Things I Think…
1. “Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy,” : Captain G. M. Gilbert after the Nuremberg trials. He was the prison psychologist charged with dealing with the Nazi’s.
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”: Elon Musk
Let me hasten to say that I fully agree with the first quote and apply the ramifications of that truth to the second one.
In addition to Musk, there are groupings of “theologians” who seek to make empathy a curse.
The Incarnation is the heart of Christianity and the greatest, most profound display of empathy in creation history.
There is no Christianity without the Incarnation and no such thing as a true faith devoid of empathy.
Furthermore, the Bible is explicit in saying that empathy must be promiscuous and inclusive of all.
If you believe that empathy is a curse, then you curse the person and work of Jesus Christ.
2. I got a bunch of questions in the last week about how I study for and prepare sermons.
I still do the book by book road, although I’m considering preaching from the lectionary after our next study is over.
This is because my goals as a priest/teacher have changed.
I used to want to make sure that my congregation was “theologically sound” and doctrinally correct…and those are still considerations.
My primary concern these days is making sure that we all know Jesus better than when we started and that everybody leaves a service more hopeful and secure in the love of God than when they arrived.
3. Study wise, if I know I’m going to be teaching a certain book, I purchase at least one new commentary on the book and find other relevant sources pertaining to the book before I start. I already have significant resources, but like to hear the latest ideas and scholarship. I also like to find resources that my folks can use on their own, if they want to dig deeper than I can present in our time together.
I have my “go to” guys… I always want to know what N.T. Wright has to say about the New Testament and John Goldingay and Tremper Longman in the Old Testament. I always like to see how the church has interpreted certain passages over the centuries…I try to read sermons from different eras and traditions.
Once I’ve gathered my resources, I submerse myself in the story the text is telling.
Where is Jesus and what is He saying?
What is the Holy Spirit convicting me about?
What is encouraging me?
Finally, what is here that I’m supposed to communicate to our church this week?
The needs of my congregation at this time may be much different than that of another…I’m only pastoring this church…
4. The hardest part of teaching relates to the times we’re in. I’m extremely concerned that we may be entering into a time of chaos and destruction, both in the church and the culture. It’s hard to know when I’m informing my congregation according to the text or causing them unnecessary concern that distracts from the text..
5. The last few weeks have been hard not only because of the political chaos, but in addition, my own health concerns. Sometimes, it would me more noble for me to call in sick…you don’t want to waste peoples time when they’re trying to follow you when you are disoriented. I’ve been disoriented a lot lately…
6. “How can you teach the Bible when you don’t believe in inerrancy?” I get that one a lot…usually accompanied by pronouncements of imminent damnation. The answer is pretty simple…I believe that the Bible contains the greatest truth of all time and that the story of God’s redemption plan is the best news ever heard…Jesus is inerrant…
7. There is a sense in which we all died of Covid…much of the present upheaval is due to what happened during the pandemic…
8. I confess that I am often fearful these days…the solution to that isn’t to pretend that I am not afraid, but to bring it to Jesus and let Him encourage me…
9. The prophetic call is not just to warn of impending judgment, but to remind us as well that God will comfort His people in the midst of it…
10. I was doomscrolling through the internet last night, growing more and more tired, yet unable to sleep. I wanted to rest, but I couldn’t and so I kept plowing ahead through cyberspace when I thought I heard a voice…
“What are you really looking for?”…
I’m still not sure how to answer…
Michael,
I’m taking it slow and day by day. I truly think that is all God asks of us. And, I always ask Him to help me see the blessings in my day. Today it was meeting Andreii, a former Ukrainian dentist, who came to replace my ailing garbage disposal. His family has been here 10 months. His wife does speak English, she works as an aide in a school where all the ESL students speak Spanish. She is going to call me tomorrow about online Spanish lessons. If schedules work, I want to do it!
Not trying to be Pollyanna, but those moments do bring joy. Sometimes it’s the fact I made it through the day on my walker, or the worst kid in the class decided that I’m not a gargoyle. Often, it’s a Scripture I needed to remember to deal with a problem. It all helps. I also try to avoid doomscrolling. All it does is prepare me to worry. I glance the headlines, and go to God and pray.
Linn,
You are doing the wise things.
There are so many layers to all of this and each layer is overwhelming .
I haven’t found my footing yet…
#1 – I get that Musk thinks empathy is a problem, since he is far from being a believer in Jesus, and has zero understanding of the incarnation. What I don’t get is when supposed believers consider empathy some kind of sin.
I used to have very little empathy for others. That changed when I began to experience things in my life, mostly health-related, over which I had zero control. I think people like Trump, Musk, and their followers will need to experience severe hardship before they understand empathy. That is, if they ever do.
#8 – Same here, Brother.
CK,
A lack of empathy may well indicate the absence of the Spirit…which may be why so may are also so easily deceived…
I think the crisis of the Pandemic and DJT /MAGA fascination and twisting of ethics stripped away religious cloaks and just revealed where people are in their identities and outlooks.
Kevin and Michael,
I agree with both of you on empathy. If we’re all of Boomer age, we were all raised by parents who had a strong spirit of “work hard and you will be successful” (which, of course, is not always true). When the likes of Elon Musk and The Orange Julius are held up as role models, it’s hard to be empathetic. In other words, the hard-working get ahead, but the hard-working and conniving are even more successful.
Empathy? A fundamental weakness of Western Civ?
Sounds like an Antichrist move to me.
And what is it paving the way for?
vic,
That is part of it, I think.
What we can’t forget is that many lost their jobs over the vaccine and many had loved ones that died alone…that anger and pain was given a channel to flow through with MAGA…
Doomscrolling guilty!
Ayn Rand also thought that empathy was weakness. This line of thought is the opposite of what Christ teaches, so it clearly is a doctrine of Satan and the Spirit of the AntiChrist!
Linn, The Orange Julius!!😆
without empathy, the so-called powers that be can fire, lay off, or push out thousands of hardworking federal workers, suspend aid to starving children, manipulate a nation at war fighting for its sovereignty, threaten millions with loss of medical or financial security, and hand billion$ to those who already have billion$. If we don’t have empathy, we wouldn’t care either. It’s a watershed characteristic.
Looks like Robert Morris has been indicted on child sex charges:
https://oklahoma.gov/oag/news/newsroom/2025/march/multi-county-grand-jury-indicts-texas-megachurch-founder-on-multiple-counts-of-lewd-or-indecent-acts-with-child.html
#1 – To love one’s neighbor as one’s self seems impossible without empathy. Now… how to love those without empathy? C.S. Lewis has some insight:
“The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.”
#8 & #9 – I’ve come to realize that fear has always been and will probably always be a struggle for me. But you’ve nailed the solution. I simply tell Jesus I’m afraid and trust that He hears.
#10 – Along with others here I certainly identify with this. I was reminded yesterday to read or listen to something adorned with beauty each day to balance the impending sense of doom.
#10 – What am I looking for? Sometimes its a distraction from the doom, something funny or interesting. But sometimes, if I’m honest, I’m looking for more doom, maybe even the doom to end all dooms. Something so doom that it wakes us all up and the doom ends.
“Something so doom that it wakes us all up and the doom ends.”
That’s it…thank you.
JoelG,
Well said.
I was up most of the night wrestling with the fear and looking for hope…He was there.
Bonus points for the C.S. Lewis quote… 🙂
Empathy is enigmatic. It seems to me it can be both pernicious and noble.
It also seems that we can tell the difference. How is this not just another moment to polarize over political binaries?
Circular Firing Squad Dread.
Dread,
I would think the same argument could be made against any of the things that we have usually called virtues…usually to justify the absence of the virtue in question.
Empathy is part of being both human and Christian…it may be misguided at times, but there is some virtue in being wrong for the right reasons.
Empathy, tell that to all the corporations who typically seem to always layoff people near the Christmas Holidays.
Speaking of “doom and gloom” this website has fallen into the “sky is falling” trap. Let’s just all hang on and hate the world around us, Jesus is coming soon.” And it’s not just Christianity.
By, BRYCE HAYMOND
“Many people throughout history have looked and are currently looking for a savior of some kind to appear on Earth to save them, redeem them, liberate them, usher in peace, a new world, etc., and this can be seen throughout the religious and spiritual traditions. What is the nature of this messianism archetype in the various traditions, and what might it mean in mysticism? Will there be a future “messiah,” or does this point to a mystical reality?
The Jews are looking for the Messiah. The Christians are looking for (Jesus) Christ’s second coming (which Muslims also share). Buddhists are looking for Maitreya Buddha’s appearance on Earth. Hindus are looking for the coming of Kalki, the final avatar of Vishnu. Taoists look towards the coming of Li Hong, a messianic figure. In Zoroastrianism they are looking for a savior figure in Saoshyant. And in Bábism they are looking for “He whom God shall make manifest.” And if it is not a spiritual figure, it is perhaps a saving political figure, the State, a tech guru, a Singularity event, or something or someone else which will save us from our misery, our problems, our mortality, and will begin a new age in human history.”
“…some virtue in being wrong for the right reasons.” No. Clearly you mean to embue the word with theological content – you connect it with incarnation. Seems to me the apostolic canon already accomplished that task with agape. They found the word that could convert covenant faithfulness.
“Empathy” gets you in the conversation but it also partners you with all kinds of moral carnage. I use the word, but sparingly. Unfortunately the English word “love” suffers the same liabilities as the Greek Eros did it it’s time.
We do indeed need better language for the kind of love God manifests in our behalf but this is not it.
The power of language is that language is power.
“Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”
I started to compile a list of verses that would indicate that Jesus Himself was the most empathetic person who ever existed…but I don’t think it would sway those to whom the word empathy has become an offense.
I don’t understand…but there is much these days that I don’t.
I was thinking a lot about empathy and the idea of “Toxic Empathy” in the industry, aka the “church.” I have a great deal of pathetic, stupid, subhuman traits. One of the vilest is that I try to keep short accounts. When I am truly angry, frustrated, or mad at a fellow human being, I try to reach out, understand their perspective, and gain a more balanced view. I agree that is sin, and God will have His revenge. People might think I am a bit sarcastic by saying that, but viewing it from what I understand, much of the industry values not so much.
So, my last reconciliation escapade was a trip to the traveling circus called CPUC. I constantly call, write emails, send faxes, and stick pins in my virtual commissioner voodoo doll so to speak. But it started bothering me, again a moral, human, spiritual, and ethical failing on my part, but I can’t just judge these people like that. So I went and listened. One of the things that really drew me down there was Feyla McLeod and her mother Alaina. I have followed their story over the years and every time I saw a news article or listened to a CPUC meeting my rage concerning their loss boiled over. Then when the CPUC put the final disposition of the report of the Zogg fire on the consent calendar I was totally enraged.
This was my “toxic empathy” showing and as I have been told many times it is utterly disgusting and pathetic, at best, demonic at worst. You see Feyla was eight when she died in that fire, I was six when I survived a fire where I almost died. I have no other connection. But it was important to me to say her name to them in public and to their faces. So I went to the meeting, spoke for my one minute and sat down. I felt like a weight had lifted off of me and I was able to see the commissioners as people. When I was a full member of the franchise, this would have been seen as man pleasing and kowtowing to Satan, etc. I will never understand what is seen as the Christian religion in this country.
When did “toxic empathy” become a thing? I want some serious and thoughtful input. Seems like it became a thing when that Episcopal priest spoke to Trump about having empathy. But maybe I missed something along the way. Thanks!
…and it’s an honest question…not looking to pounce on anyone…just curious.
Dan, in my personal experience, it goes back to the late 1960s when I was going to do my Holy Communion. I was chased out of my holy communion at eight when I did not want to go into the confessional. My mother was told by the priest she was too lenient to me and I was going to burn in hell. I don’t deny that will happen. It was made clear to show any type of mercy, especially towards your children, was vile at best. In my experience, it went downhill from there in formal religion.
It was not called Toxic Empathy back then, it was manning up, toughening up, or what I call the get over it theology. I was wrapped up in the Satanic Panic back in the 70s and became “born again”(tm) in 1980. In all those situations, it was a constant war footing, we were at war with everyone, including ourselves, all of the time. To show any mercy, unless one was branded, was in management, or one was rich, showing any type of understanding or mercy was seen as weak, pathetic, even demonic. We had to be ready for the end of the world and riding back on white horses to slaughter billions with the return of the Prince of Peace. That is a direct quote.
I was never able to do that, my heart always ached for people and I paid and still am paying a dear price for that. But the trade off is well worth it deep down.
Dread
If one has a problem applying a theological meaning to “empathy”, how about “compassion” (σπλαγχνίζομαι). It is used a dozen times in the synoptic gospels and mostly references Christ.
We don’t have a problem with words, we have a problem with conduct…
In answer to some of the questions…
As far as I can tell this concept came out of Doug Wilsons camp through Joe Rigney.
The arguments go something like this;
Arguments for the “Sin of Empathy”:
Blurring Boundaries:
Some argue that empathy can lead to over-identification with the suffering of others, potentially causing individuals to lose their own perspective and fail to maintain a clear understanding of right and wrong.
“Weaponizing Victims”:
Rigney suggests that empathy can be used to manipulate or exploit others, leading to a focus on feelings rather than actions, and potentially causing harm.
“Fusion” of Personalities:
The concept of “fusion” suggests that empathy can lead to a merging of personalities, where one person loses their own identity in the process of empathizing with another.
Focus on Feelings Over Truth:
Some argue that empathy can lead to a focus on emotions rather than objective truth, potentially leading to poor decision-making and a lack of accountability.
Sympathy vs. Empathy:
The distinction between sympathy and empathy is drawn, with some arguing that sympathy, which involves understanding and acknowledging someone’s feelings from a distance, is a more appropriate response than empathy, which involves stepping into someone else’s experience.
I still maintain that the Incarnation was a act of ultimate empathy, where God chose to experience being human the humans experience it.
Any virtue can be taken to an extreme and be distorted…that doesn’t mean we abandon attempting to be virtuos.
Thanks for the info/perspective brian, Duane, and Michael. I would refer to myself as empathic. Or to put it more clearly…having a heart. I have a little more to add, but that will have to come later as I want to sort out my thoughts about this.
The empathy/sympathy fracas seems to be a reminder to me that theologians and pastors are (generally) completely and shamefully incompetent to discuss terms outside their field. A friend of mine years ago quipped that most “biblical counselors” are neither competent exegetes of scripture nor responsible social scientists.
Jargon seems to change meaning a LOT when theologians use terms. I saw an article in the last year or so by a psychologist who fretted that on the internet you will see people prolix on the topic of gaslighting when no such term has EVER existed in the social scientific disciplines–it’s a journlaist/pop psych construct that has no basis in the academic literature.
Decades ago I recall that the social psychologist Roy Baumeister in his book Evil: Inside Human Suffering and Cruelty, gave definitions of empathy vs sympathy as follows:
1) empathy, the CAPACITY to imagine how others may be feeling or what they are thinking
2) sympathy, the disposition to ACTUALLY CARE what others may be thinking and feeling.
Someone may have all the sympathy in the world without an empathetic capacity to actually understand how the person feels. Job’s comforters were initially sympathetic but showed, at length (!), they were not empathetic to Job in his plight.
Other people have a great capacity for empathy and no capacity for sympathy and Baumeister said that these types tend to be sociopaths. They CAN imagine how others are thinking and feeling and they manipulate people on that basis. Baumeister tersely remarked that people with a great capacity for empathy but no sympathy can do a lot of awful things to people.
What I’ve seen of the Rigney/Wilson brood is treating “empathy” in a way that doesn’t seem to correspond to any literature I’ve across from people who work in the social sciences. They’re reacting in a way that suggests basic incompetency about terms or a reliance on the surmise that whatever the this-minute-pop-usage-of-empathy-is-on-the-internet deserves to be written about at book length.
It’s important to have both empathy and sympathy. Taking up Michael’s Incarnational point, Jesus the Son has empathy by dint of knowing as the Son of God and He proved his sympathy for us by incarnating as a man and dwelling among us and going to the Cross for our sins and to reconcile us to God the Father.
WTH,
Thank you…that was well done and spot on…
I had a small suspicion that “toxic empathy” was a recent creation. I have always felt uncomfortable with my Christianity being out of balance with my heart being in the corner of those who are hated and despised by the church. I know about God’s law and sin, but then I have a hard time that those who have the medicine (the church) don’t seem to want to get down and dirty with those who need the medicine. I like what Michael here said about incarnation:
“I still maintain that the Incarnation was a act of ultimate empathy, where God chose to experience being human the humans experience it.”