Episode 77: Spirituality and Mental Health, Part Two: Suicide and Hope

For a long time, folks assumed that people who took their own lives were autoamatically condemned to hell and had lost their salvation. And that also meant that for a long time, those whose lives were left in the wake of a loved one's suicide were forced to keep silent or bear shame for what had happened.  But as pastors Erica and Steve engage this question, they take a look at where this thinking came from in the first place, what assumptions from medieval church life produced it, and how the Scriptures themselves speak a deeper hope and a surer word of grace than even centuries' worth of systematized theology had been able to offer.  This is a difficult but important subject to explore, and it is surely fraught with emotion, with pain for many, and with life and death seriousness.  But because it is so vital for us to engage, especially in a culture where so many seem on the brink of despair and self-harm, we invite you into this holy converastion about how grace holds us even at the point where we can no longer hold onto ourselves.