Symphony, and the music conductor of Robert Schuller's internationally televised Hour of Power every week, died of depression last week. Well, the coroner's reports might say something much more technical, like self-inflicted gunshot wound, and the insurance companies will probably be much more blunt when they call it a suicide, but I can imagine that it was really the emptiness that got him in the end.
A little more about his career - he worked in the Crystal Cathedral www.crystalcathedral.org, which is architecturally, probably one of the most beautiful religious buildings in the country. If "nice" is a quality you're looking for in a church, this is the one for you. It's a nice building, in nice, sunny Southern California, with nice members who come in their nice cars to do nice things, and be nice to each other. While at the nice (dare I call it a...) church, the congregation can hear a nice message about living a nice life. Then they can go to the nice giftstore and buy a nice Crystal Cathedral stuffed animal, or a nice Christmas ornament, and while they're in this nice mega-Christian complex they can even book a nice vacation to Europe, the Carribean, or wherever else their nice little hearts desire. You get the point. This church has the corner on "nice."
Too bad it's completely empty.
While I realize that mental illness is indiscriminatory, and that suicide and depression are present across every religion and denomination, I can't help but wonder how such a high-profile man like Mr. Carl was driven to suicide. What could have changed the ending of this man's story? I hope that I am not rash in placing a large portion of the blame on the bad theology of the church that defined his life. A theology that teaches grace without discipleship, buying the field without selling everything you have, finding a wider gate instead of trying to squeeze through the narrow one. A theology that teaches that serving money and success is equivalent to serving God. A theology that offers not only the best of the world yet to come, but also the best in this temporal world.
In a quick reading of the Gospel of John, you can find that Jesus claims to be He who truly satisfies - actually, that claim is all over the Bible, but I see it so blatantly in John. Jesus is constantly satisfying the hungers and the thirsts of those around Him. The feeding of the 5,000, the water into wine, His claim to be the Bread of Life, and His encounter with the woman at the well. He is the great Satisfier.
Standing in a corner far from Jesus were the false teachers, which Peter called "springs without water, mists driven by a storm...promising (their followers) freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption (2 Peter 2:17-19)."
Under whose teaching was Johnnie Carl sitting, then? The Living Water, or the waterless springs? The increasingly satisfying satisfaction of God, or the disappointment of an empty well? I can't recall Jesus promising even once the kind of material success that Crystal Cathedral and her sister churches boast and promise to their followers. Only two of Jesus' promises are really sticking out to me right now. The promise of trouble in this life, and the promise of eternal joy. In an effort to work around the promised trouble, Crystal and her people may eternally miss the promised joy. Mr. Carl did.
May this tragedy serve as a warning to those drinking from the empty wells of nice lies.
May God bring comfort, healing, and truth to Mrs. Carl, her family, and her fellow church-goers.
Johnnie Carl, 57, incredible music career, played piano for such people as Celine Dion, John Tesh, and the London Symphony, and the music conductor of Robert Schuller's internationally televised Hour of Power every week, died of depression last week. Well, the coroner's reports might say something much more technical, like self-inflicted gunshot wound, and the insurance companies will probably be much more blunt when they call it a suicide, but I can imagine that it was really the emptiness that got him in the end.
A little more about his career - he worked in the Crystal Cathedral www.crystalcathedral.org, which is architecturally, probably one of the most beautiful religious buildings in the country. If "nice" is a quality you're looking for in a church, this is the one for you. It's a nice building, in nice, sunny Southern California, with nice members who come in their nice cars to do nice things, and be nice to each other. While at the nice (dare I call it a...) church, the congregation can hear a nice message about living a nice life. Then they can go to the nice giftstore and buy a nice Crystal Cathedral stuffed animal, or a nice Christmas ornament, and while they're in this nice mega-Christian complex they can even book a nice vacation to Europe, the Carribean, or wherever else their nice little hearts desire. You get the point. This church has the corner on "nice."
Too bad it's completely empty.
While I realize that mental illness is indiscriminatory, and that suicide and depression are present across every religion and denomination, I can't help but wonder how such a high-profile man like Mr. Carl was driven to suicide. What could have changed the ending of this man's story? I hope that I am not rash in placing a large portion of the blame on the bad theology of the church that defined his life. A theology that teaches grace without discipleship, buying the field without selling everything you have, finding a wider gate instead of trying to squeeze through the narrow one. A theology that teaches that serving money and success is equivalent to serving God. A theology that offers not only the best of the world yet to come, but also the best in this temporal world.
In a quick reading of the Gospel of John, you can find that Jesus claims to be He who truly satisfies - actually, that claim is all over the Bible, but I see it so blatantly in John. Jesus is constantly satisfying the hungers and the thirsts of those around Him. The feeding of the 5,000, the water into wine, His claim to be the Bread of Life, and His encounter with the woman at the well. He is the great Satisfier.
Standing in a corner far from Jesus were the false teachers, which Peter called "springs without water, mists driven by a storm...promising (their followers) freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption (2 Peter 2:17-19)."
Under whose teaching was Johnnie Carl sitting, then? The Living Water, or the waterless springs? The increasingly satisfying satisfaction of God, or the disappointment of an empty well? I can't recall Jesus promising even once the kind of material success that Crystal Cathedral and her sister churches boast and promise to their followers. Only two of Jesus' promises are really sticking out to me right now. The promise of trouble in this life, and the promise of eternal joy. In an effort to work around the promised trouble, Crystal and her people may eternally miss the promised joy. Mr. Carl did.
May this tragedy serve as a warning to those drinking from the empty wells of nice lies.
May God bring comfort, healing, and truth to Mrs. Carl, her family, and her fellow church-goers.
posted by Andy at 5:25 PM
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