The funeral service for Rev. Tim Keller was earlier this week. At the bottom, I hope you might consider my monologue from yesterday’s show on the increase in suicide in America. As we have become more isolated, depression has gone up. The secular world tells us that this is it, and then we die, and there is nothing else. People spend a lot of money and time avoiding the voice in their head asking them why they are here and whether they have a purpose. The world says no. Religion says yes.
Tim Keller was a man who believed we are — every single one of us — made in the image of God, and, as a result, we all have something to learn from one another, including those who reject God. He had passionate friendships with many and led many people to God.
One of Tim Keller’s friends was Dr. Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health. Collins professes himself a Christian. Christianity Today generated outrage from some conservative Christians for publishing a piece by Collins, timed for Keller’s funeral. Collins, due to his work and the work of the NIH in general, has become a villain for some evangelical Christians.
Keller and I had a couple of conversations about his friendship with Dr. Collins. What Keller said to me is no one’s business but Dr. Collins’s. But I know Keller passionately valued their friendship, even their disagreements.
I think you should read the piece. It is not about Francis Collins. It is about one of the most famous twenty-first-century theologians on the planet coming to terms with death and how, as he died, his faith grew stronger and, even at the end, he was more focused on ministering to others than focusing on himself.
I saw some people on Twitter say Christianity Today only published the piece to anger, trigger, or own conservatives. Outrage over grace is always a choice and is sometimes made by centering the self around the self. I think perhaps Christianity Today might have published the piece because Collins watched Tim Keller die and worked hard to save him. He’s an eyewitness to Keller’s struggles and death and a close, personal friend.
In that struggle and death, we can all learn something, which is why I think people should hold their nose if they can’t stand Collins and read an eyewitness account of a theologian practicing what he preached right to the grave. Keller believed passionately we should read and engage with the ideas of those with whom we disagree.
Lastly, as I step away for a few days to conduct the Gathering, I want to leave you with this C.S. Lewis quote that Tim Keller had placed in the order of service for his funeral.
It reminds us that those of us who profess Christ cannot conduct ourselves the way the rest of the world does. We believe that each person we encounter is an immortal being on their way to heaven or hell. And, through us, God might rechart the path of any from the latter to the former. So we cannot rage at the world as the world rages at us. Our ways, in life and in politics, must be different because we have a different mission from everyone else on this planet.
“It is a serious thing...to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
— C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Now, I hope you might consider this monologue from yesterday on my show about suicide, hopelessness, and pulling ourselves and others out of the despair so many are in.
I’ll be back to you next week. Throughout the Gathering, we’ll share clips, etc. with Philip doing the heavy lifting for me. Thanks to Charlie and Philip for doing so much to make this Gathering possible.
Kindly yours,
Erick
Great piece Erick. I love C.S. Lewis even though I find his writing a but stuffy at points. I love the story of Mere Christianity... his BBC broadcasts to the despondent British people experiencing yet another brutal war in barely a generation.
My wife lost both of her identical twin brothers, her only siblings, to suicide... both in their young 40s. Her first brother to go was a cop... a detective. He and I were good friends. He was married with a young daughter and son. Then two years later his brother took his own life. My step sister took her life more than a decade before that. She had just turned 18 and graduated from high school. I was in my late 20s then and my late 40s when my wife lost her two brothers.
I spoke at both of my brother in-laws memorials. I did not do too well for the first one... because I was so pissed at him. I really did not understand and room knew I was mad. The signs of his depression were only apparent after he took his life. Who can even allow thoughts about that if not in the darkness with them? It was inconceivable until it happened. The other brother was on watch after that. But he had a stupid wife that alienated everyone in the family away from him out of her own fear... and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy as she went to see her mom for a few hours and he shot himself in the chest with his two young boys watching TV in the next room. The oldest son heard the noise and found his dead father. Who does that!?
We found out later in the medical reports for the first one... the cop... that he had been diagnosed with pre-Parkinsons. One of the known symptoms is severe depression. Both of them had it... and both of them had the shakes that would be calmed with alcohol. So both of them drank a lot... and alcohol exacerbates depression. Things that would have been good for me to know as I could have helped them understand what was happening to them and get them the help they needed. But they both kept it all quiet... even from their wives. Who does that!?
My faith in God helps me in my darkest times. But frankly, for me, nothing works better than me going to my small cabin in the woods and going hiking. Climbing a mountain and looking down. Looking up at the stars and contemplating that no matter how bad things are, life on earth is a miracle and blessing and will be over soon enough.
Even the pain of loss is a blessing in living. I keep trying to spread that message in the hopes someone might find a finger-hold to prevent them from falling in their dark times. I would love to take them on a hike in the woods and to climb a mountain. To look at the stars and consider that we are both significant and insignificant and just hang on for the ride... one that might very well be a zillion-to-one lottery win in the universe.
Great quote.