My years of experience as an undertaker didn’t make it easier.
suicide
Take & Read: Practical theology
Five books that introduce new voices to the conversation
How deaths of despair reached white communities
Two economists tell the story and suggest reforms.
Helping people feel connected to one another is the holy work of any community, including congregations.
One person told me, “It’s the first time I’ve been in a church for 30 years, since that day.”
If you have to choose between offering false hope and the truth, go with the truth.
“When the church couldn’t talk about suicide or mental illness, it felt like God couldn’t either.”
The Netflix series is troubling and difficult to watch. Watch it anyway.
Concealed weapons don't make us safer; communities do.
In response to our request for essays on the subject road, we received many compelling reflections. Here is a selection.
All My Puny Sorrows, by Miriam Toews
This is a book about deep, protracted, unrelenting sadness, and it knows it.
Stay, by Jennifer Michael Hecht
Most moral arguments against suicide are built on premises of faith. But Jennifer Hecht, a poet and first-rate historian of ideas, is intent on providing secular reasons for refraining from it.
If soldiers make it home, the war comes with them. Every day, about 18 of them implode in suicide.
On Easter Sunday, Jake Tapper interviewed Rick Warren on ABC’s This Week, asking the influential pastor a series of questions on faith and politics. Of particular interest were his comments on soldiers and war (which did not make it into the aired segment but are available here). At the end of the interview, Warren exclaimed, “God hates war, but loves every soldier.” As a combat veteran, I was impressed by and grateful for Warren’s statement. The Bible makes clear that war is at best a necessary evil--the idea at the core of the just war tradition. And yes: God loves each and every soldier. But I want to look more closely at the latter thought, especially in light of the suicide epidemic that currently afflicts our nation’s veterans and soldiers.