ur culture is obsessed with selfinduced death. Type “suicide” into Google and find websites like “The Top Ten Songs to Kill Yourself To,” or “Suicide— Give It a Chance,” or even a toy for sale called “Suicide Bomber Barbie.” A sense of intrigue surrounds men such as Dr. Jack Kevorkian who, after becoming infamous as the physician who assisted others in killing themselves, claimed,“When society reaches the age of enlightenment, then they’ll call me and other doctors Dr. Life.”1 Religions like Islam garner attention by promising that “he who gives his life for an Islamic cause will have his sins forgiven and a place reserved in paradise.”2
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CHRIST PUTS
DEATH TO DEATH:
SUICIDE GIVE
LIFE TO DEATH?
By Adrianne Dorr
DOES
The culture does not realize, however, that God did not create man to die. Men were never intended to view death as something natural. Instead, suicides are a consequence of our first parents’ sin which caused us to be “the prey of death forever.”3 The delicate subject of suicide is cloaked in mystery within the church. While the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod does not have an official stance on what happens to the souls of those who kill themselves, Dr. Martin Luther wrote that suicide ought to be seen as “sinful as well as foolish and cowardly. He who commits it robs himself of the opportunity to repent, and leaves others to bear the burdens from which he shrank.”4
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