When Christians Contemplate Assisted Suicide
- Russell Moore
- Feb 4
- 6 min read
suicide/
A reader of my newsletter asked me if he might be going to hell.
Actually, the reader’s question was quite a bit more nuanced. He’s a Christian, a
committed follower of Jesus. He’s also suffering from a debilitating, painful, and slowly
terminal disease. Let’s call him Max. He lives in Canada, where physician-assisted
suicide—or “aid in dying,” as the euphemism goes—is now legal and ubiquitous. Max
says he is not at all suicidal. He is not tempted to die. But, he notes, he is looking at
himself right now. Who can tell what state of mind he will be in in five or ten years?
Who can predict what will tempt him later, when he might be much weaker?
What if, Max wonders, a future version of himself were to make a decision he would
never make right now—maybe because his disease blurred his thinking or simply
because he’s in a different place spiritually. Would he go to hell?
Max’s question is in some ways a very old one but in other ways a pressing matter. In
Canada, medical assistance in dying (MAID) has expanded at lightning speed—from
terminal illness to chronic suffering and now, in principle, to mental illness
alone—making it one of the most permissive regimes in the world. In parts of
Europe—such as the Netherlands and Belgium—eligibility has widened to include those
with psychiatric conditions and, in some cases, even minors. Here in the United States,
several states allow physician-assisted suicide, but only for the terminally ill and with
tighter procedural limits. But it’s not hard to see that the framing of assisted dying as
compassionate is advancing culturally.
There are at least two angles to Max’s question, and all of them make me sad. The first is
the gospel angle. I was hesitant to say to him, “You will not go to hell.” That’s because I
was afraid that if indeed some future version of him changed his mind in a darker
direction, he might use that as reassurance to choose to die. Yet if I were to use the
threat of hell as a useful rhetorical tool, would I not be doing the very thing I most
oppose—turning the gospel into a means for manipulation? Even worse, would I be
doing what Jesus never did: breaking a bruised reed, snuffing out a faintly burning
wick?
What Max needs to hear right now is John 3:16–17: “For God so loved the world, that he
gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the
world might be saved through him” (ESV throughout). In other words, God’s love for
Max is real. God is not a bigger version of Faust’s Devil, looking for loopholes in a
contract in order to damn one who has come to him.
The very fact that Max is asking this question means his real question is whether he’s
really loved or whether God loves him for his stability and strength right now. This
suffering man wants to know if it’s true that, as the apostle Paul wrote, “neither death
nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38–39). If none of that can sever his
union with Christ, a future mental illness won’t either.
But the second angle is the personal suffering this question reveals. Max didn’t say this,
but I suspect his question is not just about uncertainty of his own resistance to
temptation in the future. It may also point to an even more tragic fear: Is my living a
burden to those around me?
“Will I go to heaven?” might be a request for straightforward theology, but it also might
hint at something else. Have you ever been somewhere, maybe a dinner party, where
you wondered, Have I stayed too long? Is everyone being polite but secretly wishing I
would just leave? Maybe Max is worried about that kind of future and doesn’t know
what pressure he will face then, even if it’s unspoken.
In the social Darwinism of this time, many people see human life as something
calculable. Am I contributing? Am I useful? Am I wanted? If human beings are just
machines made of meat, those calculations make sense. And if the law of nature is our
morality, then few things could seem more natural than a stronger animal snuffing out
the life of a weaker one to keep it from dragging down the rest of the herd.
But if human life is something more—a mystery that somehow discloses a sign of God
himself—then to treat that mystery as the sum of its contributions is a long disobedience
in the wrong direction.
And that brings me to the third angle: culture and policy. Consider the cultural context
in which these questions of “assisted dying” are unfolding: aging populations,
overwhelmed health systems, loneliness, marginalization of those with disabilities,
economic anxiety, and a growing sense that everyone must justify their own continued
existence. The signs are not promising when we look at the prospects of war, political
collapse, and technological upheaval.
In the background is a key question: Is human life to be protected precisely when it feels
most burdensome, or should it be optimized and monetized and, when it no longer
“works,” discarded like an obsolete digital app? The question is not just about
Max—although it would be worth asking even if it were—but about what kind of society
we are becoming. It is about whether we respond to despair with relationship or with an
exit sign.
This question is precisely what is so cruel about Max even facing this choice. What was
once framed as a right becomes, in the fullness of time, a responsibility. We shouldn’t
judge Max for wrestling with this awful possible temptation. He might well see an entire
society saying to him, “Why don’t you just die already?” Max needs a community willing
to bear his burdens—not just the burden of his illness and suffering but also the burden
of his despair.
If Max has put his trust in Jesus, he is not going to hell. But if we’re not careful, the rest
of us could act like the Devil. And we should turn back from that before it’s too late. We
should see “assisted dying” for what it is—an exploitation of the weakest among us just
to keep us in our illusion that a life with suffering is no life at all. As Jesus told us, “For it
is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!”
(Matt. 18:7).
After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus appeared to Peter and the other disciples by
the Sea of Tiberias. Peter must have had ringing in his mind the words Jesus had spoken
to him before everything went sideways: “Satan demanded to have you, that he might
sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you
have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31).
Here Peter was—having run away and denied his Lord. But there Jesus was—not in
judgment or anger but with the same words he said on that same shore years before:
“Follow me” (John 21:19).
What Max should think about, should he ever waver—and what I should think about if I
do too—is how Jesus defined what it means to follow him: “Truly, truly, I say to you,
when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but
when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry
you where you do not want to go” (v. 18).
What Jesus meant by “Follow me” wasn’t summed up in Peter’s coming strength—his
sermon at Pentecost, his plowing the way for the Gentiles to enter the church, his
escapes from the Roman authorities. It was defined here by the very moment when
Peter was at his weakest, in his deepest suffering and despair, in his helplessness to
control his future. That’s following Jesus too. In many ways, that’s when following Jesus
really starts.
Max, if you have put yourself in Jesus’ hands, you’re not going to hell. God loves you and
draws near to the brokenhearted. Of all of the things you have to carry right now,
worrying about God’s perception of you is not one of them. He hears and saves all who
look to him for mercy through Jesus, full stop.
I want to encourage you to live. That’s not because I am worried you will go to hell.
God’s mercy is greater than all our sin. It’s because your life is worth living. Your life is a
mystery—indwelt by God—even when you don’t feel like it. You are not alone. It’s okay
to pray now for future Max, but you don’t need to store up the grace you will need then.
It’s already in the future waiting for you. I can’t imagine the suffering you face or will
face. But Jesus loves you, this I know.
If you are in immediate danger or are thinking of harming yourself, please, right now, reach out to someone local who can help you stay safe. If you’re in Canada or the United States, you can call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Someone will answer 24 hours a day and can connect you with people who will listen and help you find care nearby.
