leaving church: on suicide and hell

I’m posting the audio of something I recorded reflecting on a part of my life that was incredibly difficult. If you need help, there are people ready to talk with you at any time. Please know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE and YOU ARE LOVED.

CW/TW: Suicide and hell

Please also note there are occasional dogs barking and emergency sirens in the background at 0:30 second and 5:00 and later on. I tried to edit most of it out. Hazards of recording outside in my yard. If that bothers you, I am so sorry.I totally understand. 

The summary is this: All Suicides do NOT go to hell. That’s based on a hateful God and I do not believe that this is God’s heart. It’s not the Jesus who emerges in the Bible and there is no indication any where in the Bible that suicide is specifically unforgivable or unredeemable. I hope that gives you comfort and peace. It did for me.

[Editor’s Note: By the way, the dogs are fine. We live next to a public trail and they bark and whimper at people going by. in case you were worried.]

Thanks for listening/reading.

Here is the transcript of what I said in this recording. Thanks for tuning in!
Hi, thanks for tuning in. Yesterday I posted about an event in my life that was very significant. I was 15 at the time, in 10th grade, at a private Christian school. And my best friend, since we were about two or three years old, we’d grown up together, gone on vacations together as families.

Our families were very close. We did a lot together. And when we were 15, my best friend Matthew killed himself. And, of course, for a small, tight-knit Christian fundamentalist church community that shocked everyone.

And it was an incredibly difficult time for our families, for our broader church community, and for our school. In our Christian school, it was small. There were maybe 15 kids in my class. And there’s a lot more that can be said there, but it was a shock.

It was a shockwave that went through our communities back in 1988. And, of course, I was devastated. I knew he was depressed. I knew he was having issues. I knew that there were things going on that we would talk about.

We would talk about everything. He was my best friend. We would talk about people who had crushes on. We talked about things that were wrong. were difficult, we talked about our families, we talked about our faith, and I knew that he had wanted to die.

I knew that he wanted to just end the pain that he felt in life. I know a lot more now, obviously 30 some years later now, I’ve read a lot. In the years that followed, I read a lot about suicide. By the time I got to college, I had done a lot of, you know, as much as you can, this is, you know, obviously before Google, and I would try to read things from the Bible, I try to understand.

One of the things that happened immediately after was a Christian counselor came to our school. And I recently just shared this with someone. They had no idea that this kind of thing happened, but our school invited someone.

A pastor or a counselor came in to talk with our, with anyone who wanted to, but specifically with our class at the time. And I remember walking into this room with all these kids from my class and people who knew him well in this room in a big circle.

And I don’t remember much of what happened. I do remember having to go around the circle and saying something like, you know, how are you feeling? I remember him asking if Matthew was here right now, what would you say to him?

Um, um, remember I’m 15 years old and I was raised in a strict fundamentalist home and church. We weren’t, we weren’t the worst. I mean, you know, some stories that I definitely grew up in Gothard. I grew up Dobson.

I grew up John MacArthur, right? I got all these influences of how to parent and how to, uh, how the Christian home should look like. We didn’t talk a lot about how we felt about things. We didn’t talk a lot about, you know, you’re, you’re allowed to express that you’re struggling, but we had to have some kind of conclusion and, and, uh, you couldn’t doubt anything.

You couldn’t, you couldn’t feel like, well, maybe I don’t agree about this particular, you know, doctrine that you have. Uh, and it really wasn’t, um, until I was older that I, I felt like, um, well, I realized that I could have a different belief.

Anyway, uh, this Christian counselor came to our school, and I don’t know if anyone else in my class remembers this. We had this big debate on whether or not all suicides go to hell. Um, I don’t know if you can hear my dog barking, but it was kind of right on cue.

Uh, all suicides do not go to hell. That, that is, it is spiritually oppressive doctrine. Um, you know, the arguments were, and this came from that pastor, and it came from other teachers, and it came from other students.

And I bet some people who were watching this are like, well, yeah. But I’m going to say something here that I’ve thought for a long time and haven’t talked to very many people about. You know, this idea that suicides go to hell is based on a callous, unloving, hateful God.

And I don’t, that’s not who I believe God is. And I don’t believe that’s the work that Jesus did on the cross for all of us. And I’m not, I’m not going to go into that or preach a sermon on it or anything.

But I do, I did want to say that out loud, because the idea that, like, one of the most prevalent ideas is that they didn’t have time to repent of their sin. Between the time they died and went to heaven, or went, you know, died.

I feel that that is such a limited, humanistic explanation for what happens in someone’s soul. If we, I mean, first off, you have to repent for every single sin that we’ve ever done before we die in order to get into heaven.

But I mean, that’s, I mean, that’s basically, I mean, that’s, that’s kind of purgatory, isn’t it? Like the idea of purgatory, like you’re not quite ready for heaven. So you need to go through these stages to get purified.

And I don’t, I don’t believe in that either. I mean, if that’s true, then yeah, we’re all going to spend some time. I don’t believe that, that you have to repent for every single thing you’ve ever done.

And to be clear, you do have to repent. And I hope those who believe in this Christianity belief system that we do repent daily and even of the things we don’t even know about. Like, you know, the God would convict us. I mean, I pray all the time that God would convict me if I’m doing something that’s harming someone. It’s happened. I randomly realized something I did was harmful to someone and I’ve had to humble myself and say that that was not great. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Uh, sometimes they don’t and that’s okay too. Um, you know.

back to this idea of suicide. The, the things that I’ve learned since 1988, the things that we’ve all learned as a, you know, society, it’s humanity about suicide.

Um, it is incredibly complex. and and the mental process that people go through is is incredibly hard and to write it off as you know I mean you know this mental illness as a factor you know prolonged periods of depression without any help or assistance without really understanding what’s happening I mean as a 15 year old in a fundamentalist Christian background where you don’t really you know it’s it’s this kind of you know you must not be trusting God enough you know there’s all kinds of language that’s used to kind of stifle the truth and the complexity of how you’re feeling again it’s 1988 you know wasn’t it wasn’t something that we really were talking about at least in my circles at the time you just you know you fake it you make it kind of approach to life and and so by the time that I was old enough to really unpack it all and to do some more work and I mean I remember looking it up in a card catalog okay I mean at a library because I wasn’t gonna ask the librarian for research on suicide I mean I’m laughing now it’s not funny please don’t take this as me taking it lightly but it’s just you know the the image of that like you know if if you wanted information on something having to go to some stranger and asking them for it it’s just you know that’s that’s the reality of how we grew up and so yeah it’s here we are you know 2024 and I think we have a better understanding of what causes behind suicide and for myself,

you know, I have had several times in my life where I found this so incredibly alone and so hopeless. There’s just no hope, like nothing would ever change. I’d never be able to get out of the pit that I found myself in.

I was making horrible choices. I was putting myself in dangerous situations on purpose. I was hoping someone would just kill me. And then there were times in my life where I had, you know, I had made a plan and thought if I just…

if I could just, um, finish up some things and I was going to be free and for a number of different reasons that I know now is the hand of God, uh, just kept me from, from going through with it. Um, you know, I, in doing this journey, I feel like there’s, there’s so much to be said that just doesn’t get said.

I mean, so many times I hear from people like nobody I know personally is talking about these things and I don’t know how to process something that happened or I don’t know who to go to. I don’t feel safe with other, or I’ve tried to talk to other people and they just don’t get it, et cetera.

Um, and, and I’ve been there, oh, oh, I’ve been there. Um, and I don’t want anyone to feel alone like that. It’s, it’s such a devastating feeling of just, you have zero places to go. And I know that, you know, Jesus is there.

Jesus is there. I absolutely believe that. Please don’t take this as me saying that Jesus is not there. In my darkest hours, I have felt the presence of God. I have felt, you know, I tell people this story.

I have been some in a place in, in the darkest of places. And I would swear to you that I heard the voice of God. That’s me. And that’s my experience. And I know that there are other people who say, well, you know what, Robin?

I begged God to talk to me and he never did. And I get that too. I do. I get that. I get that. I am not saying that God answered me every time. Every time I cried out to him. He definitely did not. He definitely did not.

And so yeah, I get that. And that’s why God sends people. And that’s why God, I deeply believe that people get what they need. And I believe that it’s up to us to be what people need. And it means, you know, for me, it’s meaning right now to be a voice in spaces where other people aren’t talking about these things.

And to have the courage to do it. I mean, this is so out of my comfort zone. Like, uh, you know, I’m not, I, I’m a writer. I like writing, uh, making videos like this, not so much, but I feel like over the past few years, I’ve felt more and more like people need to hear these stories and they need it from people who are willing to be real and to be messy and to not tie things up in a bow or not to,

not to spin some kind of, you know, I see it as toxic positivity, like let’s just cover over all this stuff. Like, Oh yeah, my life was hard, but now I have Jesus. And it’s also good because it’s not, it’s not, it is hard.

It is hard to have faith. It is hard to believe. It is hard to, to keep walking, to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Some days it really is. And it’s really hard to, um, you know, to see some of the things I’ve seen, to experience that I’ve experienced and to keep telling myself that Jesus loves us, that Jesus has purpose and everything that, you know, all the, all the messages that we tell ourselves and it’s hard.

And I want nothing else than to show other people that you can be honest about that and you can have a safe place where you can express those things. You’re not, uh, gonna lose your salvation over it.

You’re not gonna, you know, the, the people that will shame or rebuke you or try to silence you or tell you, oh, let’s not talk about that. Let’s keep positive. Um, those people you may lose and that’s how.

It’s okay. It’s okay. Trust me, it’s, it’s, I mean, I’m not gonna say you’re better off without them or, you know, I don’t, I don’t want to sound like I’m bitter or against those people. That’s what they’re doing for themselves to feel better.

That’s their comfort zone. And for them to step over the line to comfort you is asking a lot. I mean, maybe that’s one of the things that I’ve learned over the years most, especially at ministry. Sorry, uh, probably one of the things that I have lost over the years is the sense of performance, like, trying to make people feel better and I don’t, I can’t do that if I also have to sacrifice my integrity and that’s been really hard over the course of my life like trying to find that line that I can’t cross and saying yeah I can’t go with you there you do what you gotta do I don’t answer for you you don’t answer for me but I gotta do what I believe is right in the moment and that that’s always it’s always has to be my priority and so yeah that’s why I’m doing these videos that’s why I’m writing this book hopefully if I can get some funding I’d love to put together a documentary about a documentary a documentary about my life and it’s not it’s not so that everyone knows about me it it’s a framework it’s a framework of the issues that I feel we can do more towards understanding and we’re towards talking publicly about things that are sometimes shushed and silenced in a lot of spaces that I’ve been in so thank you for listening if you’re still listening I know this is long but hoping to get a few of these put it on of the issues that are really important to me and I hope that it helps me as well.

If you have any questions as always, I’m an open book. Most people who know me will tell you that I’m usually really willing to sit and talk with anyone. I’ll answer questions, good faith questions, I should say because there are certainly those people who just want to change their mind and I guess that’s what you feel compelled to do.

Have I learned, I’ve learned from people who randomly send me things and just say, hey, have you thought about this? And I’m like, yeah, that’s a good point. I am pretty thorough. I’m a kind of person that reads a lot of everything.

I like listening to other people’s opinions. I think it through. And chances are good that I’ve heard your particular opinion, but once in a while, I’ll get something to consider and I’ll consider it.

Thank you again. And again, please reach out, especially if you feel so trapped and alone and just need someone who won’t judge you and who won’t gaslight you or question your reality I really wanna be a person who doesn’t do any of those things because I deeply believe that you’re loved and just as you are.

And that’s been the thing that saved my life. So thank you for listening and I’ll talk to you soon.