Perhaps you read the story of the Alabama pastor who took his own life this week? My social media feeds have been full of the story of Bubba Copeland of Smiths Station, Alabama. I saw it when the news first broke of Copeland’s death by suicide. My hometown of Columbus, Georgia is only a stone’s throw from Smiths Station, so although I did not know Copeland many of my friends did, and they were all saddened by Copeland’s death and the circumstances leading to it.

This beloved Mayor and Pastor of First Baptist Church of Phenix City (literally a bridge drive across the Chattahoochee River from my hometown) apparently saw no other escape after a news story broke revealing a side of himself he’d kept hidden from both his Baptist congregants and his neighbors.

In the privacy of his own home, with the help of his wife, Copeland dressed up as a woman and adopted the online personality of Brittini Blaire. Some sites report him as a drag queen. Others as a transgender. I don’t know how Copeland would have identified himself other than what he told his congregation following the news story that outed him: ‘Yes, I have taken pictures with my wife in the privacy of our home in an attempt at humor because I know I’m not a handsome man or a beautiful woman either,’ Copeland said.

I suspect Copeland relied on humor a great deal as a way to deflect from what must have been at moments very confusing even for him. The lies we tell ourselves can become very convincing even as we know we are telling them. Copeland had to know every time he stepped into that pulpit that those people whom he loved, who loved him, would be greatly disturbed, even mortified, to see the photos he was posting to various social media accounts, or to read the erotica he was writing. Baptists, after all, are still living for the most part in a time period where women are the property of their husbands and trans people are dismissed as demonically possessed. In fact, when word reached the streets of Copeland’s secret life, the Alabama Baptist state leadership issued the following statement:

“We have become aware of the alleged unbiblical behavior related to the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Phenix City. We are praying for the leaders of the church family as they seek to determine the truth concerning these accusations. As the people of God, we pray for the pastor and his family as well. We are in consultation with the Russell Baptist Association’s leadership as they endeavor to assist the First Baptist family during this critical time of need.”

Many friends did the right thing – they reached out to Copeland. They called him. They told him how much he meant to them. They urged him not to do anything drastic. They didn’t necessarily understand the whys or hows of Copeland’s double-life but they understood the ramifications of his being outed before a people known primarily for what they stand against rather than who they stand for. In other words, today’s Evangelical Christian.

Obviously the fear of what those Evangelicals would do to him if they knew about the “her side of Copeland” led him to keep his persona of Brittini Blaire hidden from them. Without question he would have been removed from the pulpit. Somebody would have started a recall effort to remove him as mayor and it likely would have been successful. Good Christian people who had loved on Copeland at backyard barbecues would have taken to their computers to Google search the photos of Brittini Blaire and then, in disgust, swear to have nothing to do with him ever again.

They would have called him a sicko, pervert, all the while they vow to go to the election booths and vote in the man they deem sent by God, a man who has cheated on every wife he’s had – three of them – and slept with porn stars. A man who verbally stated he could assault women and get away with it, and did for many years. A man who has verbally stated he would like to get it on with his own daughter. Yeah, those same people who sit in judgment of drag queens and transgenders but embrace the most ungodly man to ever sit in the Oval office. They would betray Jesus Christ as a Drag Queen in favor of Donald J. Trump.

Copeland himself was enamored with Trump.

Make it make sense.

Perhaps in the moments before he took put that revolver to his head, Copeland thought about how his wife would explain all of this to their three children. Perhaps it was his fear over telling his children that convinced Copeland that everyone would be better off if he was gone, when in reality his death only complicates everything for all of them. A death by suicide comes with its own implications within a religious community that holds fast to the notion that suicide, like so many other things, are “unforgivable sins”.

This is the one thing I know about many religious communities – everyone sits in judgment of everyone’s else’s sin but are quick to dismiss their own.

I wish people didn’t have to live secret lives. On the heels of a holiday where everyone and his cousin adopts a different persona and dresses up in some ridiculous outfit, it seem particularly egregious that Bubba Copeland felt the need to take his own life because people had seen photos of him dressed up as a woman.

But how else could he reconcile the pastor/mayor part of his life with the Brittini Blaire part of his life in the Bible Belt?

Bubba Copeland knew he would never escape the disdain and judgment of good Christian folk. He knew his family, particularly his wife, would be villified as well for her part in helping her husband transform into a woman.

Baptists believe in transformation, yes, just not the kind Bubba Copeland practiced in secret.