Child liberation theologian Ryan L. Stollar died by suicide on Sunday, leaving a parting note in which he curses God for his misfortunes in life, insisting, “If there is a god, I will go to my eternal destination and slap him in the face.”
Stollar, a former evangelical who wrote Kingdom of the Children, was known as an abuse survivor advocate after he himself was molested as a child.
He left a suicide note on his website titled “The End,” where he outlines his decision.
He explained that his wife was divorcing him and that “As I approach life without my best friend in a fascist hellscape, I see little to no path forward. For over a decade, I have been a burden on those I love the most and I do not want to burden others similarly again.”
Stollar explains that he “has spent most of my life waking up wishing that I was dead” and that he had been planning to take his own life for months, pointing out, “I have been open and honest with many of you about my struggles with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, substance abuse, PTSD, and suicidal ideation over the years.”
Notably, he goes on a suicidal screed against the Lord of Glory, writing:
Is there a god? Will I go to heaven or hell? If there is a god, I will go to my eternal destination and slap him in the face. Fuck god and fuck everyone who loved him more than their own children. I have spent my whole life making excuses for a god who never raised a finger to spare me from being molested as a child or the lifelong consequences of that abuse.
Those consequences have slowly but surely consumed everything in my life, including now my marriage and soon here me as well.
I have read the Bible backwards and forwards, I have created theology and imagined liberation amongst the ruins of my childhood faith, I have said what Jesus never did. And to what end? To whitewash tombs full of the bones of the dead. Meaningless, meaningless.
He concludes:
So. Goodbye. I don’t know if this is goodbye forever or if there is more torture to come. But goodbye for the here and now.
Sadly, for all the pain he experienced in this life, he will remember it forever as the fleeting vesper for bliss and joy, as he faces eternity suffering in hell.
Pray for Stollar’s family.
32 responses to “Child Liberation Theologian Ryan L. Stollar Dead By Suicide, Curses God in Departing Note”
Dearest Lord, we entrust Ryan L. Stollar to your undying mercy and love. While in this life, they felt much pain and found life difficult.
May you enfold them now with your love where no pain can find them, but rather your love can heal them.
Make them Guardian Angels for those who struggle with life, for those who struggle to see you and the love that is around them.
Give them Lord, kind admittance to your Kingdom and bring comfort to their families.
We ask this, as we ask all things, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
It’s strange to see a non-biblical prayer offered up on Protestia whose goal is to report from a biblical/scriptural Christian worldview. If the man died without repenting of his sin and sin nature and believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as his only hope, then there is no going back to be with the Lord in heaven (Luke 16:19-31).
Odd that you use plural pronouns for Stollar.”They/them”?
This whole piece is disgusting, using Ryan’s tragedy to cast stones and settle scores. Shame on you for suggesting he’s in hell. You don’t speak for God. Repent of your pride and say a prayer for his family.
Protestia is “journalism from an unapologetically Christian worldview” and the truth from scripture and Jesus will make many gnash their teeth. Protestia can only write based on the fruit and words from this man, so that’s it. Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters,” and this man said he is against God.
No,if you can read between the lines and hear beyond the surface level of his words, what he is actually saying is that he is against the god who he didn’t care for him, a god that, despite his trying, and for whatever reason, he seemed not to have encountered. Is your faith and knowledge of Jesus and God so shallow that you honestly believe a real encounter with the living God would not have radically transformed his life?
@BobSmithson: A pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself. A true Christian is hard on himself and easy on others.
Absolutely depraved to close this article by condescending this man to Hell despite his life’s work of helping survivors of abuse. Your tableau itself is abuse. You need Jesus. Amen.
Remember, Protestia is “journalism from an unapologetically Christian worldview” and the truth from scripture and Jesus will make many gnash their teeth. If you don’t want to hear a godly worldview, don’t read Protestia. Protestia can only write based on the fruit and words from this man, so that’s it. Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters,” and this man said he is against God.
Protestio, please bear with me. We weep and pray for those who have not yet bowed their hearts and knees to Jesus the Lord and Savior and for this man who has caused others pain by his letter and committing suicide, not for this man who took his own life. We need to have the mind of God and see things as He does, not how we want them to be. We are not God. His ways are perfect in all ways because He is a perfect God. Perfectly just and that includes eternal punishment unless one’s sins are atoned by grace along through faith alone in Christ along. Apparent “good works” are not what they seem. These things are hard for many Christians to grasp, let along those on their way to hell. “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags…” (Isa 64:6)) “”…for whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Rom 14:23). “But without faith it is impossible to please him…” (Heb 11:6). “”Because the carnal mind is enmity against God…” (Rom 8:7-8). “”An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is sin” (Prov 21:4). “”…without me ye can do nothing” that is acceptable to God (John 15:4-5). “”…unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure…” (Titus 1:15-16). “”I never knew you” though some of you did impressive works (Mat 7:21-23). There is no other way to please God in any way, including works, than to bow before His Son Jesus, repent, and believe, before you die.
Typical of rabid leftists/marxists. Just like a “fascist” would, he deemed himself to be “unfit to live”. The “fascist” oppressor in his life was himself.
His statement concerning God is very telling. Rather than blaming the corruption of creation on sin and on rebellion against the Creator, they instead blame the Creator and His created order. They spend their lives at war against God’s created order. Rather than going to war against sin, they go to war against their Creator instead, as if He were the oppressor.
Rather than centering Jesus, and putting Him first in all things, they center someone or something else, because deep down they believe Jesus is the problem.
And so they themselves become the oppressor. They themselves become the enslaver.
They completely ignore the Gospel, and the fact that the oppressor is sin. The oppressor is the corrupted flesh and corruption of creation. That is their enslaver. But they deem the opposite to be true, confusing sin with liberation. When true freedom is freedom from one’s own flesh and the corruption of Creation, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What they want is liberation from the Creator. But apart from Him there is only enslavement.
I have no pity for such a man. The harm he has done to others, including children, to parents, to the nuclear family and God’s created order, by spreading a false Gospel and a false Jesus, leading many astray, far exceeds any harm that was ever done to him. By his own words, he read the Bible backwards and forwards, and so he is even more without excuse. He will reap his due consequence. He has proved himself wrong. He has proved his Creator correct.
It is no surprise at all that he was as messed up as he was, because he believed falsehoods that kept his mind in a perpetual state of severe conflict and dissonance, unable to reconcile his beliefs with one another. And there is no amount of therapy and medication that can fix that. The only thing that can fix that is to repent and get rid of the wrong beliefs.
“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not [oppressive].” – 1 John 5:3
What is “child Liberation Theology”?
Something other than the wonderful, merciful, just, and kind gospel of Jesus Christ, the only thing that can liberate a child, or man or woman. Come, Lord Jesus, and save more people reading about this tragedy.
“Sadly, for all the pain he experienced in this life, he will remember it forever as the fleeting vesper for bliss and joy, as he faces eternity suffering in hell.”
How DARE you deign to take the place of God in determining where anyone will spend eternity. Blasphemy of the highest order.
Protestia is not trying to take the place of God. They do their best to report from a biblical/scriptural worldview and that is what they have done. The man himself said he rejected the God of the Bible. If, at the last second, he repented and believed, then so be it but Protestia has no evidence of that.
These are truths that escape many, including believers. The saved people in heaven praise and honor God for casting unrepentant sinners into hell because His judgments are true, righteous, and just, even when those judgments include eternal punishment of the wicked. See in Revelation 19:1–3; 16:5–7; 15:3–4; 6:9–11. All believers need to grow worship God in these truths. Unsaved reading this, will you repent and believe today, thus glorifying God and being saved from your sin?
The perfect picture of an apostate – ” I have read the Bible backwards and forwards” and former evangelical. Perfect illustration of “they went out from us because they were not one of us.” 1 John 2:19.
Well, pretty sure he hasn’t slapped God’s face, but he is in Hades waiting on the Great White Throne Judgement. Soooooo sad…
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Hi, I found this article while searching for news about Ryan’s death, and as a Christian I cannot mince words here: the ending you wrote is incredibly insensitive. Ryan was suffering and in deep pain at the end of his life. Do you really think God would be so petty as to hold Ryan’s anger against him? Only He knows Ryan’s heart, not you, and He is merciful to those who are suffering. I hope in the future you will treat suicide and trauma victims with more dignity and respect, even if you don’t like the way they talk about God in their final moments. Thank you.
Remember, Protestia is doing its best to report from a biblical/scriptural Christian worldview and that is exactly how they have reported. The man cursed God throughout the letter. If he repented of all his sin and believed on the Lord Jesus at the last moment, so be it, but Protestia can and should report on only what it knows. Good job, Protestia.
If Protestia is doing it’s best then that is a poor reflection of Protestia indeed, and your response to the above reply is everything that is wrong with Chrsitians today. If the above poster can muster the sensitivity and compassion to holistically view the tragedy of this man’s story within its full context then your response would indicate that his capacity exceeds that of God’s, which is simply theologically impossible. Remember, Jesus is the Word of God, and His Word gave His stance towards judgement – God’s judgement was Jesus crucified on the cross for all. And that whoever believes in Him will be saved. Who, may I ask, do you propose, would NOT BELIEVE in Jesus, were he to meet Him and see Him in all His glory and kindness and not through the broken glasses of a life smeared with abuse and pain? Does God condemn those predisposed to blurred vision because of circumstances beyond their control? How immature is the image of the god you seem to worship? It is not the God of the Bible.
Amen, God has the final say and most people have no idea what it feels like to be suicidally depressed with no hope. I pray those who hear of him will know better than to trust those feelings and to find the help that will lay satan’s game wide open for cleansing of all offenses, for forgiveness of all sins as victims and as perpetrators, and for total healing to live in the love and freedom that is to be ours as disciples of Yeshua.
Well put, especially your last two sentences. May our good God be merciful and regenerate, save, and bring into true joy, peace, and everlasting life many of the souls who Stollar pushed away from Jesus over the years.
A tormented soul and so sad that he never found peace and healing in Jesus Christ . There are many who struggle daily with the effects of abuse and subsequent mental health disorders & chronic pain but despite this still have a strong faith and will testify to the goodness of God. Forgiveness is the foundation of all healing, not to let the offender off the hook but to release us from bitterness.
Christians will (rejoice over and) say that this man went to hell and will be tortured for all eternity. I know a different GOD. I know a GOD who felt his pain, who understood where those words came from. I know a GOD who knows where hoplelessness comes from. This man just got GOD’s General Anesthesia, may he rest in peace. When he wakes up, I bet YHVH GOD welcomes him into Paradise, because pain will make us do and say things that only He can understand.
No,if you can read between the lines and hear beyond the surface level of his words, what he is actually saying is that he is against the god who he didn’t care for him, a god that, despite his trying, and a god that for whatever reason, he seemed not to have encountered. Is your faith and knowledge of Jesus and God so shallow that you honestly believe a real encounter with the living God would not have radically transformed his life?
To hope carson – your comment belittles the holiness and righteoussness of God.
amazing how many universalists are on here claiming that despite stollar being an apostate and “slapping God’s face”, and “F Him”, that he’s still saved. NO ! he went out from among us because he was not one of us – 1 John 2:19. And those who believe otherwise need to examine themselves to see if they are really in the faith.- 2 Cor. 13:5
“Sadly, for all the pain he experienced in this life, he will remember it forever as the fleeting vesper for bliss and joy, as he faces eternity suffering in hell.”
Wow. You’re a little extra cunty today.
I pray that God will have mercy on this poor man, and I believe with all my heart that He will.
You are absolutely an example of why so many are walking away from Christanity.
Who on earth let you publish this, and what evil was in their heart?
FOR SHAME
The number of comments on here revealing how so many professed evangelicals do not believe what the Bible clearly says is very disappointing.