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October 18 - October 18, 2024
But empathy alone is a terrible guide. It may be part of what inspires us to do good, but it’s just an emotion and, like all emotions, is highly susceptible to manipulation. That’s exactly what’s happening today. Empathy has been hijacked for the purpose of conforming well-intentioned people to particular political agendas. Specifically, it’s been co-opted by the progressive wing of American society to convince people that the progressive position is exclusively the one of kindness and morality. I call it toxic empathy.
The goal of statements like these—examples of toxic empathy—is to get us to suppress our opposition to a particular issue or point of view by playing upon our desire to be a good person.
But empathy and kindness are not synonymous, and neither are empathy and compassion. Kindness describes how we treat someone, either in word or deed. Compassion means to suffer with someone who’s struggling. Both kindness and compassion are necessary components of love. But empathy literally means to be in the feelings of another person. Empathy by itself is neither loving nor kind; it’s just an emotion. Love, on the other hand, is a conscious choice to seek good for another person.
The erroneous conflation of love and empathy has convinced the masses that to be loving, we must feel the same way they do.
Empathy can help us see their perspective and foster compassion, but that’s all it can do. It can’t guide us into making the right decisions or donning the wise, moral, or biblical position. Toxic empathy bullies us into believing that the unwise, immoral, and unbiblical position is actually the righteous one.
We look to His Word—not our feelings—as our guide in all things, including the hot-button cultural and political issues of our day.
As we’ll see again and again, progressive positions are often—if not always—untruthful and unbiblical and are, therefore, also unloving.
many others fall into the category of empathy manipulation. “If you had empathy, you’d take XYZ progressive position.”
They’ll demand, of course, that you have some empathy, which is typically code for: “You must agree with me.”
This book isn’t about killing empathy. It’s about embracing God’s vision for love, order, and goodness. My goal is to equip you with commonsense, biblical truths that dismantle toxic empathy from its foundations.
Biblical equity, for example, means fair, impartial judgment (Ps. 99:4). Progressive equity means equal outcomes.
When these red flags show up, it means someone is using toxic empathy to capitalize on the Christian’s righteous desire to be compassionate to the outcast and the weak, distorting biblical love into progressive activism and manipulating women into supporting issues that are harmful and, in many cases, sinful.
It shouldn’t surprise us that those who advocate for the legal dismemberment of innocent children are also violent in general. Of course, not all abortion advocates are terrorists. But because murder is the foundation of the movement, it’s expected that its loudest, strongest activists will seek to inflict their enemies with pain and death.
Abortion providers use empathy—“I can imagine your situation, and a baby would be too hard to raise right now”—to lure women into believing abortion is their best option.
Empathy tells us only to care about how the pregnant mother is in that moment. Truth and love demand that we recognize without qualification these babies’ right to live.
When it comes to abortion, compassion and pity by themselves lead to brokenness and even death. Christians offer something infinitely more valuable: truth and love.
But they are, whether they know it or not, merely useful idiots.
either with affirming but toxic empathy or with truth-filled love.
Because between a man and a woman in principle procreation is always possible, and it is that possibility which gave rise to the institution of marriage in the first place as a matter of law and governance.
When my kids want adventure and risk, they go to their dad. When they need comfort and sympathy, they come to me. When they want to be chased around the house, they call for him. When they’re sick or tired, they cry for me. This isn’t due to personality differences but rather our innate gender differences.
“but I was longing…for a father. I was longing for somebody who would provide, who would protect.”
Remember, marriage as an institution exists for the procreation and raising of children. For a heterosexual couple, infertility is circumstantial, but they have the type of love that could produce children.
That’s the gospel.
we should always seek to vote in a way that aligns with our worldview. To do so isn’t scary “Christian nationalism” or “fascism,” as critics of conservative Christians say.
if we love our neighbors, we will support policies that promote righteousness, biblical justice, and order.
Toxic empathy demands our empathy only go one direction—toward the party the progressive worldview deems oppressed.
Illegal immigration isn’t compassionate.
Sure, no human is illegal—whatever that means. But humans do illegal things,
America only has 5 percent of the world’s population, but we are home to 20 percent of the world’s immigrants.[58]
Hamas launched a brutal surprise attack against Israel, taking hostages while raping and murdering innocent civilians,
It doesn’t matter how people feel about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What was terrifying is that large numbers of people in America publicly supported a terrorist group that was, at the very same time, posting videos online of its members raping, mutilating, and killing civilians.
The most it can do is seek the welfare and interests of its own people.
Countries are like families.
“A man’s reasons for not wanting his country to be ruled by foreigners are very like his reasons for not wanting his house to be burned down; because he could not even begin to enumerate all the things he would miss.”
But God’s command to love the foreigner or sojourner must be understood against the backdrop of God’s character: namely, His orderliness.
But it’s not only okay but reasonable and right, for a Christian to allow God’s Word to shape what we think about policies and how we vote. We just have to make sure we’re doing so properly, through thoughtful exegesis and application. That means we must seek to understand the context.
America is not ancient Israel, though, so Christians don’t have the responsibility to enact Old Testament laws here.
