Missional Approaches in an Era of Social Isolation and Suicide Crisis: Exploring the Moderating Effect of Religiosity

This research examines the intersection of social isolation, religiosity, and suicide attitudes in contemporary Korean society through an interdisciplinary theological framework. Using data from the 2023 Korean General Social Survey (N = 1230), we employed multinomial logistic regression analysis to investigate religiosity's moderating effect on the relationship between social isolation and attitudes toward suicide. The findings reveal complex relationships between religious participation and suicide attitudes: Protestant faith significantly decreased permissive attitudes toward suicide in cases of terminal illness, while higher religious participation paradoxically increased permissive attitudes in cases of life fatigue. Notably, religious belief strength demonstrated significant moderating effects within Protestant and Buddhist traditions. Through integration of Moltmann's theology of life, Bosch's missiological framework, and Newbigin's missional ecclesiology, this study advances a theological paradigm for suicide prevention demonstrating how authentic faith communities serve as instruments of God's life-giving mission. The research contributes to missiology by demonstrating complex interplay between social isolation, religiosity, and suicide attitudes while developing contextualized missiological models.