Unmasking the Shadows
Unmasking the Shadows
Luther's Reflections on Modern Suicide Trends and the Urgent Call to Proclaim Hope in Christ
By Fr. Scott Adle
Another month goes by, and I hear of another suicide. It’s terrible, heartbreaking, and terrifying. I don’t know if it was this common when I was younger. I don’t remember it being that way, but that may have been due to my age, and being shielded from that kind of talk.
I don’t think recent trends, what with social media, online classes, and now work-from-home, are helping the situation. It’s not good for man to be alone, and I’d guess that’s especially true of the young. Imagine having no workplace to go to, doing your shopping online, and living away from family – it’s not a good combo. Being alone at the time of life when work, dating, and marriage have traditionally been budding is (not surprisingly) disadvantageous.
That the media and culture have done much to normalize mental health problems has done just that – it has normalized them, with suicide being something in that general orbit. Forms of doctor-assisted suicide are now coming to be seen as rights, even beneficial, compassionate, and “beautiful.” In Canada the rate of people who choose that is growing quickly. “Deaths of despair” have been on the rise in the states as well.
Sadly, I think that one of the more well-known of Luther’s words has become the first three lines of something he is reported to have said about suicide:
“I don’t share the opinion that suicides are certainly to be damned. My reason is that they do not wish to kill themselves but are overcome by the power of the devil. They are like a man who is murdered in the woods by a robber.”
It is certainly a tragic situation, and while searching for something nice to say, running to that kind of explanation is understandable. However, the full quote provides more of Luther’s thoughts on the matter. Perhaps not so oddly, what follows is not usually remembered.
“However, this ought not be taught to the common people, lest Satan be given an opportunity to cause slaughter, and I recommend that the popular custom be strictly adhered to according to which it [the suicide’s corpse] is not carried over the threshold, etc. Such persons do not die by free choice or by law, but our Lord God will dispatch them as he executes a person through a robber. Magistrates should treat them quite strictly, although it is not plain that their souls are damned. However, they are examples by which our Lord God wishes to show that the devil is powerful and also that we should be diligent in prayer. But for these examples, we would not fear God. Hence he must teach us in this way.”
What we have here is Luther being willing to give hope and council to a family member that their loved one is not automatically to be considered damned because of a suicide. He seems to envision something similar to a “crime of passion,” where the person is overcome by a situation so much, that they are out of their right mind.
But then he follows that up with the advice that this should not be taught publicly. Rather, the public face would be stern: the funeral rite itself would be altered, and magistrates would handle the matter “strictly” (whatever that means).
As with any matter of casuistry, pastors can quibble. I myself have not altered the funeral rite for a suicide, although I do think Luther is correct to downplay publicly talking in a way that takes the stigma and uncertainty away from the outcome of suicide. Even privately, Luther simply counsels an “I don’t know,” acknowledges the difficulty of the situation, and appeals to the mercy of God.
One could also question whether what we too-often encounter today is the same thing as a “crime of passion.” I get that an ordinary man, of whom no one would think he had the capacity for murder, could, in the wrong set of circumstances, commit a crime. Undoubtedly this can, as Luther says, be the case with some suicides.
But whatever that is, it’s not the same idea for those who have been thinking about it for months, often lying to their family and therapists about how bad they actually are. That’s premeditation. If anyone came to you and said that they thought about killing certain someone in a variety of ways, they’d “ideated” these things for months – if that certain someone ended up dead a few weeks later, you wouldn’t say it was a crime of passion. You’d call it pre-meditated murder. The same is true of many suicides.
I have no doubt that depression is a hell that’s hard to get out of. But can we also say, as I think many of those who have recovered came to recognize, that it’s also a large part self-delusion? That things weren’t as bad as they seemed, as I’m sure others told them when they were in the depths of despair? That it was, to some extent, true that they had locked themselves in?
This is not said to demean in any way the seriousness of that condition, but simply as a point of fact. Not all suicides are innocent. Not all the depressed are complete victims. Many have listened to Satan’s words about their state in life, and believed them, considered them at length, nursed them to the point of taking the bite.
Let me just say it plainly: In almost all cases, suicide is a selfish act.[1] Anyone who has been around the family and friends after this kind of tragedy knows this. It is done based around what that person felt about their situation, and discounts what family, friends, and God have to say.
It is wrong and sinful. For the church to soft-pedal this truth would be wrong, and, as Luther warns could give Satan opportunity to increase the slaughter.
It is wrong and sinful. But the culture has shifting in a way in which it is often seen no longer seen as sad and wrong, but simply sad – and any criticism is heartless and cruel.
Fr Peter Preus, in an excellent article from a couple years ago, has also noticed this kind of shift:
“‘He lost the battle against depression and hopelessness, but today his pain is over.’ There are those who try to comfort the bereaved of a suicide with these words. Unfortunately, the message leaves much to be desired.”
Yes, it does. It maddeningly (and I would say dangerously) somehow puts the sin in the passive voice.[2] It surrenders us to overwhelming forces of fate and despair – something the catechism marks out as sin. It assumes a pain-free outcome. And, as Fr Preus goes on to state, leaves out Christ.
That we want to follow Luther’s lead in saying that a suicide may not automatically lead to condemnation, ok. But I think we should also continue, like him, in the wisdom that that is not the foot you want to lead with. Rather, we want to proclaim it as sinful and wrong, and that pre-meditated sin is extremely dangerous.
Our aim with all sinners, including those struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, is to point them to the hope we have in Christ, and the encouragement that He never leaves us as we fight the good fight of faith – a fight we should never give up.
[1] Are there exceptions? Sure. But throwing yourself on a grenade to protect your squad is not what we’re dealing with.
[2] We wouldn’t talk this way about other sins. “He lost his battle with greed, finally succumbed to robbing the bank.” (Although maybe we do come close to that with regard to same-sex attraction and divorce.)