All the Lonely People
“All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?”
- The Beatles, Eleanor Rigby
I didn’t really follow the media circus surrounding Michael Jackson’s death. I grew up as a conservative evangelical during the time when he was really popular, so I was never allowed to listen to his music and then never had any interest later on. I understand the idea of celebrity obsession, and there are a handful of celebrities whose passing I would mourn, but Michael Jackson wasn’t one of them. That said, I was struck by the news stories reporting on the fans who committed suicide upon hearing of his death. At last count some 12 fans have taken their life in response to his death. And that breaks my heart.
My initial response to hearing of these suicides was, “how could the church let that happen?” Now I fully admit the reasons for why people take their life are complicated, and that the church itself isn’t responsible for policing its members in that way. But at the same time, it saddens me that the inclusive community that should be the church failed to reach out to these people. That they could be so obsessed with a pretend relationship with a celebrity they had never met that they would end their life over it. Why isn’t the church offering a compelling, accessible, and understanding enough community that obsession over a distant idol is necessary for some people? And why aren’t we as the church doing our best to offer that community to those on the margins who may have slipped through the cracks and lost touch with reality?
Of course, I can give a dozen answers to my own questions. Raising the issues of what defines community itself, to people’s right to privacy, to the church’s own celebrity worship issues. There are all sorts of excuses and reasons why this has nothing to do with the church. And I even believe most of them. But at the same time I wish things could be different. I wish the church wasn’t an place where a few people show up with masks firmly in place. I wish people didn’t have reason to fear stepping into a church or of removing that mask and being themselves. I wish the church wasn’t more often than not just the facade of community instead of the real thing. Because if we were the real thing then maybe we could be serving all the lonely people in the world.
julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
You said, “But at the same time I wish things could be different.”
I think they can be.
And I think we have to hope they can be as well.
We need that hope. Or why bother trying to change it.
Having been deeply entrenched in several fandoms and getting to know some of the kind of fans I’d previously dismiss as “bug-eyed wacky”, it’s hard for someone looking from the outside to understand that kind of deep, if vicarious, identification with the words and music of someone one has never met, at least not in a non-pejorative way “this person has no life and is trying to fill a void in an empty, unhealthy way”.
I’ve since grown to understand, respect and even admire to a certain extent how they find a real connection with words and music which serves as a springboard to articulate their emotions and make sense of the world around them– as long as they express it in a healthy way. I realise I’m looking at this from a different context than you are; it is so true that the church needs desperately to be doing that very kind of void-filling that people are finding or looking for in these things… people seem to be able to find them in the biggest or smallest of things but rarely the church… but I guess I’d also like to point out, when someone who’s created this body of work that really speaks to someone dies, it’s important for the world– and the church– to recognise that the loss is very real.
I’ve also known some people who are as obsessive about church and “spiritual” things as others are about singers or whatever (we knew lots of them at Wheaton). The evangelical subculture can become an unhealthy addiction as much as anything else.
I find this a bit puzzling.
How many of those who committed suicide were members of any church?
I would be quite surprised to learn that any of them were. It seems to me that for them the cult of Michael Jackson was quite exclusive, and would specifically exclude the cult of Jesus. People who are willing to engage in self-immolation for their deity tend to be monotheists. They would have no room in their lives for another deity.
This goes beyond being a fan of the man or his music. It’s a full-blown celebrity cult.
The same applies to people who kill themselves when their sports team loses. Sport for them is not longer sport, it is a religion.
And what is “the church” that could do anything at all about this? If the church fails to prevent the suicide of one of its members, who are known to it, or should be, then one could wish that the church had done more. If some of those who killed themselves were members of a church, then that church coud perhaps have done something, but it would have to include weaning them off idolatry.