Suicide, in some church cultures, is still considered to be the unforgivable sin. Some consider it to be the ultimate rejection of God’s ultimate gift. While many other churches don’t go quite so far — the deed may be wrong, but it doesn’t necessarily risk a person’s immortal soul — there’s still a powerful taboo when it comes to this most violent, most heartbreaking act.
Yet even pastors are not immune.
The Religion News Service recently offered a story (published here in USA Today) that tried to explain why pastors sometimes commit suicide. The conclusion, probably, shouldn’t surprise us. Pastors have one of the most stressful, most thankless jobs around. And when things go wrong, very often they have no one to turn to:
A pastor is like “a 24-hour ER” who is supposed to be available to any congregant at any time, said Steve Scoggin, president of CareNet, a network of 21 pastoral counseling centers in North Carolina. “We create an environment that makes it hard to admit our humanity.”
It’s a job that breeds isolation and loneliness—the pastorate’s “greatest occupational hazards,” said Scoggin, who counsels many Baptist and other ministers. “These suicides are born out of a lack of those social supports that can intervene in times of personal crisis.”
