Questions about suffering: 2. Isn’t Christianity just a crutch for the weak?

Isn’t Christianity just a crutch for the weak?

This is a difficult question to answer in many ways. To some extent yes, it is, in other ways, no it isn’t. Let me explain…

It is important to understand why people need Christianity, or to be more specific, why people need the man behind Christianity, namely Jesus. The Bible says, ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’ (Romans 3 v. 10 – 12) So if we have turned our backs on God, how does He see us now; what is His opinion of us?

When Jesus was on this earth He went for a meal with a group of people that were seen as the worst of the worst – people even called them “sinners” to their face. Because the religious leaders thought it was wrong for a man claiming to be God to dine with such people, they asked His disciples, ‘“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?’ Overhearing them Jesus replied, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”’ (Matthew 9 v. 10 – 13)

We are people with a sickness, a disease, that has infected everyone and we need to be healed, we need to be cured. Jesus is that cure, the only cure. So are Christians weak? Is Jesus a crutch for the lame? Yes, very much so. It is because we are sinners that we need a Saviour. ‘It was our pains He carried – our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought He brought it on Himself, that God was punishing Him for His own failures. But it was our sins that did that to Him, that ripped and tore and crushed Him – our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole.’ (From Isaiah 53 v. 2 – 6 The Message)

‘For He will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in His sight.’ (Psalm 72 v. 12 – 14) Bearing all that in mind, how is it that the answer is complicated? The problem with the question is that it often comes from an assumption that Christians are flimsy, desperate loners with no hope in life. They join a church to make some friends and have something to do in their otherwise desolate and desperate lives. This simply isn’t the case. Christians are very ordinary people from every walk of life who have come to know God in a very personal way, and that in itself makes us stronger and more daring than we could have imagined.

Go to: Section 6: Questions about religion