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| Jacques Callot's "The Beggar with a crutch in Profile", with thanks to www.art-wallpaper.com |
A common accusation levelled at Christians (whether spoken or unspoken), is that Christianity is a crutch - the implication being that Christians are not as strong as non-Christians at dealing with what life has to throw at them.
And I'd like to say, as a Christian - and despite considerable personal pride - that they're half-right!
... "stand on your own two feet" ... "stand out from the crowd" ... "what do you stand for?" ... "stand up and be counted" ... "to take a stand against something" ... "stand there and take it like a man".
What do these phrases mean? What do they individually mean and what message, collectively, do they send?
Just picking these few examples:
"stand on your own two feet" has implications of independence - the ability to make decisions and get jobs done without the say-so or assistance of others;
"standing out from the crowd" is about being bolder in what makes you as an individual different, rather than what you have in common with those around you;
"what do you stand for?", "stand up and be counted", and "to take a stand against something" are all about lending one's personal strength to a cause or belief or action;
and "stand there and take it like a man" smacks of fronting up to what's coming - taking personal responsibility for one's own actions and not hiding behind someone else or shifting blame.
What all of these have in common is that they are all about independence. Even the ones that sound like they are uniting a community actually focus on the independence of individuals: "what do you stand for?" really asks "what is important to YOU?" And "stand up and be counted" and "to take a stand against something" implies a standing out from the crowd in the face of a united 'other'.
Naturally, this independence is MOST worthy of our thoughts and efforts. We totally believe in our independence and the inherent 'rightness' of a life in which our independence can be utterly realised.
Who are my heroes as I've grown up? James Bond, Ethan Hunt, Superman, ... individuals who have such broad skill sets that they don't need anyone else to come and help them in areas in which they're weak, because they have no such thing! They are utterly independent of anyone else.
What about now I’ve grown up? What do I - overtly or covertly - judge other people for? How about crying in public, asking for help (without covering it with the pride-preserving euphemism of "delegation"), seeing a Counsellor or Therapist, taking State handouts or charity, ...?
And it does, indeed, fly in the face of the total and utter dependence on God that Christianity teaches ... so, in that sense, Christianity is very definitely a crutch.
But I do object! And I object on two grounds.
The first is the underlying assumption that non-Christians are capable of standing where Christians are not!
This is simply not borne out in real life. But it is also where my agreement and disagreement with the phrase meet: whilst Christians may be walking along with a crutch, that's not to say that non-Christians do not need a crutch too.
To continue the metaphor, we are all, alike, drunk on the dream of our own complete independence from anyone else. 'Legless', if you will. 'Paralytic', in fact, from the same root as 'paralysed', meaning unable to stand. We have seen the escape from God that independence would bring, and we have taken great gulps of the dream. And, in doing so, we have made ourselves blind-drunk ... blind to who God is and all the benefits of leaning heavily on him.
The difference, then, between Christian and non-Christian is this, and this only: the Christian has, at some point, acknowledged that the repeated approaches of the AA counsellors must mean that they really love him, and has willingly been taken off for rehab.
I say "this and this only" because no Christian can ever get away with believing that they are, in this life, the finished article! It's probably helpful, at this stage, to point out that the Christian is not yet rehabilitated but rather - as it were - on the "booze bus": on the way to certain and eternal rehabilitation, and getting treatment on the way! This means, in practice, that non-Christians will both see the Christian relapse into the drunken blindness of believing in independence from God AND see the Christian calling out, from the booze bus, trying to persuade others to trust the AA counsellors ... to stretch the metaphor to breaking point!
I do have one more big problem with the concept of Christianity being a crutch, and that is that the terms 'Christianity' and 'crutch' both sound so impersonal and inanimate.
'Christianity' sounds like a system of rules, morals, and philosophies that a certain group of people follow because their up-bringing has led them to believe that this one particular system is the only workable way to get everyone to live peaceably with each other.
This very much smacks of the 'crutch' - an inanimate object that I pick up and lean on when I need it for the one job for which it was designed, and then put down again when I'm done ... and the relationship between me and the crutch goes no further! We have nothing to say to one another, the crutch and I - no common interests, shared life experiences, or sense of worth, other than that my manipulation of the crutch, done well, will stop the embarrassment of falling on my face in the street!
True Christianity is so UNlike this, there is no way to even start to compare the two concepts.
The Christian is an adopted son of God the Father and brother to - and co-heir with - his son, Jesus.
The church is the very bride of Jesus, betrothed to one whose love - proven to her by his laying his life down for her - is exclusively hers forever.
Each Christian is IN Christ, and so enjoys the love, approval, and cherishing that God the Father has for Jesus, his son.
And the church has the strength of God himself, with God himself, through our being sealed with God the spirit ... and it is in this strength that the Christian does, indeed, stand.
Yes, Christians do also stand ... but not in our own strength - we stand ON "The Rock", a name for Jesus himself, who will not be moved by human hands or the powers of anything in all of creation unless he wishes to be moved (he once famously said: "if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'move from here to there,' and it will move!")
One day, Jesus will return, every eye will see him, and every straight, standing leg will buckle and bow as we, having strived so long and so hard for independence from him, see and immediately know him in all his good, good love for us, and find that we can no longer stand, so ashamed will we be of our strivings against such a love for us. At that point, those who have spent their lives seeking him will be lifted up to be with him, whilst those who have spent their lives avoiding him will get what they've strived for: complete independence from God.
I mentioned, at the beginning, one image that the 'crutch' goes against is the "stand there and take it like a man" idea of fronting up to taking personal responsibility for one's own actions and not hiding behind someone else or shifting blame.
When Jesus returns there will be those who have believed in this way their entire lives, and so that is the way they will go: they will be held responsible for their own actions, and there will be no-one to hide behind.
There will be others who have found that they CANNOT stand independent from God and still find goodness in life ... and they will be "hidden IN Christ" - warmly and unreservedly welcomed into Jesus' own status of "loved by God".
Jesus stood before Pilate and was killed, separated from God the Father, so that we need never be - we can count that death as sufficient for us too.
He then stood amongst his disciples, having risen from the dead, so we who are IN him have effectively risen from the dead too.
And even now he stands: "I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will eat with him, and he with me" (Revelation 3:20)
