Mennonite Weekly Review

Everyone has a friend like Glenn — someone you knew years ago, but lost touch with. Maybe he or she is a childhood friend, someone you went to high school or university with, or maybe a former colleague. Years go by, and you never think of that person at all.

John Longhurst is director of marketing and sales for Mennonite Publishing Network and a member of River East Mennonite Brethren Church.

Then, one day, you get a call telling you that your old friend has died. That’s when the memories come flooding back.

That’s what happened to me in September. I got a call telling me that Glenn (not his real name) had committed suicide.

I thought: How is that possible? He seemed like such a well put-together guy — good job, great family, a positive and generous personality.

But things change over the course of 20 years, and slowly the truth comes out: Glenn struggled with depression. Unable to cope, he decided to end it all.

Glenn is not the first person I knew who committed suicide. Another friend, Linda (also not her real name), also took her own life. In her case, it was feelings of inadequacy, combined with a deep and pervasive loneliness. No matter how hard she tried, she could not find a lasting and loving relationship.

My last memory is of meeting her in downtown Winnipeg. We talked for a few minutes on the busy sidewalk, and then my bus came. A short while later, she was dead.

Neither of these people were very close to me, but their deaths touched me deeply. What desperation drove them to do the unthinkable? Could I have done any­thing to help them? And what happened to them in the life after this?

Suicide is troubling for everyone but particularly challenging for people of faith. For a long time, many Christians have believed that people who commit suicide go to hell. The Bible, however, never says that. It is silent on the subject of what happens to that person’s eternal soul.

Much of what Christians think about suicide actually comes from people like Augustine, the fourth-century theologian. Augustine argued that “thou shalt not kill” applied to the taking of one’s own life.