Proverbs 14:9
Fools make a mock at sin: but among the righteous there is favour.
Tragically, the entertainment culture’s folly, corruption, and emptiness reaps a grim harvest, of those who follow it and of those who “profit” by it. Yet another life is lost to substance abuse, depression, and suicide. Robin Williams, like almost everyone else in the industry, sometimes “made a mock at sin,” including in one movie where he made the now-poignant statement:
Death is not the enemy, gentlemen.
But death is an enemy, and everyone knows it, or none would grieve. As the Scripture says, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
The world mourns, over and over again, in private grief for relatively unknown loved ones, in public grief for the victims of wars and conflicts, in anguished confusion at the addictions and eventually fatal unhappiness of people like Whitney Houston and Peaches Geldof and Robin Williams who seemed to have it all. Christians weep with those who weep, but we do not despair, for we know another day is coming for those who are Christ’s:
Revelation 21:4
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
See also: Weeping for Whitney
Mind Renewers 
Another life is lost to clinical depression. At least according to reports he was not in active addiction. And you are discounting the science behind clinical depression, as well as addiction. Do we lose them – and more of them – because of the entertainment industry, or is it just more visible when it happens?
Yes, he was a beloved actor because he brought laughter and escape to us in wonderful roles. The shock is because a man who gave so much – seemingly to his children as well based on their loving tributes – could not see through the depression that gripped his mind to how much people cared for him and would have been willing to help if they would have fully understood the despair in him.
I beg you to learn the science behind these neurological diseases to better understand those who suffer. As a Christian, as a pastor, you should be equipped with the knowledge of this to help ensure those who cross your path are supported with the right medical and psychological care to successfully learn to live with the disease(s). I believe you have a deeper understanding than this post demonstrates, which disturbs me even more that you did not take the opportunity to share.
Just as prayer cannot consistently cure cancer, and rarely cures diabetes or hypertension, prayer cannot consistently cure, or even rarely cure these. Prayer is one of the legs of the stool to learn to live with the disease, but that stool rarely stands on one leg unless the rest is perfectly balanced, and much of life is not perfectly balanced to say the least.
It truly saddens me to see so many posts from Christians on this subject. If they are not uninformed, they certainly don’t demonstrate their grasp of the diseases and the chronic care required to live with it.
Hello, Karen. The entertainment industry encourages false values, elevating fame, physical beauty, humour, money, and pleasure far beyond any real worth those things might have. The stars are surrounded by people who “care” about them, but few who actually do. Mostly, people care about their money, basking in the glow of their fame, or (least-damaging, but still not helpful) loving an image, the roles the star has played, rather than actually caring about the person, who they actually don’t know at all.
When the crisis hits in a person’s life, all these “values” become valueless, empty. Money, fame, groupies, none of those will help get a person through addiction or depression. In times like these, being a beloved actor does not help at all, in fact often hurts, because deep down the person knows people don’t love him for him, they love him for his roles, for an illusion.
The culture that has grown up around entertainment gives no anchor, no foundation. It is a house built upon the sand, and when the storms strike, storms of financial difficulty, illness, depression, etc, too often the house falls.
There is no doubt that we lose more because of the entertainment industry — not just among those in the industry itself, but also among the fans who buy into the false values. They don’t have the money, the fame, the looks, the pleasures, and since they’ve bought the lie that those things are so important, when hit with a crisis they crumble.