There is evidently a movement afoot to reclaim ground on - get this - empathy. Empathy running unchecked in America. As I was listening to my can’t-wait-for-Wednesday weekly podcast, I was floored to hear that there are a bunch of people shit-talking empathy right now. More specifically, decrying how empathy makes us less American, less Christian, less… winner-y? The ability to understand and share the feelings of someone else is now being cast as a liability and a manipulation by people who feel taken advantage of by… empathy. Did y’all know about this?!
Books recently published by evangelicals entitled The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits and Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion encourage Christians to resist the temptation of social justice causes or declaring that “no human being is illegal.” I’m not joking. This is from The Sin of Empathy — “The so-called virtue of empathy is the greatest rhetorical tool of manipulation in the 21st century. Because love is a real virtue, empathy’s power is in posing as selfless care for victims… When you reject the sin of empathy, you reject the manipulation of the media, the manipulation of family and friends, and most importantly, the manipulation of your own heart.”
Stay strong y’all! Resist that worldly urge to love your neighbor! The books posit that empathy is being weaponized against Christians at the expense of “Biblical principles,” but I consider these arguments to be in bad faith. Literally and figuratively. “Too much empathy” was not one of the 10 commandments, the Sermon on the Mount or, anywhere. Understanding what life is like for an undocumented person doesn’t run you afoul of God’s love. Also, they are elevating the very Christian coded-word compassion and making it sound like empathy is a hot new street drug to warn your kids about. Compassion, while it conveys action, conveys a distance that, to me, empathy doesn’t have. Empathy involves getting messy, perhaps changing your mind, while compassion is about acting on, acting for, but not always acting with. Not to hate on compassion, but just to point out the subtle semantic difference and how they’re being employed here. I am pro-compassion and pro-empathy, but I think you have to start with empathy so that you just don’t make assumptions and do for others (ie: my career in missions).
To add gasoline to this dumpster fire, the richest man in the world recently declared, "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy." We care too much, I guess. He even called it “suicidal empathy” to describe just how serious it is. See?! They do maybe think it’s a street drug? Not to put too fine a point on it, but if Western civilization is, in fact, so weakened by its ruinous empathic impulses, they made America… the richest country in the world? With the largest nuclear arsenal? The noblesse oblige of it all is so ick and hollowly false coming from the richest person in the world who famously gives almost no money away. And benefited both from apartheid South Africa and American immigration policy.
It feels like up is down and right is now… the downfall of civilization? What are they even teaching kids in Sunday school in 2025? (Hate) your neighbor as you (internalize your own sinful nature) yourself? What are the fruits of the spirit now — suspect, report and deport?! 😵💫 To them, empathy is making us weak and woke, DEI is crashing planes and starting fires, etc. People are clawing back and reframing every possible argument in an effort to prove that being concerned about human rights and focusing on the poor is a misguided impulse, a potential Trojan horse that will ruin the Christian faith and the “Western World.” I am conflating these arguments, but they seem to be advocating for, and suspicious of, the same things. For these evangelical writers, toxic empathy is being tricked into caring about women so much that you vote for abortion rights. Toxic empathy makes you think that trans folks are people with the ability to self-determine their futures (the rich man disowned his own trans daughter, so he would seemingly agree with this). “Western civilization” appears to need a good dose of indifference so that we can continue to lock people up and out to focus only on what’s good for us and trust the free market (but no boycotts, please!).
I was always taught by the church and school (even when it wasn’t modeled) that empathy was what makes us human. Without empathy we are… what exactly? This latest outcry is really showing the limits of empathy in a capitalistic, evangelical Christian society — don’t let your empathy actually change you or open you up to ideas; keep centering yourself. Don’t miss out on the full expression of God’s plan for your life (riches!) or for the American economy (riches!) by wondering how it might impact others.
I know this is a very obvious and ridiculous thing to get us to even make argumentsfor empathy. Why even talk about this? The currents that are forming — they’re contributing to such a profound sense of ideological dislocation. I have to keep asking myself what I actually believe, what I know to be true and what I would actually choose in this moment. Is anyone else feeling this way? It’s obvious to everyone reading that empathy is good and yet, what is our counter, where are our leaders? You know that IG trend going around in which people respond to the prompt “What radicalized you?” (Love this one. And real ones like this.) You wanna know what radicalized me? "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." The Bible does, in fact, promote ruinous empathy. It equates dying for others as love, the greatest love even. If empathy is the downfall of civilization, LFG. If empathy makes you look bad and you want to blame empathy, miss me with that energy. Again, this is obvious to most, but what do we do about this?
The podcast that started this whole line of thinking reminds us, I think, of the most important part. Empathy is a danger to fascism. Fascism can't take root if you are asking why the dangerous gang member deported to El Salvador and is actually a gay hairdresser from California with Biblical tattoos (whoops, we confused crowns from three kings in the Bible with gangs. my bad, bb!). Fascism can’t persist if you are concerned that rights are being denied a person even if they aren’t you. I get that empathy isn’t a policy position and it’s incomplete, but it’s what makes us HUMAN. If they are telling us they are scared of it, we must use it. Lean into empathy. Be curious about others. Be willing, even, to miss out on an opportunity or to be uncomfortable for the sake of someone else. You don’t have to call it DEI, but just help others who haven’t had what you’ve had before. This newsletter is about giving, and empathy is the root of generosity. Empathy informs our giving and turns our charity into solidarity. Seeing the humanity in others makes us better givers and helpers. This atatmpted redefinition of empathy as weakness or wokeness will not bring me down. I have to remind myself of this, rally, and go serve the shit out of people. Listen. Share. The only problem with this whole argument for empathy means we have to make room for even the people who are against empathy. Sigh.
And look, if you don’t value what I value or think like me, please, don’t make empathy the enemy. Let your conclusions be made out of knowing what someone’s life is like and not assuming or denying their reality. I haven’t lived through war, poverty or a polio outbreak (this conversation on American amnesia was super interesting to me). I get that there’s a lot I take for granted. Reframing empathy as toxic or suicidal is just the absolute last thing we need right now. We need more empathy, not a suspicion that empathy is making us weak and gay, for crying out loud. Empathy building is a discipline and, as discussed, a refutation of all the ridiculousness. In my life, I imagine empathy as traveling to places I don’t yet know, reading, watching documentaries, listening to my community, talking to my elders, volunteering. Empathy is almost the last good thing. We must try. If we don’t care about and try to understand others, none of this works.
Please know that I would super love to get through one newsletter in the next few years and not have to mention fascism, but that seems to be on a month-to-month basis right now. And this must be the most obvious post ever, but I guess hearing about all this yesterday really took me by surprise. They’re saying the quiet part so loud that it stuns. Thanks for subscribing, and thanks to those of you who have paid — your money is now going to help a Rohingya refugee school in Bangladesh. Together we can do this.
INTO IT
Newsletters — I’ve been trying to cut back on listening to the news and being on social media, and I’m loving subscribing to Substacks that make me dream and/or think like Kelly Wearstler! Gabriella Karefa-Johnson! Aminatou Sow! Roxane Gay! Also really liking The Place.
Coffee+ — I was in Puerto Rico last week (hi waterfall rainbow!) and tried so many amazing iced coffees. I will definitely be recreating coldbrew + ginger beer + lime + coconut + cardamom.
Touching grass — So many of the things I’m into right now are offline, in my garden, in walks around the lake with friends looking for bluebonnets. Spring is hope 🪻🪻🪻