Suicide

Brian Kinney (Rev.) has fallen asleep.

Dear brother Brian was a good combination of crusty editor and loving pastor. Combined they're nearly the ideal of Reformed pastoral care. The editor isn't afraid of saying "wrong" and "no," and the pastor says it with (and from) love. Knowing Brian first in Great Lakes and then Ohio Valley presbyteries, his departure for Nashville was our loss.

Back in 1996 I went through some tough times connected with my second call to a troubled church and Brian was a great encouragement. He had equanimity about troubles and the presence of real sin in others and in me. Still, he gave me his affection and I was strengthened towards repentance and faith. Thank you, Lord, for your kind provision through my dear brother Brian.

There were quite painful things surrounding Brian's final years in Muncie. His senior pastor of the most productive years of his ministry, Petros Roukas, had departed for Lexington a few years prior to committing suicide, there...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) The Canadian Medical Association Journal just published a study showing that, among women, "increasing parity is associated with decreasing rates of death from suicide." In other words, the birth of children causes women to be less likely to kill themselves.

Yesterday, Mary Lee and I visited two young mothers--one home with her day-old firstborn, and the other at about twenty weeks in her pregnancy, in the hospital fighting to stop premature contractions. Here's our observation: godly mothers love their children and live for them.

And although I'm a romantic who believes very much in conjugal love; generally speaking, married women who have no children would not take as much inspiration from their husbands.

Next month, CMAJ will be publishing a study documenting higher marital satisfaction among couples with no prior history of adultery.

Joke.

(Tim, w/thanks to Taylor) Read this account of the man traded for ten bats, and remember we actually are our brother's keeper. The men who dished out the merciless taunts, chants, and catcalls at Mr. Odom's last appearance in a baseball game were accomplices to murder.

We can spill a lot of words talking about justice and mercy, AIDS orphans, and being missional while not giving a tinker's cuss about the man next to us on the bus, in the carpool, or sitting by himself Sunday morning during Lord's Day worship.

If they checked John Odom's cell phone, would they find a single call from a follower of Jesus Christ during this poor man's last week of life? One of us had a chance with him. One of us knew--I'm sure of it.

The solipsistic end of Hunter S. Thompson is detailed here. Forget the verbal bouquets about the stoic writer embracing his destiny. Thompson shot himself in the midst of a quarrel with his wife.

He was a selfish man, funny from a distance, but miserably self-absorbed. He died as he lived. In the midst of a marital "tiff," his wife walked out on him. He asked her not to go. She left anyway. He called her at the gym where she had gone. They talked for ten minutes. She says he didn't say goodbye, instead she heard a click. The phone went dead. Club members saw her shaking. Minutes later Thompson's son called to say his father was dead.

His time of death, according to the medical examiner, was within minutes of the call.

A short time later Thompson's wife and a select group of friends gathered around the kitchen table where he'd shot himself (and still lay) drinking Chivas Regal in his memory.

All this from an article in today's Rocky Mountain News.

The article quotes Thompson's wife:

"It was very loving. It was not a panic, or ugly, or freaky... It was just like Hunter wanted. He was in control here."

Anita Thompson also echoes the comments that have been made by Hunter Thompson's son and daughter-in-law: That her husband's suicide did not come from the bottom of the well, but was a gesture of strength and ultimate control made as his life was at a high-water mark.

If only the Schiavo family had the "strength" of the Thompsons and their friends. What pain the world would be spared.

If you want to be encouraged in godliness, read "Karen's" comment under the blog entry below, "The Just Shall Die by Faith."

Following last week's memorial service for PCA pastor Petros Roukas I received a copy of the text of Bryan Chapell's funeral sermon titled, "Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit." The sermon, though well-intentioned, was a gloss on the first beatitude (Matthew 5:3).

Mr. Chapell did speak of Petros's suicide as sin. And though Mr. Chapell rightfully held out biblical hope for Petros's salvation, he spoke clearly of the act of suicide as sinful, an act of Biblical fidelity for which I am grateful.

Yet, poverty of spirit is fundamentally different from depression. Poverty of spirit, in fact, is depression's cure and the answer to the suicide's despair. And though it is understandable that Mr. Chapell would wish to give comfort and hope on such an occasion, his use of this text as the basis of his message was disingenuous.

I suspect Mr. Chapell knows that "poverty of spirit" is not the kind of hopelessness which drives us to despair of God's faithfulness and thus to make violent end of ourselves, and had Mr. Chapell not seen fit to permit the publication of his sermon I would have thought these things privately without commenting on them here.

Unfortunately, Mr. Chapell has chosen not only to permit public dissemination of the text of his sermon, but the editorial staff of By Faith Online, the Presbyterian Church in America's online news site, recently made his sermon the most prominent link on their home page.

It would be fitting to memorialize a martyr who died by faith this way. But this was suicide. This was sin. And in his sermon Mr. Chapell comes perilously close to describing such faithless despair as "blessed" of God. And now this sermon has been published. I wish it had not. I wish By Faith Online had not given it such prominent treatment.

But it must now be said that Mr. Chapell's sermon is misleading, and that despite his looking into the pit by proclaiming suicide a sin in his sermon, he did not look long enough or hard enough, and whatever wounds he healed by preaching thus are likely healed lightly rather than fully. I say this because Scripture is clear: "The just shall live by faith."

In the meantime, what is poverty of spirit? According to Thomas Watson:

A father of our presbytery has fallen. Pastor Petros Roukas, who served as senior pastor of Tates Creek Presbyterian Church, took his own life leaving behind hundreds of souls who looked to him as their shepherd, his fellow elders of Ohio Valley Presbytery (PCA); and most sadly, his wife and their two children.

Meeting just now in our fall stated meeting, Ohio Valley Presbytery adopted the following memorial. Please note, particularly, the words in the final paragraph concerning the sin of suicide and the hope, even in the face of this sin, that we have in the blood of Jesus Christ. (For those struggling for a biblical understanding of suicide, I commend these two sermons by the early nineteenth century Princeton Seminary professor and presbyterian pastor, Samuel Miller.)

Memorial for Pastor Petros Roukas
Ohio Valley Presbytery
10/09/04

The teaching elders, ruling elders, and churches of Ohio Valley Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America are saddened by the death of our friend and brother Petros Roukas on September 22, 2004. We intercede before the throne of grace for God's comfort and strength for his wife Jan and children Nicholas and Elizabeth and for his parents Konstantine and Evangelia Roukas in Greece. We also pray for the congregation of Tates Creek Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky where he was serving at the time of his death as well as the previous congregations he served - Westminster PCA in Muncie, Indiana and Calvary PCA in Bricktown, New Jersey.

Petros was born in Greece in 1953 and received a Bachelors of Religious Education at Reformed Bible College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and a Masters of Divinity from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. He was ordained in 1978 by the Midwest Presbytery of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod. He served faithfully at Calvary PCA from 1978-1984; Westminster PCA from 1984-1999; and Tates Creek PCA from 1999-2004. His pastoral ministry was marked by effective preaching and teaching of the gospel, helpful application of the gospel in pastoral counseling settings, strengthening the shepherding ministry of ruling elders, building community in the congregation, and leading numerous cross--cultural mission teams--especially to Jamaica and Mexico.

Throughout his twenty years in Ohio Valley Presbytery of the PCA (previously part of Great Lakes Presbytery) he served on numerous committees. Especially noteworthy was his long term service on the Shepherding Committee where he helped numerous pastors and congregations look to Christ for both the purity and unity of the church.

While the tragic events surrounding his death at his own hand were certainly related to his long struggle with depression--they were also what Petros himself called "sinful and inexcusable." While Petros' grip on the truths of the gospel he preached and ministered so faithfully grew weak in his final actions, we are confident that God did not lose His grip on Petros. We hold that Paul's words in Romans 8 that "if Christ is for us, who can be against us" and "nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus" apply to God's adopted children--even when they are the very ones who are against themselves. As elders of Ohio Valley Presbytery--may God give us the grace to go to Jesus as we are weary and heavy burdened and may God also give us the grace to not only minister to others but to receive ministry from one another as well.

(Memorial gifts, including financial support for Mrs. Roukas, may be sent to Tates Creek Presbyterian Church at 3900 Rapid Run Drive, Lexington, KY 40515.)