Suicides Present Ironic Counterpoint to Easter

As Orange County clergy prepared for the most significant days on the Christian calendar, they were keenly aware of the tragic irony of 39 people who killed themselves seeking eternal life in a cult that mimicked Christianity.

“These days are the source of our redemption,” said Msgr. Lawrence Baird of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, speaking of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

But as he shuttled back and forth between the diocesan office and the cathedral where he will assist in services all weekend, he found himself thinking “with great sorrow” about the 21 women and 18 men in neighboring San Diego County who believed that by leading celibate, sinless lives, then drinking vodka and eating applesauce laced with phenobarbital, they would leave earth and gain new life.

The avoidance of sin and practicing celibacy were “the right things for the wrong reason,” said Baird. “There is this fundamental desire of every person to seek happiness. It shows the universal quest for transcendence. . . . But the whole concept of cults is antithetical to Christianity.”

Baird and others said that the promise of Christianity is illustrated by Good Friday and Easter, the days on which Christ was crucified and died, and then rose from the dead. Because of Christ’s death, people were forgiven their sins and given a chance at eternal life.

The clergy worried that the suicides were emblematic of a post-modern culture that is obsessed with death and rejects Christian faith and law banning suicide.

“It’s an indication of the times, of how people don’t value human life,” said the Rev. Julius Del Pino, pastor of Shepherd of the Hills United Methodist Church in Mission Viejo. Like several others, Del Pino planned to preach about the mass suicides in his Good Friday sermon.

Traditional Good Friday services will be held at noon in churches across the county to mark the midday hour of darkness when Christ died.

“People want to do away with tradition, with the tradition of questioning and wrestling with and finding faith every day in your life, and going on,” Del Pino said.

Others agreed that the suicides were very much a part of the times.

Said Dave Gibbons, pastor of NewSong nondenominational Christian church in Irvine: “Everybody, especially in this so-called Generation X, is trying to deal with this thirst in their souls about how to connect with God. Some people do incredible things because of that, they go to extremes.”

Gibbons, a Korean American pastor who started his church in his living room two years ago with eight other people, admitted that some might have thought his church, which has since grown to 350 members, was a cult at first. But he said the difference is that he and his parishioners believe in Jesus, his teachings and his message of hope.

“Jesus died for our sins, so that we might have life,” said Gibbons, quoting Scripture.

Suicide is anathema to the Judeo-Christian culture, although other world religions do not ban it. In fact, some of the clergy said, the positive aspect of the fifth commandment, “Thou shall not kill,” is to respect and preserve one’s own life as well as the life of others.

“Only God has dominion over life. I cannot take my life, because then I become God,” Baird said.

The San Diego cult likened itself to Christianity. On their “Heaven’s Gate” web page, a writer who signs off as “Do” compares himself to Jesus Christ.

“Our mission is exactly the same,” Do says. “I am in the same position in today’s society as was the One that was in Jesus then.” The suicide meal of alcohol, applesauce and poison was a gruesome echo of the Last Supper commemorated by Christians. At the meal, Jesus gave bread and wine to his disciples and told them it was his flesh and blood and that thenceforth, whenever an ordained priest distributed blessed bread and wine, the recipients would gain eternal life.

Those parallels, and the fact that the mass suicide occurred this week, angered Del Pino.

“I don’t see it as coincidental, the fact that it’s Good Friday and Easter is coming up,” said Del Pino. “This was not an act of faith. I’m shocked, angry and upset. The way they chose to die is the coward’s way . . . out of the difficult struggles and questions of life.”

Baird agreed. “It is a caricature of Christianity. It would be tragic if mainline religion were to be in any way characterized by this activity.”

Others thought the scenario of afterlife delivery to a spacecraft laughable.

“Oh my God!” exclaimed the Rev. Kathleen Binder, pastor at the First United Methodist Church in Seal Beach, when she heard that the cult members believed that after eating the poison they would “be released from the containers” of their bodies and taken aboard a ship located in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet.

“Well, it’s up to the Lord, not me, to say where they end up,” said Binder. “But to me it shows we have to be careful where we put our trust and belief and hope. . . . There is truth and there are false truths.”

All the clergy said they had counseled deeply troubled, suicidal people as part of their work, and that the most important message of Christianity was one of life affirmation and hope.

Binder said: “The message of Good Friday and Easter is that nothing is hopeless. No situation is hopeless. Love conquers all if you can hang in there.”