Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion

by Allie Beth Stuckey

There are good-faith immigration debates to be had among Christians, but the “we must allow everyone in per our Christian duty” isn’t a serious position.

Yes, we are exiles on this Earth, but we are not absolved of our responsibility to steward the places God has sovereignly put us.

Yes, Christians must care for the poor. Yes, we should desire to reach the lost. Yes, we should expend time, energy, and resources for persecuted Christians and impoverished people around the world. None of these things require us to support the unlimited acceptance of immigrants or the failure to secure our borders.

“The fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth.”[2] This includes not just ensuring job opportunities, but combating everything that may affect one’s ability to prosper: sexism, racism, transphobia, and other forms of discrimination. Social justice, in other words, is presented as the antidote to the large-scale bullying that keeps everyone but the white, straight male down.

Elijah’s story reads like a case of deadly bullying in which the strong crushed the weak. And, even worse, these officers used not only their physical superiority but the power of the state to punish an innocent, defenseless man. This is why so many Christians have accepted the social justice hypothesis: it promises to fight for the underdog and defeat the bully.

While gospel-inspired unity is absolutely biblical, many components of the “racial reconciliation” discussed within the church are not.

But “reconciliation” means to restore, or to bring back together. It denotes a previous relationship that has been broken. Is that the case between all white and black Christians? Only if one assumes the social justice hypothesis, which categorizes whole groups of people as oppressed or oppressors. But in reality, it’s not accurate to say an entire group of people with one level of melanin have all wronged another group of people with another level of melanin. This is a secular, social justice idea, not a biblical one. Understanding the plight and position of someone who has a different background than you—having empathy for them—is one thing, and can be good. Forcing one group to bear responsibility for sins they did not themselves commit in the name of “reconciliation” is a form of toxic empathy bullying that is neither healthy nor godly.

That’s because social justice isn’t real justice. It focuses on outcomes, like the number of black people in jail, rather than the “why” behind these numbers, and attempts to change those outcomes through policies that favor criminals. Toxic empathy demands we ignore anyone hurt by a crime except the black suspect. But the result is more violence, not less. Once we see the rotten fruits of social justice, it no longer looks like the empathetic option.

It’s true that black people are disproportionately represented in the justice system. Though they comprise about 14.4 percent of the general population, they made up nearly 40 percent of the prison population[16] and about 26 percent of all arrests in 2019.[17] They are more likely than any other ethnicity to be involved in traffic stops and to be accused of reckless driving. They are also said to be more likely to be killed by the police than their white counterparts.[18] But it’s important to note that densely populated black communities are typically high in crime, and black men, while making up only 5 to 6 percent of the population, account for 40 percent of police officer killings.[19] No one is arguing that this justifies tragedies like Elijah’s. The point is that the more crime there is in a community, the more police interactions there are, and the greater the chances there are of a fatal interaction with the police.

One study found that self-identified progressives believe that one thousand to ten thousand unarmed black men are shot by the police every year. Conservatives guessed that the number is between ten to one hundred. The real number is typically between eight and twenty-seven.[21]

While we all agree that the number of unwarranted deaths—by a gun or not—at the hands of the police should be zero, it’s important to get a sense of the scale of the problem.

When it comes to social justice, empathy is weaponized to drown out any factual dissent with accusations of racism. It was considered racist to bring up the fact that Floyd was saying “I can’t breathe” before officers even touched him, likely due to the amount of fentanyl in his system. Jacob Blake was shot in the back by police officers and his family was visited by then vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris after the incident. It was racist to mention that Blake was reaching for a knife in his car before he was shot. Rayshard Brooks was killed by the police, not for simply driving under the influence, but for fighting the two officers who pulled him over, stealing one of their Tasers, and then trying to shoot them. Bringing these facts to light was considered—you guessed it—racist.

Social justice ideology aims to eliminate all gaps between groups, operating on the belief that a just society is one in which all people obtain equal outcomes, what progressive ideologues typically refer to as “equity.” Traditionally and biblically, “equity” refers to equal treatment. But, as Vice President Kamala Harris put it, equity, according to social justice, “means we all end up in the same place.”

Sowell explains, “The crucial question is not whether evils exist but whether the evils of the past or present are automatically the cause of major economic, educational and other social disparities today. The bedrock assumption underlying many political or ideological crusades is that socioeconomic disparities are automatically somebody’s fault, so that our choices are either to blame society or to ‘blame the victim.’ ” To social justice ideologues, there is no middle ground.

By attributing every disparate statistic to discrimination, social justice warriors are ignoring all the other factors that could come into play. These arguments lead to the justification of policies that purport to eliminate disparities in an effort to fight injustice.

Are all white people really on the hook for something a small percentage of people who shared their skin color did two hundred years ago? Does a white poor person in Appalachia really owe money to Beyoncé and Barack Obama? Such is the absurdity of the demand for slavery reparations in America today.

The German philosopher Karl Marx mobilized the masses with the idea that the world is divided into two classes: the rich, oppressive bourgeoisie and the poor and downtrodden proletariat. The bourgeoisie was guilty as a whole, and the proletariat was virtually guiltless. This idea has taken on many forms over the centuries, always resulting in chaos and death.

While driving Zimbabwe into economic despair, Mugabe did what all socialists do: accumulated wealth for himself while his subjects starved.

Social justice is not justice. That’s not only because it harms those it pretends to help, and it’s not only because it’s supported by philosophical and statistical errors.

It’s not justice because it’s evil. It is the opposite of what God calls justice. Proverbs 20:10 tells us, “Unequal weights and unequal measures are both alike an abomination to the Lord.” In

God’s law giving to ancient Israel, He prohibits favoritism, even to the poor: “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor” (Lev. 19:15)....

Just as mistreating someone because they’re black is wicked, so is mistreating someone because they’re white or because they’re deemed “privileged.” God doesn’t see one form of mistreatment as less abominable than the other.

According to Scripture, God’s justice has at least four characteristics: it is truthful, proportionate, impartial, and direct. We see this most clearly in God’s lawgiving to ancient Israel.

Christians, in particular, want to help those on the lowest rungs of society. In following the example of Christ, we are obligated to do so. But if we’re not careful, our righteous compassion for the poor can be exploited to support the policies that hurt the very people we’re trying to help.

Reconciliation implies that one group has wronged the other. But it cannot be accurately said that white people as a whole have harmed black people as a whole. This is an oppressor-oppressed dynamic that we find in secular social justice ideology, not in the Bible.

Ezra and Daniel were a part of a covenant people, Israel, who were still engaging in the sins of which Ezra and Daniel were asking for forgiveness (Ezra 9:7). Neither white people nor white evangelicals are part of a distinct, covenant group. It makes no sense, logically or biblically, to hold these roughly defined groups responsible for the past sins of people who generally looked like them and lived in the same relative vicinity.

I know the highlight is too long, but go back and read it. This is vital because it spells out the difference between covenant people of a covenant nation and their actions, vs. the social justice agenda of 2025. And they are polar opposites #mindblown.

In a public document once titled “Whiteness 101,” white participants in Be the Bridge are held to a totally different standard than black participants. They are forbidden from “whitesplaining” by explaining

away a “microaggression” a black person has experienced. They must maintain “a posture of active listening.” If a black participant expresses offense at their words, they shouldn’t justify themselves but rather must “apologize and do better next time.” They must make space for black people to “wail, cuss, or even yell” at them without getting upset. Any expression of frustration or offense is “white fragility” showing up. Does this sound like the Christlike path to gospel unity? It doesn’t, because it’s not.

Again, too long, but I found it appalling how "Be the Bridge" both treats white people and encourages people of color to act. How is this promoting reconciliation of any kind from any race? How is it not promoting further bitterness and discord?

It’s true that white and black people can have different life experiences because of their race, and it’s good to understand these varying backgrounds. But placing blame on one group because of their melanin levels, while alleviating responsibility of another group because of their melanin levels, is not only unbiblical; history shows us it’s a recipe for disaster.

There are threads of biblical truth woven into the social justice narrative that evoke Christians’ empathy, and therefore it is the one form of progressivism that is not only accepted within conservative evangelicalism, but promoted.

And here's yet another "Gotcha!"

It is because man is so uniquely valuable, and because God loves people so much, that He declares execution the only just punishment for murder. Intentionally killing an innocent person is that big of a deal to Him.

So it is with toxic empathy, which tells us that we can be more loving and wiser than God by affirming sin. “Did God actually say you shouldn’t love the woman in crisis?” “Did God actually say you shouldn’t love transgender people?” “Did God actually say you shouldn’t love the gay person, the immigrant, or the criminal?” No, God didn’t.

Christians are indeed called to love. But He does call us to truth and obedience, and He does tell us that real love can’t exist without both. And His Word shows us that disobedience to God never ends well.

Yes, toxic empathy is satanic. It is a tool of the Deceiver to convince women that biblical love means affirming someone’s sin.

Would you push someone you love off a cliff? Would you lead them toward destruction? Would you encourage them to do something that’s going to cause them pain and death?

The god of self tells a woman her wants and needs are more important than the life of her child. The god of self tells a person that their feelings about their gender are more important than reality. The god of self tells adults that their sexual desire is more important than a child’s need for a mother and father. The god of self even convinces us that lawlessness—either through open borders or social justice—is a sophisticated, compassionate position that will make us appear loving and righteous. Our age is ruled by self-deification.

The ancient writers of pagan Greece and Rome believed that a person’s logos—their ability to rationalize—gave them worth. And it took Logos, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, arriving as a baby, to abolish that dangerous idea.

The logos of the Greeks and the Romans said “children have no value.” The Logos of Christianity said “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:14).”

Equal in worth. Equally in need of a Savior. Male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free, brown or white, child or adult, disabled or able-bodied, rich or poor. Equal in worth, in equal need of a Savior.

It’s tempting as Christians to believe that we can be nicer than God, that we can appeal to people better by being more polite or gentler than He is. We feel like we need to take God off the hook for the harsher things He’s revealed through Scripture. Maybe if we’re squishy or silent or secular enough on the controversial issues of our day, then the world will like us. Then we’ll have earned enough of their respect, we think, to be heard by them, so we can lead them to Christ.

Note to self: YOU CANNOT BE NICER THAN GOD.

Toxic empathy isn’t just a cheap replacement for real, biblical love. It is its foil, its archnemesis. It’s the wolf dressed as a grandmother to trick Red Riding Hood. It is the villain who poses as an innocent civilian so he can gain access to his victims. It’s a poisonous dessert, sweet to taste but deadly when consumed.