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?”
Red Cross, constant help for struggling people, giving an alternative to raising a child (where I live it's called Window of Life, and is basically actual window where you can leave your baby. Church will then take care of giving it a chance in life.) etc. etc.
It's like there always is some asshole at the helm when shit happens. Sounds similiar, America?
Red Cross is not a religious organization.
Sure, people are people and you'll find good ones being useful idiots for those in power, but I question the motive of any religious "humanitarian" org. Sure people are being clothed, fed, and housed and that is commendable. They're also being groomed and brainwashed into that religion. What I mean is there are always ulterior motives with religious orgs.
Take Mother Teresa for example. Sure she housed and fed those on the brink of death, but she also perpetuated the suffering of some of the most vulnerable people in the world. She believed suffering brought you closer to God and that was evident in her clinics and how she ran them. Not exactly caring for those in need altruistically.
And then there's the gays and abortions to bring up. Vile responses from Christians especially.
Good people are good regardless of if they are religious or not, but I don't believe people are as good as they say they are. And they're certainly not being good people because of their religion.
Mistaken Red Cross and Caritas, that's on me.
Groomed and brainwashed...ehhhh. I would like to say this doesn't happen, but nah, I've seen few rotten apples trying to scare people via God's ire or try to manipulate them to believe only Christians can do good. Yet again, that's a small part of the whole. Sadly, this part isn't discouraged by the whole...
First of all, thanks for pointing this out. Didn't know it, got only the sanctified info about the topic...there seems to be more info digging before me now, but even after just wikipedia, opinions seem to be divided. Nevertheless, quotations from her make it seems rather like operation for allowing people thrown out of the system to die in peace rather than helping them...dammit.
Cannot add here anything, last pope started wrangling it in the right direction just for the current guy to halt it again.
If someone says they're good, in my opinion they're not. Good people don't say they're good - it either comes from vanity or guilt. But sure as hell Christianity creates frameworks for good people that boost their work and allow them to do more...which sadly seems to be often abused by people who shouldn't touch them.
Overall thanks for the discussion, and especially for bringing Mother Teresa up. I'd still argue that Christianity does more good than bad, which is also why when it does bad it's so controversial, but I am also gonna admit that it's...outdated. Hell, making a space for people to die with dignity may have been okay in opium days, but today, with commonplace medicine access? Fuck...
And about original topic - all above doesn't change the fact that what happens now in USA is actually opposed fully to teachings of Christianity. Even with Mother Teresa the situation is more gray than black/white, but here it's straight up heresy.