NICOLE STEVENSON | Co-Host, Former Adventist Podcast |
The last time we were together in Acts we noticed again that as the gospel expanded into new territory it was accompanied by increasing hostility from earthly powers and ongoing persecution. We continued to examine Luke’s method of reporting events with details that allow the reader to examine his claims against the historical record. We concluded our time together at the end of Acts 12 where we read that the word of God continued to increase and multiply.
When we return to Luke’s narrative we will cover chapters 13 and 14 which will bring us to the halfway mark in the book of Acts. In these chapters we will travel with Saul and Barnabas as they embark on their first missionary journey. The remaining chapters of the book will increasingly center on Paul’s experience as the Apostle to the Gentiles.
In this article, before we begin the missionary journeys of Paul, I want to pause to examine a claim against Christianity which I believe is answered well in light of where we have been in Acts and where we are going next. I want to consider the claim, the observations that seem to support it, and the passages of Scripture that answer the claim with clarity.
“Christianity is a Crutch”
In 1844—a notable year for those with our background— Karl Marx wrote, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”1 Marx did not deny the existence of suffering, but he argued that religion was a human creation to help make sense of it, and to offer consolation within it. Marx was not the first person to suggest this. He was influenced by men like Ludwig Feuerbach, while earlier thinkers such as David Hume described religion as being the fruit of human fear and need. Later, in 1904 Sinclair Lewis wrote, “Christian religion is a crutch, until it is taken away we never can begin to walk well.”2 And even more recently, Freud described religious ideas as “illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest and most insistent wishes of mankind.”3
Christianity is dismissed as an invention or a crutch for those “unwilling to face reality.”
Although the language has changed, these same ideas are still with us today. Christianity is dismissed as an invention or a crutch for those “unwilling to face reality.” The philosophies of history do not die with the philosophers who made them famous. They are passed down and often repackaged for successive generations. Too often, the names of the men who popularized these ideas are invoked to give authority to one’s settled resistance to investigating the claims of Christianity further. For those who doubt but are tired of seeking, it is often easier to submit their minds to modern thought than to engage in ongoing investigation for themselves.
Romans 1 tells us that fallen humanity suppresses the truth about God in unrighteousness. It should not surprise us, then, when there are attempts to suppress God’s work in history. Those who refuse to acknowledge God and give Him thanks will also find ways to explain away what He has done. Rather than examining the details of Luke’s narrative and allowing the evidence to challenge their assumptions, fallen humanity can dismiss the record while resting confidently on the conclusions of human philosophy. Sadly, among the many who rest there are those who have been deceived into this hopelessness. Even so, they are responsible for relinquishing their own minds to this deception.
The Plausibility of the Claim
To be sure, there is a reason this accusation can sound plausible. To begin with, there is a myriad of religions to choose from. Skeptics claim the diversity of religion is evidence of the absence of God. They often claim that one’s religion is determined by the part of the world into which they were born. They point to the martyrdom found in many ideologies to dismiss the explosion of the Christian church and the martyrdom that marked it. And last, they often cite the human need to avoid the pain of death and to give it purpose as the driving force behind the fabrication of all the religions available to mankind.
While these observations deserve to be taken seriously, they are not sufficient for making a conclusion about the veracity of a claim. An honest conclusion cannot be reached merely by observing a pattern and assuming its cause. None of these observations actually test the claims of Christianity.
Let’s look first at inherited religion. While it is accurate to say that people are born into particular worldviews and religions, this doesn’t account for conversion. Further, it is one of the claims of Biblical Christianity that man is born in sin and by nature follows the spirit at work in the world. The Bible testifies to the idolatry of the nations and the worship of many false gods. It is a central claim of Christianity that humanity is by nature idolatrous and that it suppresses truth while worshiping the created rather than the creator. This observation is a central theme of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. This reality is the reason for the evangelistic nature of Scripture from beginning to end.
Next, it is true that martyrdom is not evidence of truth but of sincerity. That being said, when we examine Luke’s account of the birth of the church we are not looking at people who were willing to die for an unverifiable ideology that had been passed down to them. At the center of the church’s message were apostles who claimed to be firsthand witnesses of the risen Christ. They repeatedly endured threats, beatings, imprisonment, and persecution rather than stop testifying to what they had seen. The theory that the apostles deliberately invented the resurrection of Jesus is hard to sustain when we see them laying down their lives both daily in service to Christ, and for some, ultimately as martyrs. Why would they die for something that they knew they had fabricated?
Last, while it is true that Scripture offers an answer to death, that does not make it untrue. In fact, here again we see Scripture acknowledging the reality that humans fear death. Ecclesiastes tells us that God “has put eternity into man’s heart” (Eccl. 3:11), while Hebrews describes those who “through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:15). The claim of Scripture is that God created humans to be in an eternal relationship with Him. The fact that fallen humanity desires eternity and naturally resists death is consistent with the claim of Scripture. The existence of the human longing for eternity and the fear of death does not make the claims of Christianity false. Rather, it supports one of its most basic teachings.
The observations of the skeptics are worthy of noticing and there are Biblical answers for each of them. But if we are going to honestly examine the claims of Christianity, we must confront its central historical claim: Jesus Christ risen from the dead.
Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?
The message of the apostle Paul was not about the usefulness of Christianity. It is not merely a way of life that makes walking this earth manageable and purposeful. For Paul, everything about the faith hinged on the resurrection of Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 Paul tells the believers at Corinth that if Jesus has not been raised, then all of his teaching is in vain and their faith is also in vain. He told them that they were still in their sins, that those who had fallen asleep in Christ were lost, and that Christians are to be pitied if Jesus had not been resurrected.
In verses 30-32 Paul asks,
“Why are we in danger every hour? I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, ’Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’” —1 Corinthians 15:30–32
Paul never defends the usefulness of Christianity if it is false. He says that everything depends on whether Christ actually rose.
This is where an honest skeptic and inquirer will put their greatest effort: in examining the central claim of the Christian faith. Did Jesus rise from the dead? What is the evidence for the resurrection of Christ? If Christ rose, what does that tell us about who He is? And if the resurrection is true, then the question is no longer whether Christianity is useful. The question becomes: what does allegiance to the risen Christ actually require of a person?
A Crutch or a Cross?
As we reflect on the first twelve chapters of Acts we can clearly see the cost of following Christ for the early church, beginning with arrests, imprisonments, and threats in Jerusalem. We remember the death of Stephen and the dispersion of the church, and Saul’s feverish pursuit of scattered believers and their imprisonments. We recall hearing Jesus tell Ananias that He would show Saul how much he must suffer for His name’s sake. We recall the death of James at the hands of Herod and Peter’s imprisonment.
Nothing Luke has shown us so far resembles a faith designed to shield its followers from suffering or to give meaning to suffering they were already enduring. Their suffering arose because of their allegiance to Jesus. Their worldview didn’t explain persecution. It invited it.
As Luke increasingly centers his narrative on the ministry of Paul, we will see that the cost of following Jesus does not diminish. We will watch the gospel move outward into the world along with ongoing persecutions. We will watch as Paul is followed by mobs, beaten publicly, and imprisoned repeatedly. We can read of his suffering in his own words in 2 Corinthians 11:23-31:
Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.
It is evident that Paul did not regard Christianity as a means of making his earthly life easier. The risen Christ he proclaimed had cost him nearly everything. Yet Paul counted everything he lost as nothing compared with the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord (Phil. 3:8).
We have already seen enough to know that Jesus did not call His followers to a life insulated from suffering. On the contrary, He made clear that we are to expect suffering (Mark 10:29-30; John 15:18-20; John 16:1-4; John 16:33; Matt 10:16-25). The call is clear,
“And he said to all, ’If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?’” — Luke 9:23-25
Christianity is not a crutch; it is a cross. Jesus calls His people to take up their cross daily and to follow Him. He tells them to expect persecution and loss.
Facing Reality
Marx and other skeptics like him argue that religion is an escape from reality, that it must be discarded in order for mankind to finally walk in truth. But biblical Christianity does not call us to escapism. Rather, the Bible calls mankind to face reality with courageous and humble honesty. It calls us to look directly at the things that we would naturally prefer to ignore: the realities of our sin, judgment, death, and our inability to save ourselves from the condition into which we are born. It calls us to face and bear up under the realities of persecution while persevering in truth. God calls us to accept the cost of following Jesus and to be willing to lose our lives in order to find life in Him.
Christianity confronts us. It confronts us with our need, and it confronts us with a decision: what will we do with Jesus? Jesus, the One who lived among us and left an indelible mark in history through His life, teachings, death, burial, and resurrection—what will we do with Him?
It’s true that the resurrection of Christ offers Christians great hope. But it is not consolation invented to make death bearable. It is hope rooted in what God has actually done. And while this hope comforts and sustains us in the midst of trials and adversity, it does so in order to shore us up and strengthen us to face reality, not hide from it.
For those of us who have left our lives as we knew them to follow Jesus, we know the weight of the cross on our backs. We know what it is to be rejected for our faith. To lose relationships as we knew them. We know the pain of familial rejection and the heartache of knowing we have disappointed our loved ones or broken our parents’ hearts. We know how much easier life would have been if we had stayed inside of a counterfeit Christianity that enabled us to avoid reality. So, no, for us, our faith has never been a crutch. It has been a cross that we take up daily to follow our Lord Jesus outside the camp, bearing His reproach and standing firmly in the reality that God has made known to all who are willing to see it.
I hope you’ll join me next time as we continue to walk through Acts and witness the life and ministry of Paul as he took up his cross to follow and obey Jesus. Through his story we will see a man who laid aside the crutch of his false confidence and was transformed by the reality of the risen Christ as he walked in faith and obedience to the One who called him to suffer for His name’s sake. †
Endnotes
- Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction” (1844).
- The Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter 3, No. 1, 4
- Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion, (1927), chap. 6
- Christianity: A Crutch or a Cross? - September 10, 2026
- Acts 8–9: Christ Opens the Door to the Gentiles - July 23, 2026
- Christ Directs His Church Planting - June 4, 2026