The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits

by Joe Rigney

The compromised leaders and soft-hearted Christians overcome faithful resistance to the progressive drift using sticks and carrots, waving the banner of mission and evangelism and (subtly) threatening ostracism from respectable Christian circles. And frequently men who are otherwise faithful will go along with it all because “So-and-so is a good guy” and “I don’t want to rock the boat.” In this way, the progressive gaze comes to dominate, not because every Christian leader is consciously setting out to appease progressives directly, but because corporately, we’ve absorbed progressive categories, sensibilities, and hostilities by osmosis. The influence is indirect and atmospheric. As one friend put it, “A man drinking water downstream may have no idea that the river’s source is polluted, but that doesn’t prevent him from being poisoned by it.”