WASHINGTON (AP) — Empathy is usually regarded as a virtue, a key to human decency and kindness. And yet, with increasing momentum, voices on the Christian right are preaching that it has become a vice.
For them, empathy is a cudgel for the left: It can manipulate caring people into accepting all manner of sins according to a conservative Christian perspective, including abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, illegal immigration and certain views on social and racial justice.
“Empathy becomes toxic when it encourages you to affirm sin, validate lies or support destructive policies,” said Allie Beth Stuckey, author of “Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion.”
Stuckey, host of the popular podcast “Relatable,” is one of two evangelicals who published books within the past year making Christian arguments against some forms of empathy.
The other is Joe Rigney, a professor and pastor who wrote “The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits.” It was published by Canon Press, an affiliate of Rigney’s conservative denomination, which counts Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth among its members.
These anti-empathy arguments gained traction in the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term, with his flurry of executive orders that critics denounced as lacking empathy.
As foreign aid stopped and more deportations began, Trump’s then-adviser Elon Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan: “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”
Even Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, framed the idea in his own religious terms, invoking the concept of ordo amoris, or order of love. Within concentric circles of importance, he argued the immediate family comes first and the wider world last — an interpretation that then-Pope Francis rejected.
While their anti-empathy arguments have differences, Stuckey and Rigney have audiences that are firmly among Trump’s Christian base.
“Could someone use my arguments to justify callous indifference to human suffering? Of course,” Rigney said, countering that he still supports measured Christ-like compassion. “I think I’ve put enough qualifications.”
Historian Susan Lanzoni traced a century of empathy’s uses and definitions in her 2018 book “Empathy: A History.” Though it’s had its critics, she has never seen the aspirational term so derided as it is now.
It’s been particularly jarring to watch Christians take down empathy, said Lanzoni, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School.
“That’s the whole message of Jesus, right?”
If this lot encountered Jesus here on earth today, they would deport him
They’re the same people that crucified him in the first place.
Nonsense. They would’ve just sent him to alligator auschwitz and made him eat rotten food from a bowl on the ground with his hands tied behind his back.
Pam: “it’s the same picture.”
This is insane
They are. Evangelicals are seriously so fucked in the head it’s like dealing with someone out of their mind on crack. And it runs deeeeeep.
In the Bible they talk about how people will view the antichrist as virtuous. Jesus condemns the pharases who are the religious officials of the day, for hypocrisy. I understand when you regretfully have to disobey God’s words and want to call yourself a Christian, dispite your shame. I do not understand gleefully treating the sorjourner as an animal then chanting his name like you mean it. I call them antichrist-ians.
The Pharisees were a competing group of reformers.
Jesus was a member of the Pharisaic tradition himself. His problem was that many, if not most, other Pharisees were selfish, self-centered, self-serving hypocrites. Just like the Rightist political and religious leaders of today. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
In order to justify their own bigotry, they seem to be literally abandoning the central teachings of the key teacher in Christianity.
When Jesus was asked “what is the most important part of the law”, the two part response was love . To love God wholly, and to love others as we love ourselves.
When later asked how Christians would be judged, Jesus said that we would be judged as if we had done to Jesus whatever we do to the least among us.
I don’t see how it is possible to reconcile bigotry with either of these teachings. I guess they can twist themselves into rhetorical knots and try, but it seems way easier to just decide to love everyone and leave it to God to judge us for whatever our sins may be.
1 John 3:17
“If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?”
Yes but that was pre-Maga.
You can’t expect them to read so far beyond John 3:16 now can you?
I don’t expect them to be able to count to 16…
They don’t read past Austin 3:16. That’s the only verse they live by I think.
a brother or sister in need
Obviously, Jesus was referring to immediate family only. Anyone outside the sacred bloodline should be killed on sight.
Matthew 22:37-39 NIV. Jesus replied: “ 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 25:40-46 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
These aren’t even out of context. But I admit these are copied straight from the woke red bits.
But perhaps Kropotkin wrote it better. Mutual Aid,1902: “…in all these scenes of animal life which passed before my eyes, I saw mutual aid and mutual support carried on to an extent which made me suspect in it a feature of the greatest importance for the maintenance of life, the preservation of each species, and its further evolution.”
Right wing Christians want empathy to be a sin because it goes against their politics.
Empathy is a sin because it goes against their Christian beliefs. They’re being persecuted.
11th commandment “Thou shalt not do unto others as you would have them do unto you”
Fun historical fact: Adolf Hitler was not actually an atheist as is often commonly believed. He was actually opposed to atheism and tried to establish a German “Reich Church” that would teach Christianity aligned with Nazi propaganda. Sound familiar?
Not surprising considering the commonalities between cult leaders and fascist dictators. “Us” in group vs scapegoat “them” out group degenerates of the week, calling themselves family to distance from biological families and social support, hierarchy with an unquestionable leader on top, love me or suffer my wrath, etc. Even the way they talk from the pulpit or podium, no justification for any claims, just vibes and biases exploiting.
In other news
- women are at fault for being raped because they wear revealing clothes
- the Good Samaritan was wrong, because that traveller was at fault for being robbed and beaten, why else was he on the road to Jericho
Matthew 23 is about these kinds of people. Recommended reading, even for fellow atheists. Keep in mind that the scribes and pharisees that Jesus calls out over and over again were the conservative leaders of his time - “pastors and politicians” - behaving just as ours do today.
Conservative christian culture makes people objectively worse.
If people knew S.S. Jesus was healing leppers, then there would be no incentive for people to avoid leprosy.
-Supply-Side Jesus for the uninitiated.
Jesus rather specifically says to take care of the poor and the widowed, etc.
Having no empathy is also one of the things that mark the evils of the end times.
Jesus rather specifically says to take care of the poor and the widowed, etc.
Churchgoers have long-since taken that to mean “poor and widowed who are members of that church”
Back when I was a kid, my family’s church used the ‘god cares for the sparrows’ verse to push prosperity gospel. They’re “taking care” of the poor and widowed by providing them a path to god’s grace, which is inseparably coupled with financial security. If you’re going to church and not rich, they say you’re still too sinful.
The irony is Jesus specifically calls out materialistic people lile this many times. “Stop storing up for yourselves treasures on Earth, where moth and rust consume, and thieves break in and steal…”
Empathy is a sin.
Exposing pedophiles is a sin.
Protecting children is a sin.
Healthcare for Gaza is a sin.
Healthcare for Americans is a sin.
Military force against the American people is God’s will.
Not sure what kinda fucked up holy war people still supporting this shit believe they’re fighting, but it’s definitely not a Christian one and you’re commiting blasphemy by claiming it is.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.Shhhhh we don’t talk about that part of the bible
