Hey Pastors, Clergy, Ministers, Christians...we need to have a chat about how we talk about suicide, specifically to loved ones in the aftermath. Sit with me for a minute and just listen.

Thread: How Christians speak about suicide.

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Disclaimers:

1) I will use language that I’m comfortable with as a suicide survivor, I know it’s not the language everyone is comfortable with.

2) I’m glad to talk more about this, it is not the whole of my opinion, but in case it might be helpful to someone...here it is.

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Now, I don’t share about this very openly and there are a few reasons for that. First of all, because it’s so very personal. But secondly, because of how terribly Christians (even Christian leaders) respond to suicide and survivors.

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The reason I hit a tipping point on this and decided to share is because of my job as a chaplain. Not only do we see patients who have attempted suicide frequently, we also see loved ones who have had family or friend die by suicide.

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I had a patient who requested a chaplain. Because of my history I was glad to be the one who responded, because he asked me about suicide. More specifically, he asked me if I thought his wife was in hell for suicide. My initial response was short, no.

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As we continued to talk, he shared how for years he had lived with the pain of the damage done to him that night when the pastor had condemned his wife to hell. He cried openly with me as we talked about a loving, forgiving, and graceful God.

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So, Christians, let’s do better please. Because I can’t tell you the number of people who have told me that they’ve been damaged in this same way (me included). We have been told any number of painful things, and had our loved ones assigned to hell.

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First of all, where do you get off deciding who is and is not in hell!? (If hell even exists, but that’s a topic for another day). I’m pretty sure that’s God‘s job. Second of all, this is terrible theology, it’s flawed biblical exegesis, and it’s horrendously insensitive.

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Let’s start with the theology. Who is this God that you serve that would be waiting gleefully for someone’s absolute lowest moment and send them straight to hell? What are the implications of a God who is that spiteful, hateful, and cruel? I don’t want to serve that God.

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Second, let’s deal with the bad biblical exegesis of damning people who die by suicide to hell. I know many of you use the 10 Commandments* to claim that people who kill (even themselves) are sinning.

*note: this is just one example people use

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“Thou shalt not murder” (Exodus 20)- from the word 𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘻𝘢𝘤𝘩 (murder) not 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘨 (kill). It is a morally unjustified killing.

Suicide is not murder. This scripture is not relevant to suicide.

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Do you know nothing about mental health? Humans are prone to self-preservation. If they are not in that mindset, there is something wrong. Not sin-wrong, but health-wrong. They need healing, like any other sickness. (Just as cancer is not murder and yet it takes lives.)

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Lastly, let’s deal with the insensitivity. Have some humanity, for the love of God. Someone’s loved one is dead. No...not just dead, someone’s loved one has died by suicide. There’s already enough pain. Do you need to add to it by condemning that loved one to hell?

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Actually, do you need to add to it at all!? The answer is no, no you do not. It’s none of your damn business, first of all.

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And second of all, why are you saying that? To make 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 feel better? No, that’s not what you are doing. You’re simply regurgitating something you’ve heard, at the detriment to another soul. So let me just give you permission to shut up and not say those things.

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Folks, I’ve had a lot of years to contemplate this, 25 years in fact. I was told these damaging things, and even at 16 years old I didn’t believe them. Even at 16 I knew that there was something fundamentally flawed about God sending someone to hell who was so broken.

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For 25 years I have heard these damaging theologies and painful statements in different ways and from different people. At first I just ignored them, and then I began to develop my own understandings, and now I am willing to fight it.

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There is enough hurt in this world, please please consider the words you say, they can do lasting damaging. Please, don’t add to people’s pain, by speaking to it without empathy and humanity. Please consider who God is, and how God functions.

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People do not need trite sayings or empty platitudes, they do not need damaging theology or bad exegesis, people need love.

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They need presence and comfort. They need to be reminded that in their loved one’s darkness moment God was there, wrapping loving arms around them, and that in that pain they were not alone.

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Realized there are a lot of typos in here, there’s an edited version of Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/56202665/posts/10100832471073653/?d=n