How Empathy Becomes An Enemy (Read by a Digital Voice)

How Empathy Becomes An Enemy     A lack of empathy does more than render people indifferent; it makes suffering easier to dismiss, injustice easier to justify, and cruelty easier to permit. When we lose the willingness to understand another person’s pain, we risk treating people as inconveniences or, worse, as obstacles to selfish motives.

The darker reality of viewing empathy as something to avoid is a tendency toward extreme measures against “subjects” labeled guilty or suspicious. Harsh actions aim to demonstrate a “tough” anti-empathetic stance. Recent news about potentially live-streaming a public execution illustrates this mindset. It is not enough that justice might be served; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appears intent on projecting toughness by advocating a publicly live-streamed execution by firing squad. This is the same individual who proposed requiring military personnel to take a test measuring testosterone levels.

Jesus taught that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. That does not prevent holding a neighbor accountable, but it should prevent treatment inconsistent with the nature of Christ. Your neighbor is not only the person next door or those you choose to accept. Your neighbor is every person you might encounter.

It is ironic that some of the worst policies of our present time, and throughout history, are backed by people claiming to be Christian. People who claim to be Christian without the character of Christ operate under a delusion of holding authority and permission from God. Combining religious conviction with self-serving motives is a dangerous mix.

Frederick Douglass observed that the most brutal slaveholders often presented themselves as the most devout Christians. Many European conquests seized territory and subjugated Indigenous populations under the banner of the “Doctrine of Discovery,” which was an ungodly Christian construct in which religious leaders granted followers permission to dominate and take land from those labeled non-Christian. Even the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler appropriated Christian language and imagery to legitimize aspects of its ideology.

The label “Christian” is simply a title and does not guarantee any connection with Jesus Christ. A tree is known by its fruit, rather than its title. I recall clearly calling myself a Christian long before I formed any relationship with Christ.

Misrepresenting empathy warrants attention as Christian nationalist circles increasingly describe empathy as sinful. Pastor Joe Rigney’s book, Leadership and the Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits, and Allie Beth Stuckey’s book, Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion, address this subject. These are essentially “straw man" arguments. A straw man argument is a logical fallacy in which someone misrepresents, exaggerates, or distorts another person’s position to make it easier to attack or discredit.

Rigney, Stuckey, and others have spread claims that identifying with another’s suffering might weaken truth or moral judgment. Their views vary, yet both portray certain types of empathy as spiritually hazardous.

Empathy is primarily a feeling or mindset, so its moral significance depends largely on how it influences our judgments and actions. It is certainly not a biblical sin, and suggesting otherwise is presumptuous and decidedly anti-biblical. It is not the place of sinful people to define “sin” for others. As the saying goes, “The pot cannot call the kettle black.”

The anti-empathy movement is poised to desensitize the population, including children, to become more inclined to hold suspicions of “other” people rather than default to acceptance.  This will contribute to a mindset of normalizing brutal treatment of those “others.” ICE abductions and internment of people in facilities that many of us regard as concentration camps are examples of how a lack of empathy strips away inhibitions in treating many honest, hardworking people worse than persons actively telling lies, starting wars, wasting human lives, hiding evidence of crimes they have committed, and authorizing acts of harm and deceit.

When protecting an ideology demands silencing concern for another person, that ideology must be challenged and rejected. Following Christ requires keeping one’s heart open to people, including difficult or disagreeable people, remembering that we are not the ultimate judge, but also that accountability is necessary.

Justice is not detached from empathy. The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution states in part:
“[No person shall] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

As was the case with my African-American ancestors and with Native Americans, individuals not deemed to be “persons” were denied equal recognition and protection under the law and could be subjected to inhumane treatment and deprived of fundamental rights.Today, the lack of regard for personhood is the basis of harsh treatment for undocumented persons, including similar harsh treatment of U.S. citizens suspected to be undocumented. Again, this is an instance where empathy would provide a check on inhumanity and cruelty to avoid harming innocent persons or mistreating suspected persons. This is also an example of the abusive outcome of an anti-empathy mindset.

In our justice system, individuals are supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But there is a subset of persons in our country who are not afforded that presumption of innocence.

Anti-empathetic mindsets may also contribute to miscarriages of justice, including wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA evidence. Empathy could have created room for a fairer assessment. Among Christian nationalists, whose religious identity merges with cooperating political authorities, in defiance of the Constitution, “others” are framed as a threat; the vulnerable are treated as a burden; and listening to fully understand is seen as weakness.

Jesus showed a different approach. He wept with those mourning Lazarus, touched people others avoided, and answered weary crowds with care. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the one who modeled empathy was the person who drew near to suffering and offered aid to someone outside of his culture, unlike those who walked past and even distanced themselves from the injured person to keep their religious “purity” intact. (Luke 10:25-37)

Scripture urges believers to weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15), carry one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), and join compassion with humility (1 Peter 3:8). These instructions require us to create space for other people’s experiences, not just those of our family, friends, and fellow church members.

Empathy does not guarantee wisdom, but rejecting it removes a guard against dehumanization. Having empathy, as demonstrated by the Lord Jesus, allows us to practice the proverb that says, “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)

According to Scripture, we don’t know our own hearts. This fact makes it essential to allow God’s grace, truth, and Christ-like empathy to train our hearts. Otherwise, the human heart becomes subject to this reality: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

Claiming to be a Christian without a heart-changing encounter with Christ, as evidenced in bearing good fruit, will not prevent human deceitfulness and wickedness from ruling the heart. All of the inhumanity and cruelty we see today is the fruit of the natural state of the human heart without Christ. Again, identifying as a “Christian” may have nothing to do with the Lord Jesus Christ.

A Christianity that trains people to question empathy and doubt compassion will lead to hard hearts. It is not a version of Christianity with Christ at the center. Empathy will expand one’s capacity to love with the God kind of love, while maintaining the ability to hold one another accountable.   ~ Bryan Hudson, D.Min.