Subject: A series of apocalyptic events...
From: Daniel Allegri <[email-masked]>
To: Mike <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2018 22:42:01 -0400

Dear Mike,

Thanks so much for your voicemail the other day. It meant a lot, truly, and
I appreciate you caring from me. You are, without a doubt, one of the men
from which I learned Christ. I'm blessed by you, honored to be your nephew
and your friend, and I love you as my dear brother in the Lord.

The purpose of this email is to provide some context to how I've been
feeling, even before Dan's death, and what I think are the implications of
my friend's death. It's not going to make sense right away, I don't think.
Heck, I'm writing you this novel-letter because I'm trying to figure it out
myself. But you've known me for a stupid long time, you know a lot of the
context here, and I'm comfortable enough to tell you all this. Please bear
with me. I'm getting to the point, I swear.

Dan Carr killed himself. Please keep that between us, but that's what
happened. He was a mentor and a friend. I'm a better teacher and a better
linguist because he spoke into my life. He paid for me to go to Nicaragua,
and I model so much of my career and so many of my relationships from the
lessons I learned under his care. He was a good man and a good friend, and
he didn't deserve to go out like that. I truly believe that he was sick:
it's like the guy died of cancer or a car crash. The chemicals in his brain
went haywire, and he wasn't in control of his actions.

At the moment, I'm just starting to realize the implications of Dan's
death, and I've moved from deep sadness to anger. Although, to be honest,
I've been angry for quite some time, since Steve died in high school. Maybe
anger isn't the best word for it: it's more like dissatisfaction. I'm
pretty dissatisfied with how the church handles things, how we major on the
minors, and how we have given up our birthright as the Kingdom of God for
stupid, meaningless stuff. The 2016 election was a watershed for that:
Donald Trump is a skeez who I wouldn't trust to be alone in a room with my
wife. I remember growing up when the Bill Clinton thing happened, and how
everybody moaned about how character matters and we need a president with
honor, and that's what God wants, yada yada yada. That's still true in
2017, and I refuse to believe that the Gospel needs to be surrendered to a
racist, sexist old man because we need a supreme court justice.

Eighty percent of evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. In Greek, the word
"apocalypse" means "unveiling" or "revelation." I heard once that the 2016
election was an "apocalypse" for evangelicals. It unveiled some systemic
problems that we just haven't been willing to talk about. Now let's be
clear: these are all criticisms from the inside. Every single thing I'm
angry about, I'm a part of. I'm complicit in all of this. I'm not saying
all Evangelicals are racist. I'm saying that I'm part of a group that
hasn't dealt with race as Jesus did, including myself. I'm not saying that
all evangelicals are sexist. I'm saying that I'm part of a church that has
told women that they can't preach, that they need to be silent in church,
that they need to be quiet about sexual abuse in the church because it will
"hurt the church's witness." I'm part of a church that tells women they
need to follow and not lead, though their gifts and the witness of
Scripture clearly speak to the contrary (a longer email). I'm not talking
about any specific church here, but the Church Universal, and especially
the species of Christians who call themselves evangelicals. I'm a part of
that group, and if I'm not part of the solution, I'm part of the problem.

And then, Matthew 25:31-46 comes along. In the parable of the sheep and the
goats, God literally establishes how you treat poor people as criteria for
entry into heaven. Jesus takes it friggin personally, man.  "Whatever you
did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for
me." Our Christianity is literally measured by how we treat people on the
bottom: the poor, the refugee, gay people (an even longer email),
prisoners, minorities. Our treatment of the poor is our thermometer for the
Sprit of God. Like I said, I'm as complicit as the next guy, but that's how
I read Scripture.

And then Dan kills himself. I go to his funeral, Mike, and the pastors give
really good speeches. They talk about his mission trips. His teaching. His
love of travel. The last preacher even indirectly addresses the suicide. He
says that Dan struggled with despair. He had a bad day, and the impact of
his life shouldn't be measured by one day. All good. All true.

And then the pastor gives an altar call at the funeral.

He doesn't address why Dan felt he needed to take his life. Sure, he had an
illness, but why didn't he feel like he could share this with somebody? Why
didn't he feel like he could get help at church? Dan didn't feel like the
Gospel had something that could help him. I disagree with Dan about this.
Vehemently. Of course the Gospel had something for Dan. But if those
questions are floating around in the auditorium, why didn't anybody deign
to answer them? Why would any thinking human join that religion? Dan was on
the bottom, part of the "least of these" from Matthew 25, and we had no
idea, *so why didn't we take care of him?* I'd wonder if that was because
we didn't think to ask. We didn't think to ask why Dan felt he couldn't
come forward with his struggles with mental illness. Instead of asking
those questions, we asked a bunch of mourning teenagers if they wanted to
join our club.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize that it's a bunch of
little apocalypses all in a row. It's revealing what's in our heart, what's
in my heart, and this isn't pretty, and I'm very mad.

*Because I still believe in the Gospel. *I believe we are grievously
misunderstanding something here, but I still believe in the power of the
Gospel. It's very different from what I learned as a kid, (yes, what I
learned at Mount Hope), but I still believe it's powerful, and I want to do
something about it. I just am still trying to figure out what.

I have to go to sleep. That said, if it's easier, feel free to call me,
instead of writing me another tome. I just needed to organize my thoughts.

Daniel