The Male Youth Suicide Crisis and the Church

Responding to the suffering of young men

Photo by Ivan Lapyrin on Unsplash

One of the worst qualities of modern discourse about social ills and injustices is the tendency to pit one group’s suffering against another’s. If you show concern for due process for illegal immigrants who have been shipped off to a foreign gulag, potentially for life, people accuse you of not caring for US citizens who have been harmed by illegal immigrant gang members. In reality, we are capable of acknowledging the suffering of multiple groups at the same time. I can acknowledge that it’s tragic whenever a gang member kills an innocent person, and I can acknowledge that it’s wrong to deny that gang member due process before the law. Similarly, I can acknowledge the unique mental health challenges facing young women today which often lead to depression and anxiety, feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, and suicidal ideation and self-harm. And at the same time I can acknowledge that young men also are suffering from depression and anxiety, feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, and are committing suicide at a rate four times that of young women. Suicide is the second leading cause of death of adolescents and young adults in the United States. And most of those deaths are young men. What can the church do to address this crisis?