The Cross

To suggest at the outset that a subject defies philosophical probing sounds dangerously anti-intellectual. And yet this is precisely what Paul the apostle (no less) seems to imply about the cross at the start of his Corinthian correspondence:
'Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.'
Now, this hardly means that it is impossible to say anything about Jesus’ death on the cross – that would clearly contradict the testimony of both Old and New Testaments. But it does suggest that we should learn to be content with the fact that Jesus’ death will never fit neatly into our theological categories or grids. As a result, we should never be surprised by the academic incredulity, if not scorn, which a biblical understanding of the cross inevitably generates. For instance, contrast the disdain of the brilliant atheist philosopher A. J. Ayer…

Of all religions, a strong case can be made against Christianity as the worst, because it rests on the allied doctrines of original sin and vicarious atonement, which are intellectually contemptible and morally outrageous. 

… with Charles Wesley’s poetic and overwhelmed wonder:

’ Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies:Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
’ Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more. 

This cannot be an excuse for disengaging the brain when we come to the cross, however. To do so would be almost as dishonouring to God as pouring scorn on it. For as Luther once said, “If you want to understand the Christian faith, you must understand the wounds of Christ;”  and there is much to understand! We should, therefore, always approach the cross with a humble and expectant caution. We will never plumb its depths nor can we expect full intellectual satisfaction; but the more we discover, the more will we value what can only be described as the divine genius that lay behind it (and even that seems like a gross understatement!). Indeed, a sure sign of having grasped something of the magnitude of the cross is if it leaves us open-mouthed and lost for words. The aim of this essay, then, is to touch on a number of approaches that people have taken, without providing an exhaustive (or exhausting analysis). It will hopefully spur and guide further study.

Why the Cross?

One of the functions of a worldview (or metanarrative) is to analyze, and hopefully provide solutions to, what has gone wrong in the world. Different worldviews inevitably vary in their analysis, but they all seem agreed on the fact that the world is not as it should or could be.
For the theist, and especially the Christian theist, the fact of a fractured universe raises uncomfortable questions. What should we conclude from it? That God is unable to do anything about it? Or that he doesn’t want to? Or that somehow, he has other plans? The Bible’s unique answer is the cross. According to Paul in Romans, the cross demonstrates both God’s justice and love.  These two attributes are essential to God’s character, as portrayed in the Bible. So, how does the cross demonstrate these attributes?

Subjective models

One answer has been the Exemplarist or Moral Influence model. Commonly associated with the medieval theologian Peter Abelard, it found a more recent champion in the 1915 Bampton Lectures of English philosopher and theologian, Hastings Rashdall. The idea is that God sent Jesus to die on the cross out of love for the world, in order to persuade the world to repent and be reformed. Consequently, this view falls into the category of subjective atonement models: its efficacy lies in the fact that the ‘voluntary self-sacrifice of the Son of God moves us to grateful love in response’ . Such a response is then held to be sufficiently sweeping as to heal the universe’s fractures.

In common with so many atonement models, this is not entirely without merit. It is certainly true that Christ’s self-sacrifice does move us to respond, as many contemporary gospel preachers know well. In fact, one of the best-loved hymns about the cross (When I Survey), culminates on precisely this note:
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an offering far too small;
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all. 
It is also an approach that seems to make some sense for non-Christians. Gandhi, for example, wrote in his autobiography:
I could accept Jesus as a martyr, and embodiment of sacrifice and a divine teacher. His death on the cross was a great example to the world, but that there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it, my heart could not accept. 
However, the Bible will not allow such a distinction because to restrict the exemplarist model to being the only atonement model is profoundly, and dangerously, flawed. It fails to do justice to the seriousness of human sinfulness (as if that was merely something from which we could be inspired to walk away) and conveniently sidelines the pervasive biblical conviction that God is holy. These are objective realities that cannot be overlooked. Furthermore, it paints a strangely distorted view of God’s love – for ‘ true love is purposive in its self-giving; it does not make random or reckless gestures. If you were to jump off the end of a pier and drown, or dash into a burning building and be burnt to death, and if your self-sacrifice had no saving purpose, you would convince me of your folly, not your love. But if I were myself drowning in the sea, or trapped in the burning building, and it was in attempting to rescue me that you lost your life, then I would indeed see love not folly in your action. 
It is, therefore, hard to see such a restricted view of the atonement as anything other than gross emotional blackmail. For the cross to make sense, it must also somehow deal with our objective predicament as sinful human beings.

Objective models: God’s Ransom

Jesus famously described his mission as a ‘ransom’, a metaphor which strongly suggests a more objective model.
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. 
This verse has consequently been the springboard for the so-called ‘Ransom/Satisfaction’ or ‘Classic’ models. At stake is the question of how far to extend the imagery: it certainly implies some form of captivity or slavery; but does it also imply there is someone to pay off? In the patristic era, (especially in the work of Origen) it was commonly asserted that sinners were in some way owned by Satan, as the result of the Fall. The only escape was through some form of redemption, or ‘buying back’, of which the cross was the means. Satan is therefore the “cosmic kidnapper”, who will only release humanity when his demand of Jesus is met or satisfied. What he did not realise was that death could not keep its hold on Jesus , with the result that Satan ended up by losing him as well!
Since the Middle Ages, this view has generally fallen out of favour, especially because it implies that God somehow tricked Satan into taking Jesus and that it suggests that Satan is much more powerful than Scripture presents him to be. The implication is that God was in some ways beholden to Satan. While it is certainly true that Satan is a real and malignant force in the world (for which he should never be underestimated), it is not the case that he is on a par with God or able to outwit him. The Bible has no room for such dualism.
Nevertheless, in 1931, the Swedish bishop Gustaf Aulén produced his groundbreaking book, Christus Victor. He called for a re-evaluation of the classic patristic model because it takes the reality of cosmic spiritual warfare seriously, which had perhaps been sidelined in the more legal models of Reformation Protestantism (to which we will come below). He argued that subsequent theologians had misread the ransom model and that there is still a place for seeing the cross as ‘first and foremost a victory over the powers, which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death, and the devil’. Sin, death and the devil are genuine threats. This certainly fits with Paul’s breathtaking account of the cross in Col 2v14-15 and so Aulén provides a helpful reminder if not corrective. Nevertheless, this model does not actually answer how and why this victory was achieved and so can hardly stand in isolation from other objective models.
Some have suggested that the satisfaction provided by the cross was not so much satanic as moral. God created the universe with an intrinsic moral framework and structure. Because of humanity’s sin (which John describes as ‘lawlessness’ ), the penalty for sin is death. Because of God’s love for humanity, he did not want anyone to perish. Consequently, he had to find a way to satisfy the rigorous, moral demands of the universe, as if God himself needed to submit to them.  Jesus’ death then satisfied those demands. Again there are merits to this approach – it does deal more seriously with the objective problem we have as sinners, and provides a healthy reminder of the moral framework that exists in the universe. Intriguingly, C S Lewis’ explanation for why Aslan had to die in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, owes much to this model, as well as to the classic ransom theory.
But its flaw is summed up brilliantly, as ever, by John Stott:
'The real reason why disobedience of God’s moral laws brings condemnation is not that God is their prisoner, but that he is their creator.'
Therefore, the one who needs satisfaction is not Satan, or some impersonal law but God himself. This means, if we can put it like this, sin is not a problem because of us; it is a problem because of God. He is the one that a sinner rejects – and that is what makes sin both moral and personal.

Objective models: God’s Self-Satisfaction

Establishing the relationship between justice and mercy is a constant challenge for human beings. The remarkable Truth And Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa nobly tried to provide a forum for truth to be exposed without plunging a profoundly damaged nation into a bloodbath. For without the truth, there can never be both forgiveness and reconciliation. However, was it enough simply to admit their crimes and then get off scot-free? The objective reality of what had been done demanded justice as well as mercy, surely? For sure, the situation was not as simplistic as that, and the commission did have the power to punish where it saw fit. The reason for pointing to it is that it illustrates both the deep need to reconcile justice with mercy and the inevitable impossibility for human beings to do so with complete success.
This is where the genius of the cross becomes apparent – but also why none of the models discussed so far come close to encapsulating by themselves the objective reality of human sin and divine justice
Sinners need something far more powerful than a limp moral influence or a tragic, if noble, example.
There are spiritually malevolent forces at work in the world and they need to be overcome. But this does not remove an individual’s responsibility for his or her own life and conduct
God’s holiness and justice demand sin and evil to be named and punished. It is not enough simply to ‘forgive and forget’, however much one might wish it otherwise. Try telling that to the victims of others’ sin.
It is common at this point, therefore, to sense the tension between justice and mercy within God himself. And while it may be true that a resolution between the two is alluded to as the Old Testament progresses, it is only at the cross that we discover that there is no tension in God at all. The cross satisfies both divine justice and divine love. As American theologian A H Strong once wrote, ‘God requires satisfaction because he is Holiness; but he makes satisfaction because he is Love’.  More importantly, it coheres precisely with the two-fold divine demonstration of Romans:
God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. 
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 
In both cases, Paul is clear that the cross has an objective affect, and the key to understanding that is the imagery of sacrifice and blood. The atonement model that takes this most seriously is that of Penal Substitution (meaning a punishment taken by a substitute). As I have sought to explain elsewhere, ‘the blood’ is theological shorthand for the principle of substitution  , as presented throughout the entire OT sacrificial system. It symbolizes one death in place of another death. For the sinner, the death of Jesus is a death of punishment, willingly and innocently undergone as the means to forgiveness for the sinner. How else does one explain Paul’s extraordinary statement of exchange in 2 Corinthians?
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 
No other model really comes close. But the mistake many make here is to use Penal Substitution as an exclusive atonement model, rather than what seems the more biblical approach, which is to see it as the foundational model for all the others. Out of this great substitution flows the wonders of a Christian’s justification, redemption, reconciliation and cleansing. Our objective guilt is wiped clean and thus our lives are turned inside out and changed forever. How can we not ‘in view of God’s mercy, present [our] bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to the Lord’?  How can we not be inspired and moved by Christ’s supreme self-sacrifice to take up our own cross and follow him? 
A word of caution before some brief personal implications. Penal Substitution has come under increasing attack in recent years, not least because people regard it as describing a merely legal transaction.  This is not the place for a thorough going defence  , but it is worth making this observation. It is impossible to come to terms with the model without a robust Christology. It is no accident that one of the great explanations of this model came from a book entitled Cur Deus Homo? (meaning ‘Why did God become a man?’), by the great mediaeval theologian Anselm. If Jesus is not fully divine and fully human, then it is impossible for him to be the true mediator and substitute. He is relegated to a third-party, innocently and therefore unjustly, dragged in to taking the punishment on behalf of guilty sinners. But the doctrine of penal substitution is profoundly biblical, when, and only when, it is clear that Jesus is no third-party but God himself. As Paul puts it in 2 cor5v19,
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them.
God is both the one who needs appeasing and the one who appeases. He is the one who must judge but he brings the judgment down on himself, in Christ. He is the one who satisfies his own nature by substitute himself on the cross.
No other model really comes close. But the mistake many make here is to use Penal Substitution as an exclusive atonement model, rather than what seems the more biblical approach, which is to see it as the foundational model for all the others. Out of this great substitution flows the wonders of a Christian’s justification, redemption, reconciliation and cleansing. Our objective guilt is wiped clean and thus our lives are turned inside out and changed forever. Furthermore, it is precisely through that wiping out of guilt (together with the death that is sin's inevitable consequence), that Satan is defeated and Christ triumphs as the victor. How, then, can we not ‘in view of God’s mercy, present [our] bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to the Lord’? How can w e not be inspired and moved...
It should be no surprise, then, that there are profound implications for a Christian’s lifestyle. Here is the briefest of sketches.

Because of the cross...

… we can live with God

God’s purpose was to renew and recreate what was ruined by the fall. It is no surprise that there are cosmic implications of the cross. Paul in Romans 8. 18-21 and Col 1v 19-20 gives no space for western individualism for this is a cosmic victory of reconciliation. At the universe’s epicenter, however, stands humanity made in God’s image, and the wonder is that through the cross, rebels can be reconciled to God (as mentioned above). Rescued sinners can live with a holy God without fear or danger.

… we can live for God

God’s grace is not cheap and the confidence of forgiveness can never be used as an excuse for high-handed rebellion or independent-mindedness. Instead, we now have a new obligation, an obligation to live for God and not against him (e.g. Romans 8v12). A cross-rescued human being has now undergone a Copernican revolution, so that he or she is no longer the centre of the universe; the rescuing God is. Living for God is the life that we have been saved to live; and it is the best way to live. It is a life of confidence and freedom from fear, because it is based on our divine acceptance and adoption, our eternal belonging. Above all, it is a life made possible by Jesus death and his subsequent sending of his Holy Spirit (Romans 8 v13-17).

… we can live like God

With the Spirit living within us, living for God is no longer a matter of pulling up one’s socks and trying better. It is a life that is profoundly shaped by the cross in the confidence of being saved by the cross. We should now live with the same attitude as Christ our Lord and Saviour had. That is the final challenge of living the Christian life (Phil 2 5-11).
The last word should be given to a great (if controversial and unusual) contemporary theologian by the name of Bono. While his articulation of the cross might not fit everybody’s style, it cannot be faulted for its understanding of divine grace. And as such, he surely echoes the other great poet of the cross mentioned at the start, Charles Wesley.
'I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I’d be in deep s**t. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity. I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says, ‘Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there’s mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and let’s face it, you’re not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions.’ The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point. It should keep us humbled. It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.’

This is not my own work

Why doesn't God answer my prayers?

How we reply to this complex question will very much depend on who is asking, and we need to be ready to admit that we don’t have all the answers, while at the same time praying that God will draw close to the person and meet their needs. A number of issues are raised by this question:
1. Who is the God we are praying to?
Today many people are taking time to explore spirituality and prayer. Our Jesus is very different to the gods worshipped by other world religions. What we think about who God is will determine whether we pray, how we pray and what we pray for. Are we ultimately able to trust this God? How would you describe Jesus to someone who wants to know more about the God to whom you pray?
2. What is prayer?
Prayer is essentially a conversation between us and God. Prayer is listening, talking, watching and waiting in the company of our Father. To seek his priorities for our needs, and the needs of those around us and of our world, we come as God’s child to our Father in heaven through Jesus (Ephesians 2:18) with the help of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).
3. Living selfishly is a barrier to seeing prayers answered.
Sometimes our prayers will not be answered if there is wrongdoing in our hearts. Our holy God is not able to answer our prayers if we are disobedient to what he may have asked us to do (1 John 3:21–22), if we have wrong motives in our asking (James 4:2–3) or if we haven’t stopped to find out what is his will in a given situation.
4. Our view of time is different from God’s view.
We have to learn to wait for God. Most of us find this hard. I believe God does answer prayer, but he does not always do so in the way that we want. He sees the bigger picture and he knows how it all fits together. I find the image of a tapestry helpful. When we look at the wrong side, it is hard to imagine that there is a picture in the making. Each thread is waiting its turn to be woven in. It is the same with our prayers. They each have their turn to be slotted in to make the picture complete.
5. God communicates with us in different ways.
We need to be aware of how God speaks to us. It could be through reading Scripture, talking with other people, books, the media or day-to-day circumstances. We need to recognise His prompt, nudge and voice in our daily lives (John 10:27). Often he does speak, but we are too preoccupied or blinkered to hear or understand.
6. Answers to prayer vary.
God may answer very quickly, in a way that makes the answer very obvious. On other occasions it is not such an obvious 'yes', and we get a sense that we need to continue to wait for clear guidance (Matthew 7:7–8). Sometimes an answer comes, but in a completely different way to what we are expecting. Then there are the times when it appears that we get nothing but a brick wall. And as we carry on with life, it is often only by looking back on a situation that we discover it was actually a 'no'. I remember Billy Graham’s wife Ruth recounting the story of how she prayed and prayed for the man she thought she wanted to marry, and is today so grateful to God that he did not answer her prayer. For at that time she had not yet met Billy and realises what a disaster the other marriage might have been.
What we want to hear

Sometimes the answer appears to be a straight 'no'. Fiona Castle, speaking after the death of her husband Roy, said, 'I would never underestimate the value of prayer. I really believe that although perhaps prayer was not answered the way we would have liked to see it answered, I honestly believe that through the prayers of the faithful people who prayed for Roy, he was strong, he was faithful to the end. I believe that through prayer we were given opportunities to share our faith.'
We need to remember that God always has our best interests at heart even if the answer is not what we want to hear; that we will never understand the complete will of God in every situation.
And sometimes there is no answer at all. In his book, Prayer: Does it Make any Difference?, Philip Yancey cites many times in the Bible when prayer was unanswered, such as King David praying for his son to live; Moses, Job, Jonah and Elijah all praying that they would die; Jesus’ disciples praying for deliverance; Paul praying for the removal of his 'thorn in the flesh'. God did not answer their requests, and we learn a lot from watching how they coped and how God always brought good out of those often desperate situations.
The important thing is that we want to encourage anyone wrestling with this big question not to give up but to keep on talking both to God and their friends as they find a way through. 'Trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths' (Proverbs 3:5).

Christianity is Just a Psychological Crutch

“Christianity is just a psychological crutch!” This is one of a group of common accusations framed against Christianity, which is why it is so important to examine and distinguish if there's any truth in it. Is Christianity just a crutch for the weak, unintelligent and scared, or is it far more than that?
One of the most popular proponents of this hypothesis was Sigmund Freud, the renowned Austrian Psychiatrist who had this to say about religious beliefs:

They are illusions, fulfilments of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind... As we already know; the terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood aroused the need for protection – for protection through love – which was provided by the father.... Thus the benevolent rule of divine providence allays our fear of the dangers of life. 

Freud is accusing Christianity of being the result of a deep-seated desire for the loving protection from a heavenly father figure, a form of wish fulfilment as it were. Is this simplistic assertion true or does the Biblical account of what Jesus did for us on the cross actually provide a way for us to get right with our creator? I will seek to demonstrate just some of the flaws with this sort of reasoning and in some sense make a defence of the historical and life changing claims of Jesus.
1. If we understand Freud's analysis correctly, we should see that religions that were practised prior to Christianity would strongly emphasise God as a benevolent father figure. However, it is Christianity that is distinct among the world's religions in this practice. In the many religions of the early Mediterranean and Middle-East this is simply not the case. Surely if this was a deep-seated desire within the human heart, one would have expected it to be expressed frequently throughout early religious history, yet historical data demonstrates that such an assertion is false.
2. In fact this argument can be easily turned around. Surely if Christians only believe in God because they want it to be true, couldn't the equally fallacious assertion be made that Atheists only believe no God exists because they don't want to believe in God? There are some good reasons to wish God doesn't exist, for example there is then no accountability for the way you live your life (I'm not accusing all Atheists of living immorally, just stating that philosophically and theologically there is no justification for not doing so), no judgement after death, no hell, the freedom to live exactly how you wish and to make your own rules.
What is it that makes sceptics proudly assume that they are the only ones who are impenetrable to tricks of the mind and other psychological factors? The assumption is that the person who is asserting that God is just a human construct is claiming that they are in a position to give an objective evaluation free from being affected by psychological factors themselves, whilst for the rest of us psychology determines our beliefs.
3. The idea that Christians create a Father like God to comfort themselves is perhaps plausible, but an equally strong case could be made that ends with the opposite conclusion. Perhaps it is, in fact, the Atheists who are the ones who reject God upon merely psychological factors that occurred during their childhood. Isn't it interesting that some of the most renowned Atheists, including Nietzsche, Feuerbach, H.G. Wells and Freud himself, had terrible relationships with their earthly fathers . Perhaps they projected their anger against their earthly father against their heavenly father. It is just as valid an argument as the one framed against Christians. This is obviously not the case with every Atheist and I wouldn't be silly enough to make such a claim but I hope that you are starting to see that such an argument cuts both ways.
4. The Atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel had this to say:

“I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and naturally hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope that there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.” 

For many, as Nagel explains, it is not simply a question of evidence but the hope that no God exists so he can do what he wants, and not what God may want him to. Everyone has presuppositions, things we already believe, that we use to interpret new experiences or information; sometimes it is our presuppositions that stop us from following a path that will take us out of our comfort zone. We must remember that we all have presuppositions, even Atheists who claim to be among the elite who somehow always manage to see everything objectively and without biases.

5. This leads to an equally challenging question. If Christians were just looking for a God who would simply function as a crutch to make life easier to bear, why come up with a God who is holy and just, a God who finds many of our desires and thoughts to be immoral? Shouldn’t that be the last sort of God we would want to make up if we just wanted a crutch to get through life? Wouldn’t we want a God who just nods at all our behaviour and desires? I certainly would have. If I was making up a God before I was a Christian, he would have been the very opposite of the God I’ve just described. He would have let me get up to all sorts! Why come up with a God who is impossible to please by our good works and effort? Freud's conclusion simply doesn't follow logically from his assertions.
6. What about people who were once hostile to Christianity? There is a large number of people who were once unbelievers, some of whom were once very hostile to the message of Jesus. However, they have investigated the claims of Christianity and discovered that they were true. Speaking of my own experience, I was brought up in a secular non-religious household and would have considered myself an Atheist until I was 20. Yet it was by investigating for myself whilst trying to prove someone wrong that I realised you didn't have to leave your brain at the door to be a Christian, and instead discovered that it was both intellectually and emotionally satisfying. So for many with my experience the crutch hypothesis falls short, as I really was enjoying my life, doing what I wanted with no need for a crutch. I just realised I could no longer sweep Jesus under the carpet!

7. Also, the fact that God cares for and values the weak in no sense demonstrates that Christianity is only for those who have discovered the futility of a world without God or for those who get into a position where they acknowledge that only God can help them. The fact that many people, who the world may consider weak or marginalised, have been helped by Christianity, doesn’t mean that it is only for such people. There are many persons both past and present who have come to believe that Christianity is intellectually fulfilling. These include the well known scholar C.S. Lewis and many of today's most renowned philosophers at many of the world’s top universities such as Dallas Willard, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, Douglas Geivett, Stephen T. Davis, J.P Moreland and many more. Although this in itself doesn’t present an argument, it does demonstrate that Christianity is more than simply a crutch for the weak but can also function as a sound basis for understanding and interpreting the world we live in.

8. Why would you follow something that you know would make life harder for yourself? If a belief system is said to be a psychological crutch then we would expect it to help you in your day-to-day life and in at least some sense make life a little easier to function and cope with. So how exactly does Christianity fair in such an assessment? From the very start we observe that Jesus' earliest followers, known as his disciples, were mostly murdered for preaching Jesus' atoning death on the cross and his resurrection. Consider the following list:

James, son of Zebedee – Beheaded (Acts 12:1-2)
Thomas – Murdered in India
Simon the Canaanite – Crucified
Simon Peter – Crucified in Rome
Mark – Burned alive
Bartholomew – Beaten, crucified and beheaded
Andrew – Crucified - the actual place is not definite although Archaia is the most likely
Matthew – Speared to death
Philip – Stoned then crucified

Some details do differ depending on which records are used. However, there is little doubt that all of the above and many more were killed for preaching the Gospel. Even taking into account slight differences in regards to the exact fate of some or the location, the above list demonstrates that following Jesus in the first century was a dangerous path to follow, as for many today it still is.
Then we see that Jesus himself was whipped, beaten and crucified for what he taught. Christians for almost 300 hundred years after Jesus’ resurrection were a persecuted and suffering people, and even today tens of millions of people around the world continue to suffer and die for simply believing and following Jesus' message. A message that asks you to deny yourself, and take up your cross daily (meaning picking up the cross to die as Jesus did), not to gather vast amounts of earthly possessions, to live humbly, to forgive and pray for your enemies, to acknowledge that you have disobeyed God and are in need of a saviour, simply does not function as a crutch to get through life! The claim that Christianity is a crutch would then only really serve as a reason for the minority of Christians who live in the West, not the vast majority elsewhere. If anything, it generally makes life much more difficult and actually demonstrates that Christians are willing to follow the truth regardless of how difficult it may be. Are you?
Conclusion
The idea that belief in God is a crutch begins with the assumption that God doesn’t exist and is a human invention. No reason is offered for this; it is just an assumption forming a false conclusion from an unfounded premise. However as I pointed out in my second point, the argument from wish-fulfilment cuts both ways and is equally valid when applied to the reasons for unbelief, which means that it fails to meet the standards of a reasonable argument for rejecting God.
The fact that Christianity has many positive outcomes shouldn’t be a reason to dismiss it. Whether it helps those who are poor or wealthy, educated or uneducated, this shouldn't be the means of determining whether it is true or false. If God does exist and does actually love and care for us, then surely it is logical that this would have a serious impact on our lives. Belief in God neither makes us weaker or inferior individuals but is in reality a logical response to what God has done for us through Jesus on the cross. Many Atheists would have you believe that only idiots turn to Jesus. However it's simply not just a case of the intellect – consider Peter and Christopher Hitchens, both of whom are highly intelligent yet one is a faithful follower of Jesus and the other an outspoken anti-religious Atheist.
The final question for us really is what explanation of the world best accounts for the world we encounter? Is it a loving God who stepped down from heaven to demonstrate his love for us in history or the randomness and guideless processes of a universe without God?

Richard Dawkins has this to say about the world:

"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference." 

The truth of the matter is that Jesus never offered a crutch, only a cross; it wasn't a call to be a better person with high self-esteem or a plan to help us scrape through our existence. It was a call to acknowledge that the forgiveness we all seek is to be found in him by following him onto the cross. I've pointed out several reasons that I hope demonstrate that such an objection against Christianity simply isn't a warranted position to hold. It’s because Christianity is true that it has something to offer every person in every circumstance, regardless of their background or intellectual capabilities.