Religious and spiritual concerns often occur during suicidal crises; however, little is known whether religious language in suicide-related online discourse tends to be emotionally negative (e.g., despair, guilt, abandonment) or positive (e.g., hope, comfort, meaning). Using a large and publicly available body of Reddit posts drawn from suicide-related communities, this study examined the emotional tone associated with religious language in suicide-related posts. The researcher conducted a secondary analysis of the Suicide and Depression Detection dataset (Kaggle), restricting analyses to posts labeled “suicide” (N= 116,037). Religious language was operationalized using a transparent keyword-based lexicon. Emotional tone was estimated through VADER sentiment scoring. Prevalence estimates were reported and two logistic regression models were tested: (a) whether religious language predicted high negativity and (b) whether religious language predicted high positivity, controlling for post length. Religious language appeared in 10.91% of suicide-labeled posts and was associated with heightened emotional polarity and a significantly more negative overall sentiment. Controlling for post length, religious language predicted greater odds of high negativity (OR = 1.50, 95% CI [1.44, 1.57], p < .001) and lower odds of high positivity (OR = 0.79, 95% CI [0.75, 0.83], p < .001). Findings suggest that, within suicide-related Reddit discourse, religious language is more frequently embedded in negative emotional framing than in positive emotional expression. Ethical safeguards for sensitive public data research are discussed, along with implications for spiritually integrated crisis communication and future cross-cultural studies.

Keywords: Digital mental health, Reddit, Religion, Sentiment analysis, Spirituality, Suicide, VADER