Communion of the saints Archives

Suicide and the Communion of Saints

Suicide and the Communion of Saints, Rhonda Mawhood Lee. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802884718) 2025.

Summary: A healing approach for those affected by suicide, addressing traditional Christian teaching.

Content warning: This post deals with the topic of death by suicide. If someone close to you has died in this way recently, in the author’s words “today is probably not the day to read this book” or review, but rather to care for yourself and receive the care of others. Likewise, if you are currently facing emotional distress or having thoughts of ending your life, help is available at the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (US) 24/7/365.

The text came this past Saturday. I learned from a friend that a person known to both of us had died by suicide. Suddenly, the topic of this book became very real. The individual was a person of faith in the prime of life. Beyond the shock and sadness of this untimely death, there was the deep grief of an elderly father who was very close to his adult child.

For many Christians, there is an added theological layer to this tragedy. How is one to think about the act of taking one’s life? And how is one to think of the state of their soul? And pastorally, we wonder, how might we most sensitively and helpfully care for the bereaved?

Rhonda Mawhood Lee is a pastor and spiritual director who has wrestled with these questions not only in caring for parishioners but also in her own family. Her mother, after a long struggle with depression, took her life at age 52. As the author delved more deeply into her family history, she discovered a pattern of such deaths.

Thus, Lee writes out of deep personal and pastoral care with both honesty and compassion. First of all, she clearly sets out her own position. While death is never God’s will for us, but rather life in Christ, suicide manifests the fallen reality in which we live, one we stand against by God’s grace. That said, she will not judge whether the person who dies by suicide has sinned. Rather, she commends the power of the resurrected Christ and the mercy of the Father as our common hope for ourselves and the one who has died.

Then, the first part of the book discusses how the church has dealt with self-inflicted death. Before discussing this, she briefly addresses how we speak of suicide. She argues against the phrase “commit suicide” as one that carries judgement in the word “commit.” Rather she suggests people “attempt suicide,”, “made an attempt,” “died by suicide,” or “took his/her life.” From here, she considers the few incidents of suicide in the Bible. She notes that it says little overtly and does not condemn suicide in the stories where it occurs. She observes that the most famous incident, that of Judas, is ambiguous, considering the two differing accounts of his death.

Rather, the problems have arisen out of theological formulations, particular those of Augustine and Aquinas. While Augustine deals with some sensitivity to the case of women choosing suicide over rape, he argues for choosing life. Aquinas is stronger, characterizing suicide as a mortal sin. Lee goes on to explore some of the unintended consequences of this theology such as suicide by proxy and murder/suicide. Then, consistent with her ideas of our fallen context, she explores the incidence of suicide in oppressive situations like slave ships and other exacerbating contexts.

The second part of the book explores the significance of the communion of saints. She speaks of how those in suicidal distress have a kind of constricted vision and that the community may be the ones who accompany them in hope and faith, whether in life or death. She notes how Dorothy Day prayed for those who died by suicide. But there is also the caring community calling out, as Paul did with the Philippian jailer, “Do not harm yourself, for we are with you.” She offers practical help in addressing how we invite people to talk who give hints of suicidal ideation. She also bluntly urges helping suicidal persons to get rid of their guns.

Finally, she explores how we grieve and remember those who have died. She discusses how we talk to children. And she concludes with leaning into our resurrection hope and that those we’ve lost are yet a part of the communion of saints. She recounts asking her parents, both who ultimately died by suicide, to pray for someone she was deeply concerned for as those who understood.

Not all of us may be comfortable with the idea of praying for the dead, or asking their prayers. However, the compassionate, non-judgmental approach she commends reflects both pastoral wisdom and a deep faith in the wideness of God’s mercy and the power of the resurrection to triumph over death. She shows how theology not supported by scripture has proven harmful. And she gives practical counsel for how we may walk in communion with those struggling with suicide. This brief book is filled with pastoral wisdom vital in a time of rising rates of suicide.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Ben Irwin wrote a fine post recently titled, “Where are all the women? What my bookshelf says about the continuing effects of partriarchy.” Irwin acknowledges in this post that although he opposes patriarchy and is committed to gender equality, he has almost no women authors in his theological library. I appreciated his candor as well as his new reading list culled from recommendations he received and his own explorations, to redress the imbalance that he includes in a follow-up post, “My New Reading List.”

I’ve just completed and will soon be reviewing Robert F. Rea’s Why Church History Matters. Rea’s book challenges me to consider a similar set of omissions. He proposes that we best practice “the communion of the saints” when we not only keep company with living authors from our own tradition, but also when we read theologians from other times, cultures, and traditions than our own. To read them is to affirm our communion with them and our mutual accountability in the body of Christ across time and culture. Or to put it simpler, if listening is a language of love, then listening to these saints is to a way to say we love them and are one with them.

Looking over the shelf in my picture, what I note is that most of the books are by living or recently deceased authors (Lesslie Newbigin, Francis Schaeffer and Richard John Neuhaus in particular). I do have a couple monographs by Wayne Meeks on early Christians and a collection of the writings of Origin. And there are biographies of J.B. Philips and Jonathan Edwards. Actually, because of the Dead Theologians group I’ve been a part of and other reading, I’ve read quite a few works from Christians throughout history.

What are most noticeably absent are non-white authors from the present or the past and particularly theologians from other parts of the world than Europe and North America. I have read much of the work of Martin Luther King, Jr, writing on spiritual theology from Simon Chan, Soong Chan Rah’s challenging book on the cultural captivity of western evangelicalism, works of cultural analysis by Vishal Mangalwadi and Vinoth Ramachandra. But the numbers of these books are relatively slim in comparison.

I am also aware that I tend to be drawn to theology that might be characterized as evangelical from Anglican and Reformed perspectives, even though I worship in a church in the Anabaptist tradition. Again, it is not that I haven’t read outside these theological traditions but I wonder if there are Catholics, Wesleyans, Pentecostals, Orthodox, and more who I might learn from? Might I learn from the theology even of those with whom I disagree?

None of us can read everything. C. S. Lewis counselled reading one old book for every new book. I wonder these days whether I might consider reading one book outside my theological or cultural tradition for every one I read from those traditions. It seems this might be good preparation for life in the new heaven and new earth when we will be with all these folks.

What books have you read and profited from outside your own cultural and theological tradition? What books would you recommend I read from non-Western theologians and from those outside of evangelical Anglicanism and Reformed perspectives? Would love to hear your thoughts!