Jason Arday carries the Olympic Flame on the Torch Relay leg between Sutton (London Borough) and Merton (London Borough). Professor Jason Arday, a professor of sociology of education who became Cambridge's youngest black professor in 2023, resigned from his post on Wednesday evening after the university launched an inquiry into his "academic qualifications and honorary appointments". Issue date: Thursday August 6, 2026. Joe Giddens/LOCOG/PA Wire EDUCATION (Press Association via AP Images)
NOTE: In today’s Focus, we’re going to discuss the way our culture sees and responds to suicide. But, before we go any further, if you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please get help immediately. Call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or visit 988lifeline.org. And for more on the issue of suicide from a biblical perspective, please see “What does the Bible say about suicide?”
What happened: Jason Arday, the embattled former Cambridge professor, was found dead in his family’s apartment last Friday. The overwhelming presumption is that he committed suicide. While much of the news is centered on who to blame—and there is plenty of blame to go around—his death invites a more pressing conversation about suicide that is worth having today.
Why it matters: Distinguishing the truth from the lies when it comes to Arday’s story is complicated by the fact that so many of the lies were authored by him. When the world he had built finally came crashing down, though, it left him at the point of despair and without hope. While there are many paths people take to reach that point, finding a reason to hold onto that hope until God can step in to bring redemption is essential.
The backstory: Jason Arday is back in the news
Jason Arday, the embattled former Cambridge University professor who resigned amid a storm of controversy, was found dead in his family’s apartment last Friday. While, as of this writing, the official police ruling is that his death was “unexpected but not suspicious,” the overwhelming presumption is that he committed suicide.
In the days since, people have been quick to cast blame on the media and reporters who exposed his lies, on the school for setting him up to fail, and on larger cultural issues of racism, bigotry, and DEI-based thinking. At the same time, there have been those willing to recognize that Arday bears a portion of that blame as well.
So, let’s start with a brief rundown of who Jason Arday was and why his story has become such a cultural touch point before continuing on to a much more pressing conversation about suicide and how to have a biblically based discussion around the topic.
Who was Jason Arday?
When Cambridge University hired Jason Arday in 2023 to serve in one of the world’s most prestigious sociology positions, he also became the school’s youngest-ever black professor. The listed requirements for the position included “an outstanding research record of international stature” and a “proven successful track record” of working with PhD students. Arday had neither.
At the time, though, Cambridge was under fire for a lack of diversity. As such, three of the four finalists brought in for interviews were people of color, including two women with stronger track records than Arday. What seems to have set him apart, though, was his story.
As Arday told it, he was diagnosed with autism at the age of three, was unable to speak until he was almost twelve, and couldn’t read until eighteen. Yet, he overcame those learning disabilities to finish his PhD work by the age of thirty, despite claiming that he lost his memory in the weeks leading up to his dissertation defense after a benign brain tumor was removed.
Outside of the academic world, he supposedly ran thirty marathons in thirty-five days to raise millions of pounds for charity. He told tennis star Andy Murray that he had a seizure on the twentieth day and came away from it with a hairline fracture in his leg, though he continued on and completed the last nine marathons with a fractured fibula.
As Coleman Hughes describes, “Jason Arday was either the most interesting man in the world, or he was a liar. It turned out to be the latter.”
“His final self-delusion”
It didn’t take long after Arday was hired for claims that he’d plagiarized sizeable portions of his work to start trickling in. Instead of investigating, though, Cambridge largely ignored them. And they did the same when people started pointing out the discrepancies and fantasies in the other parts of his life as well.
For his part, Arday attacked those doing the investigating. He reported a journalist from Times Higher Education to the police, claiming that the questions were affecting his mental health. Those questions consisted of three “polite” emails over the course of two months. When a scholar from another university questioned his work, Arday filed a complaint with the other school, alleging that the professor was being racist.
Eventually, though, the weight of accusations became too great for Cambridge to ignore, and Arday resigned. He never admitted the lies and appears to have maintained that he was the victim up through the end. That he believed that end was the only path left to him is the most tragic part of his story.
As Graeme Wood put it, “Arday appears to have convinced himself, wrongly, that the last remaining option was suicide, which was, of course, his final self-delusion.”
Unfortunately, Arday is far from the only person to have believed that self-delusion.
Spiritual application: When the grief and guilt feel too strong
More than 720,000 people die by suicide each year. And statistics show that for every adult who takes their own life, more than twenty others try and fail. It’s now the second leading cause of death in the United States for people between ten and thirty-four, and the fourth leading cause of death for those ten years beyond that demographic.
Clearly, if you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, you’re not alone. It may feel that way, but it’s not true. And holding firmly to what’s true in those dark moments is essential to not losing hope that they can pass.
We see both sides of that darkness play out in Scripture through the stories of Peter and Judas.
In Matthew chapters 26 and 27, the Gospel writer tells the story of Peter’s denial just before he goes on to describe Judas’s regret and decision to hang himself. While the stories are separated by a chapter break in our Bibles, they were closely connected in the larger narrative of Matthew’s account. I think that’s important, particularly for our conversation today, because in Peter and Judas we see two sides of the same struggle.
Both men denied Jesus, and while Judas’s crimes led more directly to Christ’s death, the sense of guilt and grief they felt at their respective failures was similar. But whereas Judas gave up and hung himself, Peter held on. As a result, he experienced God’s redemption and went on to play a pivotal role in the early church.
If God was able to do that through Peter, though, imagine what he could have done through Judas.
Don’t be Judas
Some of the most powerful stories in Scripture are of the people who screwed up but didn’t give up. Instead, they learned to own their mistakes and move forward in the knowledge that God wasn’t done with them yet.
What could have happened if Jesus had been given the chance to do the same in the life of Judas? Can you imagine a more powerful testimony to God’s goodness and forgiveness? And there’s nothing in Christ’s interactions with people throughout the Gospels to indicate he would have denied Judas that opportunity.
Paul’s repentance from being an enemy of the gospel was a key part of his witness and success in ministry, and he betrayed Christians rather than Christ. How much more could that have been the case for Judas?
All of that to say, if you or someone you know is tempted to give up, don’t. Pressing forward may be the hardest thing you ever have to do, but it’s always better than the alternative. And while the weight of that darkness may feel like more than you can bear, perhaps that’s just because you’re not meant to bear it alone.
So know that God can still use you, and perhaps in even greater ways than he could before whatever led to this point of grief and despair.
We have to be willing to give him that chance, though.
Are you? God who is never overwhelmed, even if we are. And his offer to weather the storms with him will always be the safest place to stand.
News worth knowing
1. Opening arguments start today in Meta’s “Big Tobacco” moment
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is back in court today after a coalition of twenty-nine states filed charges against the social media giant. Industry experts are calling the trial a “Big Tobacco” moment for Meta and, potentially, other social media companies as well.
Why it matters
Earlier this month, Meta lost a case in New Mexico that required it to change how it markets and offers its services, while paying $567 million to an abatement fund, which comes in addition to a $375 million price tag from a trial in March. That money is set aside for those in New Mexico who were harmed by the social media company’s tactics. If the same pattern is applied to the current case, Meta’s attorneys estimate it could cost them as much as $1.4 trillion, though lawyers representing the states expect the price tag to be closer to $200 billion. Either way, it’s a potentially devastating cost.
What to watch
While the potential monetary fine could be “astronomical,” the court could also require them to potentially delete all personal data from children ages 13 and younger, adjust their algorithms to be less addictive, and get rid of some of the features like autoplay and infinite scrolling that drive so much of their advertising revenue. Will the courts go that far? And, if they succeed with Meta, will other social media companies be next?
2. The US and Iran’s 60-day Memorandum of Understanding expired without a deal or more negotiations
The 60-day Memorandum of Understanding, intended to lay the groundwork for a peace deal, has expired, and both sides have ruled out future negotiations at this time. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said they will soon “apply measures like have never been seen in the history of economic isolation of a country” to see if the economic weapons prove more potent than those of a more conventional variety. For now, though, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed (at least officially), and the future of that key waterway remains the most pressing question with the war.
Why it matters
It would seem that when you continue to bomb one another throughout a ceasefire, it makes peace negotiations a bit more difficult. That said, the larger problem seems to be that Iran lacks the governmental hierarchy necessary to agree to a lasting peace. At the moment, there’s no consensus between the people doing the negotiating and those who control the weapons. And until that changes, it’s difficult to see a real path forward.
What to watch
How will economies around the world react to the news of the MOU’s expiration? By this point, few expected a peace deal, but any news from the war seems to cause fluctuations. How markets respond could serve as a helpful barometer of how concerned most people actually are about the state of the conflict.
The New York Post has more on the story
3. Construction of a border wall through Big Bend National Park paused
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently announced it is pausing construction of a border wall through Big Bend National Park in Texas. The plans had already shifted from a traditional wall to a “limited” barrier after widespread anger at the project. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott is planning to visit the national park soon.
Why it matters
As Isaac Saul notes, Big Bend National Park covers roughly a quarter of the southern border that CBP patrols, but it sees only a couple of hundred arrests in any given year. The park is larger than Rhode Island, and most of it is inaccessible to vehicles, making it a hazardous point of entry for those attempting to cross into the country illegally. Overall, it simply does not represent much of a risk, yet completing the wall would risk upsetting much of the local economy in places that rely on the national park for tourism, while also likely requiring the government to invoke eminent domain to purchase parts of the land for a fraction of their value.
What to watch
Is the current pause a prelude to real change or more of a PR move to save face before continuing the project as previously designed? If it proves to be the latter, are there other legal avenues to limit or change the border wall’s construction?
God is good
As Colombia continues to recover from the massive earthquake that devastated cities across the western half of the country, the outpouring of help has been tremendous. And God’s people are pitching in as well. Some churches have organized search-and-rescue groups to take the night shift, where the need is greatest, while others have prioritized helping smaller towns and villages that have not seen the same level of aid.
Kingdom impact
In one such town, volunteers arrived to find no electricity and three cans of tuna in the collection center. They soon had it restocked with toilet paper, rice, mattresses, toothbrushes, and crackers. When God’s people are open to serving where they’re needed rather than where it’s most convenient, he can use them to accomplish remarkable things.
Prayer point
Will you pray for those still struggling to recover from the earthquakes? Will you pray that God will continue to guide his people to the places where they can be used best? And will you pray that the Lord will redeem the suffering and devastation in ways that only he can?
Christianity Today has more on the story
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