Sin is a big word for Jews and Christians, it is an especially toxic word among Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. When some attitude, thought, or behavior is put under the label of sin, people take notice. When I was much younger than I am now, it was not uncommon for people in my sphere to talk about going to the movies or social dances as a sin. In fact, both of those things were banned by the Christian College, Cornerstone, that I attended. In both cases, blanket bans and talk of sin was unproductive, and unnecessarily legalistic. What should have happened was a much more nuanced discussion about temptation and stewardship of time and resources that led to much more accurate conclusions like, "Some movies should not be viewed by Christians, and would thus because of their immoral content be sinful to attend." Or, "Some social dancing, because of its connection to both alcohol and potential to inflame lust in young people who may not be capable of saying no to that temptation, should be avoided by Christians." Statements of that nature don't fit on a bumper sticker, don't feel tough enough by those rooting on the Culture Wars, but actually conform much more closely to both the teaching of the Apostle Paul about the confluence of Christian freedom and responsibility {1 Corinthians 10:23 New International Version “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.} and the actual reality of how Christians deal with and overcome temptation.
That being said, the choice of Pastor Joe Rigney {with the support and agreement of Pastor John Piper, Pastor Doug Wilson, and apologist James White} to label Empathy a SIN cannot be set aside as hyperbole or click-bait {if that was the goal, to gain notoriety and ultimately sales, this discussion takes on a whole different tone; let us not assume the worst}. Rigney, and those like minded leaders in the Church, want Empathy to be reevaluated, judged, and jettisoned from Christian discipleship, ministry, and counseling.
The following quotes are from Pastor Joe Rigney's, The Enticing Sin of Empathy HOW SATAN CORRUPTS THROUGH COMPASSION Unfortunately, Rigney considers himself to be somehow C.S. Lewis' literary successor and has written his indictment of Empathy in the style of the The Screwtape Letters. It worked well for Lewis' genius, less well here.
When humans are suffering, they tend to make two demands that are impossible to fulfill simultaneously. On the one hand, they want people to notice the depth of their pain and sorrow — how deep they are in the pit, how unique and tragic their circumstances. At the same time, they don’t want to be made to feel that they really need the assistance of others. In one breath, they say, “Help me! Can’t you see I’m suffering?” and in the next they say, “How dare you act as though I needed you and your help?” The sufferer doesn’t want to be alone, and demands not to be pitied.
Rigney sets forth an example of the complex emotions of traumatized people. He evidently considers it a tool useful to Satan that those who have are experiencing deep pain may at the same time struggle to accept help for that pain. Traumatized people don't have straightforward emotional responses; that's not news. He really shouldn't be surprised, is not the Bible full of examples of people who didn't feel worthy of God's redemption, Peter saying to Jesus, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8) being but one example. Moreover, in ministry I've experienced this, as have countless other pastors and lay Christians. When we reach out to someone in desperate need of help, that person either struggles with pride (not being willing to admit they need it) or with despair (not seeing that help is possible for someone like them). The human condition, especially apart from the involvement of the Spirit, is a mess.
Now, sufferers have been placing such impossible demands on others from time immemorial. In response, our armies have fought for decades to twist the Enemy’s virtue of compassion into its counterfeit, empathy. Since we introduced the term a century ago, we’ve steadily taught the humans to regard empathy as an improvement upon compassion or sympathy.
Here is Rigney's premise: Empathy is a twisted mirror to Compassion, a counterfeit modern opposite. For this to be true, one would need to search the Bible in vain for empathy on display and only find compassion. Let's take a look, does God show compassion ONLY, or empathy too under its umbrella?
Matthew 9:36 New International Version
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
1 Peter 3:8 New International Version
Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.
Romans 12:15 New International Version
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
John 11:34-36New International Version
34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
35 Jesus wept.
36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
Hebrews 4:15 New International Version
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
Beyond these examples from Scripture, passages where Compassion is not devoid of emotional connection, there is one simple act of Jesus that puts aside any thought that Jesus only felt Compassion and not Empathy: He touched the lepers.
Matthew 8:3 New International Version
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.
To touch a leper was forbidden, it made one unclean according to the Law of Moses, and risked infection. Why would Jesus touch this man before he healed him? He could just have easily healed him first, and then (after presenting himself to the priests to be declared 'clean') this man could have had all the hugs he needed. Why? Because Jesus felt his pain, his isolation, his loneliness. Was Jesus thus unable to see what the man really needed? Did he lose sight of Truth? Of course not, his Empathy was one of the reasons why Jesus was able to transcend conventional wisdom and accepted limits, to show the mercy and love of God to someone in desperate need of both. In all honesty, this one passage is a deal-breaker for the notion that Empathy is Sin. Jesus felt the pain of others, it didn't hinder him from remaining true to his calling and purpose one bit.
In addition, this entire pronouncement of SIN against those who feel empathy is a semantic exercise with two words that have significant overlap in their semantic ranges, and are often used interchangeably by authors, pastors, and the public.
According to Merriam-Webster, which actually contains a page comparing the two terms:
What is the difference between empathy and compassion?
Some of our users are interested in the difference between empathy and compassion. Compassion is the broader word: it refers to both an understanding of another’s pain and the desire to somehow mitigate that pain:
Our rationalizations for lying (or withholding the truth)—"to protect her," "he could never handle it”—come more out of cowardice than compassion.
— Eric Utne, Utne Reader, November/December 1992
Sometimes compassion is used to refer broadly to sympathetic understanding:
Nevertheless, when Robert Paxton's "Vichy France" appeared in a French translation in 1973, his stark and devastating description ... was rather badly received in France, where many critics accused this scrupulous and thoughtful young historian either of misinterpreting the Vichy leaders' motives or of lacking compassion.
— Stanley Hoffmann, The New York Times Book Review, 1 Nov. 1981
Empathy refers to the ability to relate to another person’s pain vicariously, as if one has experienced that pain themselves:
For instance, people who are highly egoistic and presumably lacking in empathy keep their own welfare paramount in making moral decisions like how or whether to help the poor.
— Daniel Goleman, The New York Times, 28 Mar. 1989"The man thought all this talk was fine, but he was more concerned with just getting water. And, if I was going to be successful on this mission, I had to remember what his priorities were. The quality you need most in United Nations peacekeeping is empathy."
— Geordie Elms, quoted in MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Autumn 1992
In some cases, compassion refers to both a feeling and the action that stems from that feeling:
Compassion, tenderness, patience, responsibility, kindness, and honesty are actions that elicit similar responses from others.
— Jane Smiley, Harper’s, June 2000
while empathy tends to be used just for a feeling:
She is also autistic, a disability that she argues allows her a special empathy with nonhuman creatures.
— Tim Flannery, The New York Review of Books, 29 April 2009
Thus if Rigney is correct, and compassion is a virtue, but empathy is a sin, the only thing that a Christian can do to have compassion, which is required, is to understand the pain of others, want to help them alleviate it, but NEVER feel that pain. The primary distinction between the two terms is the emotional connection that empathy makes beyond that of some forms of compassion. I've known this many times in ministry. There are some people I have helped in their distress whose emotional state, for whatever reason, does not powerfully connect with me at that time. I help them just the same. And yet, there have been others, perhaps in the same circumstances, whose emotional pain hits me powerfully, even causing me to loose control over my emotions and shed tears. In both cases I offer such help as I can give, am I to believe that the emotion-less response, Spock like, is a virtue, and the one that causes me emotional pain too, the more empathetic response, is SIN?? This conclusion I reject both categorically, and whole-heartedly. I have my mother's heart, I always have. When she cries, I can't hold back tears, the things that tug at her heart have always tugged at mine. It is a gift of God born of both my nature and my nurture, and something that I am profoundly grateful to my mother for the role she played in giving it to me. Why? Because it has produced some of the most powerful and transformative moments in my ministry. In addition, it has shaped my heart and mind, bringing me closer to the suffering of others, shutting down excuses and rationalizations against helping others in need, because at times I can feel what they feel (at least in part). That Christian Fundamentalism (or Evangelicalism, the two terms, ironically, have much overlap) has degenerated to the point where a seminary president lays this down as the Rubicon that cannot be crossed, is an indicator of just how ill this patient has become.
Of note: In his discussion Rigney is defining Empathy in a way foreign to both the dictionary definition and common usage. He is putting on empathy all manner elements that are not required, not part of what this emotion actually is. Those who just read the headlines won't notice this, they'll assume that a minister of the Gospel has warned them not to feel the pain of others because it is sinful, and walk away even more misguided than if he/she had tried to maintain the hair-splitting definitions Rigney is favoring.
Think of it this way: the Enemy’s virtue of compassion attempts to suffer with the hurting while maintaining an allegiance to the Enemy. In fact, it suffers with the hurting precisely because of this allegiance. In doing so, the Christians are to follow the example of their pathetic and repulsive Master. Just as the Enemy joined the humans in their misery in that detestable act of incarnation, so also his followers are to join those who are hurting in their misery.
However, just as the Enemy became like them in every way but sin, so also his followers are not permitted to sin in their attempts to comfort the afflicted. Thus, his compassion always reserves the right not to blaspheme. It seeks the sufferer’s good and subordinates itself to the Enemy’s abominable standard of Truth.
Our alternative, empathy, shifts the focus from the sufferer’s good to the sufferer’s feelings, making them the measure of whether a person is truly “loved.” We teach the humans that unless they subordinate their feelings entirely to the misery, pain, sorrow, and even sin and unbelief of the afflicted, they are not loving them.
Here Rigney builds his Straw Man to dismantle. His false dichotomy states that one can ONLY have empathy if one abandons the desire to seek the good of the other person, that while Christ did indeed suffer 'with' those who were hurting, in other words he felt their pain, this was somehow not Empathy, but only Compassion. The last sentence above is instructive: Rigney has now redefined empathy to be feeling the pain of others WITHOUT any recognition that pain might be, at least in part, caused by sin or unbelief on the part of the person one is feeling empathy towards. But why?? Even if there is an attempt to demand such unquestioning, truth-less, empathy on the part of a person in pain or from segments of society, why must a Christian accept it? This is a classic example of 'throwing the baby out with the bath water'. Joe Rigney, as a Culture Warrior, fears that 'they' are trying to use blind empathy to advance their political causes, and thus 'we' must reject empathy, in its entirety, to deny them that tool. In other words, let us surrender this field of battle and retreat. The answer is no. No, I will not allow the Culture War to dictate my theology, I will not adjust my ministry focus and methods to avoid any taint of looking/acting/sounding like 'them' to satisfy the knee-jerk reaction of political partisanship.
By elevating empathy over compassion as the superior virtue, there is now an entire culture devoted to the total immersion of empathy. Books, articles, and social media all trumpet the importance of checking one’s own beliefs, values, judgments, and reason at the door of empathy.
This is the what Rigney believes the Left is doing. If taken at face value, why would the Church change in response? One can first listen to those hurting and in pain without making judgments either way until you know what is going on. One can simply say instead, "I do feel your pain, but my devotion to Christ shows me what the ultimate answer to that pain is." Why must we abandon Empathy to protect Truth?? This is the dangerous false dichotomy of this position. We are being asked to make a sacrifice by abandoning empathy, 'for the greater good', that is unnecessary. I, as a minister of the Gospel, am fully capable of understanding the pain of someone I'm trying to help, even feeling some of it myself, without abandoning my own connection to Truth and Righteousness.
Is it possible for a minister or a counselor to lose objectivity, to get too close to someone they are trying to help? Of course it is, but Rigney didn't say, "Be careful because sometimes people take empathy too far." The "Sin of Empathy" is a much catchier title, but also foolish.
Rightly used, empathy is a power tool in the hands of the weak and suffering. By it, we can so weaponize victims that they (and those who hide behind them) are indulged at every turn, without regard for whether such indulgence is wise or prudent or good for them.
Here is where it seems the 'quiet part' is said out loud. The reason for this diatribe against Empathy is that victims have been 'weaponized' in the last few years. The primary examples of this are the MeToo Movement and BLM. Women are starting to believed when they report sexual abuse, and questions of ongoing systematic racism are starting to be taken seriously. Rigney, and those echoing his fears, view such victims as a Trojan Horse, threatening both Complementarianism, what John Piper is best known for, and the longstanding dominance of Whites in America. If we feel the pain of women and minorities, if we take the harm done to them by individuals and institutions who have not traditionally been held accountable seriously, will we not be seeking what is True and Righteous? Is this not the call of the Church, to defend the powerless against those who harm them?
This reminds me of the attempt to smear Rachel Denhollander, a sexual abuse victim and advocate for those being abused, by some within the SBC. {"By What Standard?" - A shameful trailer made by Founders Ministries utilizing the worst political ad tactics} This Christian woman was connected to 'godless ideologies' by Founders Ministries, despite the fact that her efforts were both God honoring and biblically correct. Her crime? Working on a 'Blue' issue that was shining the light of Truth on the sins committed in churches on the 'Red' team.
How do we know that this push against Empathy is connected to blowback against MeToo and BLM? In other words, that it is a Culture War response of the Team Red against Team Blue, and not simply the seeking of theological Truth? The ouster of three pastors at John Piper's church, known for their empathy and willingness to work on behalf of the oppressed, makes the connection clear. Read the article from Christianity Today, it provides important context for this discussion. {Bethlehem Baptist Leaders Clash Over ‘Coddling’ and ‘Cancel Culture’ A debate over “untethered empathy” underscores how departing leaders, including John Piper’s successor, approached hot-button issues like race and abuse. by KATE SHELLNUTT}
Empathy demands, “Feel what I feel. In fact, lose yourself in my feelings.”
Why must it be thus? Even if some demand that Empathy be this, it isn't, nor does it have to be.
When faith is abused by some, do we declare faith a sin? When love is abused by some do we declare love a sin? Of course not, don't be ridiculous, so why would we cast empathy out into the darkness simply because some may want to use it for unhealthy purposes?
The Culture Wars make for BAD theology. When we look at what is happening in the Culture, and then design a theological response to bolster 'our side' against 'them', the results are not pretty. The Church is supposed to be above such swaying to and fro, supposed to be firmly planted on the Solid Rock. This is yet another example of how we endanger the Church, its purity and its mission, when we marry the Church to politics. Empathy is not a sin, it never was.
For further discussion:
Holy Post Episode 472 The “Sin of Empathy” & Spotting Toxic Leaders with Jamin Goggin & Kyle Strobel This topic is discussed from the 33:20-59:00 mark.
Empathy is Not a Sin by Warren Throckmorton
“Your Empathy Is a Sin”: A Response to Desiring God by Rebecca Davis
Empathy is a Virtue, by SCOT MCKNIGHT
The American Crisis of Selective Empathy And how it reaches into the church. By David French
