Like many my age we well remember the immensely popular Mork and Mindy show. I was a very young adult, just graduated from High School, just beginning life on my own, not yet a Christian, when the show was on the air. When I became a Christian I admittedly struggled for a time missing Mork and Mindy to attend the Wednesday night prayer service at the little church I had recently been baptized into. Upon surrendering to preach I headed to Bible College and, thrilled, became a member of a local Baptist Church in none other than Boulder, CO. I couldn't wait to see all the sights that were a part of the Mork and Mindy program. (The real news about Boulder while I lived there was the murder of JonBenet Ramsey.)
Television and the entertainment industry soon became a fading interest to me as I grew in my studies of the Word of God and interest in the ministry. I have seen very few of Williams' works after Mork and Mindy. Still, he holds a fascination for me because of that piece of influence in my life so many years ago. That a man who seemed that successful, that happy and that energetic would be so depressed as to take his own life is, it seems to me, a warning to us all.
There have been and I am sure will continue to be much published on the subjects of depression and suicide in the wake of his death. (It hasn't even yet been officially ruled a suicide.) Some of what I have seen has emphasized that depression is a disease and that his suicide was the result of the disease. Others have emphatically called it a choice. Some of focused on the pain he must have endured to come to the place that he would do this thing. Others have focused on the selfishness of this act and the pain he has now inflicted on those who loved him. Some have speculated - sometimes insisting to know the answer - as to whether he is presently in heaven or in hell. Some have highlighted the spiritual implications of this act while others have denied there are spiritual implications. Some have declared that they have the answer (Jesus Christ) for the depressed person. Others have pointed out that Williams was himself a professing Christian, a member of the Episcopalian denomination. I record here my own thoughts on the subjects of depression and suicide:
1. Depression is not a choice but rather the default position of any human being.
- We are born at odds with God
- We are corrupted and thus never do anything as well as we would like
- We are the object of God's love and therefore the object of Satan's hatred
Everyone goes through some form of depression at some time in their life. Some people suffer from it more than others.
2. Life choices may both compound the frequency of depression and intensify the sense of failure.
Lifestyle choices involving drugs, alcohol and promiscuity only compound the sense of corruption that we have all been born with.
3. Life choices also leave us more vulnerable to Satanic attacks.
We are told in the Bible to be sober and vigilant against our adversary the devil. To choose to ignore that instruction is to put ourselves at risk.
4. Satan's objective for each human being is our destruction.
Depression is gateway to that destruction. It robs us of hope and opens the door to the possibility of ending the despair through the ending of life.
5. A Christian profession is not the cure of depression and suicide.
Christianity frequently makes the problem worse by simply telling you that it is a Christian sin to be depressed and to finalize depression through suicide.
6. Christian faith is the antidote for both depression and suicide.
Not however the profession of faith, but the practice of faith. Faith is an exercise much like that of losing and controlling one's weight. Making the decision to lose weight doesn't necessarily mean you will do it, and even if you do what is necessary to lose the weight, it will not come off suddenly. It is a process involving changes of lifestyle choices. In order to lose weight we must stop putting some things in our life and we must begin adding other things to our life. Christian joy and hope are much the same. In order to maintain that hope and joy, in order to protect those things from the snares of Satan some things have to be removed from our lives and other things must be added. Once joy and hope are obtained, they must then be guarded or else they will be lost just as some people lose weight only to regain it again once they have stopped doing what they did to lose it.
The debates and conversations will continue as to whether Robin Williams' was a victim of depression or the result of a selfish choice. I believe there was a choice made, or rather, choices; but they were made long before the final act was accomplished.
