By Bob Allen
A beloved professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary found dead in his home on the first day of class Aug. 24 took his own life and left a suicide note saying his name was exposed in the hack of the Ashley Madison website for people looking for extramarital affairs, his family revealed Sept. 9.
A seminary press release Aug. 26 mourning the death of John Gibson, 56, a pastor of numerous Baptist churches in Louisiana and Mississippi who taught 17 years at the seminary’s Leavell College, reported the cause of death as undetermined.
Gibson’s son, Trey, shared in a memorial service in the seminary chapel Sept. 8 that his father “lost a losing battle” against addiction and depression.
“On Monday my dad reached a point of such hopelessness and despair that he took his own life,” Trey Gibson said.
Later in the day Trey joined his mother and sister on CNN Money, revealing that his father’s suicide note mentioned Ashley Madison.
“He talked about his depression,” Gibson’s widow, Christi, summarized the note’s content. “He talked about having his name on there, and he said he was just very, very sorry. He poured his life into other people, but somehow or other he couldn’t extend that to himself.”
The family members indicated that Gibson “definitely” believed if it came out he was on the list he could lose his job.
“I still believe that it could have been fixed,” Christi Gibson said. “It could have been healed in our life.”
“There’s brokenness in every single one of us,” she added. “We all have things that we struggle with, but it wasn’t so bad that we wouldn’t have forgiven it. So many people have said that to us, but for John, it carried with him such shame, and he just couldn’t see that.”
Police in Canada announced Aug. 24 that at least two unconfirmed suicides were linked to the Ashley Madison scandal. Ed Stetzer, wrote in a Christianity Today blog Aug. 27 that based on conversations with leaders from several denominations in the United States and Canada, he estimated that “at least 400” church leaders would resign because their names were on the list.
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