Speaking the Mind of Christ

“What’s the big deal?”

“Can’t you just let this go?”

“Why can’t you  leave well enough alone?”

Rachael Denhollander probably heard all of those questions—a lot. Denhollander has lately become a genuine hero for having the courage and stamina to speak the truth about the sexual abuse she and a host of other young women suffered at the hands of Olympic physician Larry Nassar. A previous Olympic gymnast, and now a mother of three, as well as an attorney, Denhollander is properly receiving kudos for having the hutzpah to shine light on the corruption in the USA Gymnastics organization and at Michigan State University.

Dehollander joins a great company of Christians through the ages who have taken flak for “making a stink” over what their societies deemed acceptable reality. “Why can’t you just sacrifice to the Emperor and pray to Jesus?” the Romans asked first century believers. “Why do you have to be so vocal about your criticisms of the Church?” reformers like John Wycliffe and Martin Luther were asked. “Why can’t you forget about the slave trade, and support the greater good of your country?” heard abolitionists like William Wilberforce. “Can’t you just let slavery die a natural death?” said the moderates to the voices of American abolition. “What are the Jews to us?” said most of the German Church to Christians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Certainly Christians aren’t the only ones to take on the social injustices of the day, but that we do is because of who we are. In a recent interview with Christianity Today, Denhollander explained how her faith motivated her actions: “In terms of how my faith played a part in making that decision [to go public with her own experience], God is the God of justice, these things are evil, and it is biblical, right, and godly to pursue justice. I had to make a decision to do what was right no matter what the cost was.”

And a cost there was. In addition to the opposition she faced from USA Gymnastics and MSU, she also had to grapple with criticism from an unlikely source: her own church. Denhollander explained that before she went public with the Nassar story, she had already experienced opposition from other Christians because of her advocacy for sexual abuse victims within a particular sector of the evangelical church. “When I did come forward as an abuse victim, this part of my past was wielded like a weapon by some of the elders to further discredit my concern, essentially saying that I was imposing my own perspective or that my judgment was too clouded. One of them accused me of sitting around reading angry blog posts all day, which is not the way I do research. That’s never been the way I do research. But my status as a victim was used against my advocacy.”

That Denhollander experienced that type of hostility from fellow believers is a grave reminder that reluctance to admit the truth, and even flat-out resistance to it, is the norm. Let’s not forget that Jesus Himself faced the stoutest opposition from the leaders of His faith community.

So what does any of this have to do with “speaking the mind of Christ?” I Corinthians 2:14-16 tells us that those who are not believers do not have the capacity to discern things from a spiritual vantage point. In contrast, believers have been given that ability because of the Holy Spirit speaking to us through the Word of God.  As redeemed people, we have been given “the mind of Christ” and we evaluate everything from Christ’s viewpoint. That means seeing the difference between good and evil, light and darkness, right and wrong. And it also means seeing things in their totality and extending God’s grace and forgiveness, even while declaring the truth, as Denhollander did to Larry Nasser.

But we’re also warned in that passage that those of us who are “spiritual,” (i.e. seeing things from Christ’s perspective) will never be “rightly judged” by those who are seeing things from a “natural” perspective. We’ll be misunderstood, mocked, even martyred for speaking the mind of Christ to our culture. Even family and friends may question our judgement or misunderstand our motives. But it’s because we’ve been given this special privilege that we speak anyway—because if we don’t, who will?

“Obedience [to Jesus Christ],” says Denhollander, “means that you pursue justice and you stand up for the oppressed and you stand up for the victimized…It means that you will have to speak out against your own community. It will cost to stand up for the oppressed, and it should. If we’re not speaking out when it costs, then it doesn’t matter to us enough.”