Christianity Isn't a Crutch

Maybe you’ve heard it before:

“Christianity is a crutch for the weak.”

When someone says it, they usually mean that people believe in the gospel because they need to believe in it. They don’t have the intestinal fortitude to accept the randomness of life, so they fabricate in their minds these ideas of a loving and sovereign God who is in control of events. They lean on this belief like a crutch because they aren’t strong enough to stand underneath the reality of the universe.

Christianity is not a crutch for the weak.

As Christ-followers, we bristle at the suggestion because it’s insulting. It’s degrading. It claims that we are intellectually or emotionally inferior and we want to say, “No we are not! Christians aren’t weak! We are strong!”

No, Christianity isn’t a crutch for the weak, but it’s not for a different reason than the one stated above. It’s not a crutch because a crutch gives us far too much credit and robs the gospel of its full implications and power. Christianity isn’t a crutch for the weak; it’s a stretcher for the dead. The gospel doesn’t claim to help the weak; it claims to make the dead live again. We reject the notion of the crutch of Christianity because we don’t need something to help us walk along; we need something to make us truly alive.

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