Emotional Blackmail and the Sin of Empathy ｜ Dr. Joe Rigney ｜ 4⧸11⧸25
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Summary
Dr. Joe Rigney is a pastor, a theologian, and an author of multiple books, including his new one, The Sin of Empathy. In this episode, he talks about how empathy is often used as a tool to manipulate Christians into being more like other people, and how that can be dangerous.
Transcript
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We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
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Wi-Fi available to Airplane members on Equipped Flight.
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I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.
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Over and over again, we hear that Christians have to be empathetic.
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They have to bend over backwards in every situation.
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Just yesterday, Russell Brand was talking about how Christians should be learning to
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But is that ultimately what Christ really asks from us?
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Is that really what biblical compassion is all about?
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He's a pastor, he's a theologian, and he's an author of multiple books, including his new
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Before we get started, some people might be unfamiliar with your work.
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Could you give a little bit of background of what you do, how you came to where you are,
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So I'm currently a professor at New St. Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho.
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Prior to that, I was the president of Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis.
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If you're familiar with John Piper, that's the school that he founded.
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And then now I'm out here with Doug Wilson, if your audience is familiar with him.
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And I've been working on the empathy stuff, gosh, now for over 15 years, probably, teaching
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some leadership classes at Bethlehem for a long time.
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And then about seven years ago, kind of went broader than that with an interview actually
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And since then, I've just found myself again and again, you know, sort of pulled back into
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these empathy wars and whether or not that's whether or not empathy is the virtue around
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which we should orient all of society or whether there are some particular problems that come
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And obviously, this is a discussion that only becomes more and more important.
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Unfortunately, I've only been able to read the article that you wrote on The Blaze and
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And you really focus on the way in which, for instance, the immigration debate has centered
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So I certainly want to get to that and how that is often used to manipulate Christians
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and drive them towards bad theological and political ends.
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But before we do, let's hear from today's sponsor.
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This episode of The Oren McIntyre Show is proudly sponsored by Consumers Research.
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your life, making grocery stores more expensive, making video games more woke.
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Well, Consumers Research has spent the last five years making Larry's life hell, and they're
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Their work and its consequences have been profiled in The Washington Post, The New York
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So I think a lot of people look at this topic, and if you've ever been online, maybe you've
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It's the smarmy atheist liberal saying, oh, well, I don't believe in Christianity.
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But, you know, Jesus said you had to be nice to the poor people, and you have to care about
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So even though I would never validate any of that, you know, Bronze Age thinking, I expect
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you to do what I say because I pointed out that Jesus is love or had compassion, and therefore
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you have to do whatever I say is compassion or empathetic.
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And I guess, you know, when you write a book called The Sin of Empathy, you're going to blow
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I noticed just a few reactions from the title of your book were very hostile.
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Obviously, this is just the center of Christianity.
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So I guess my first question would be, why does it seem so easy for Christians to be manipulated
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Yeah, it's because compassion or sympathy is a real virtue, one that is modeled for us
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by Christ and commended to us over and over again in the scriptures, that God is a God who
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And one of the things that I learned from C.S. Lewis is that it's the greatest goods that
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become the worst devils whenever they go wrong.
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And so I think this is a case study in the way that something that is really, really good.
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So I think some people hear The Sin of Empathy and they think I'm against all forms of kindness
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or all forms of compassion or all forms of mercy or something.
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I'm actually trying to defend those things against their corruptions and counterfeits.
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And so one of the sparks for this for me has been the way that in the modern world, empathy
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is often presented as a kind of improvement on that old-fashioned virtue of sympathy or
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pity or compassion or whatever word you want to use.
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The notion being, we used to be sympathetic when people were hurting, but sympathy actually
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is aloof and distant and it doesn't really fully enter into the pain and suffering of
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And so we need to give it an upgrade, a facelift.
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But in doing so, the concern that I have and the thing that I think we've seen societally
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is the way that when we try to give it that upgrade, when we say we're going to make the
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suffering of certain people or certain groups our lodestar, is that we become unmoored and
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We leave reality behind because other people's feelings and emotions, other people's suffering
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is really, really powerful and it has a tendency to sweep us off our feet.
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And so in trying to give compassion this upgrade, I think we actually lost touch with
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And I think that the last 20 years have basically been a vindication of that fundamental point.
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You know, this is something that I notice so often for everyone.
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I think this is just a problem of modernity, but it really becomes obvious when you bring
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So often, the biggest difficulty for people is that unmooring from reality that you're talking
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In many ways, I won't be the first one to make this observation.
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Wokeness is Christianity without Christ, right?
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It is decontextualized from the biblical truth.
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It takes some of the things that people tend to say that they like about Christianity, some
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of the compassion, some of the charity, these things, but it completely unmoores them from
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the biblical standards and the judgment and the things that also come, the other side of
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And it tries to create this kinder, gentler Christianity.
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Also, we see attempts at charity and evangelism, but they tend to be removed from the actual
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Everyone wants to give money to someone in Africa or they want to fund a missionary that's
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But they will neglect the people right next to them.
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The idea of actually going and being a part of their community and serving that or speaking
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to someone in their community about Christ is something that would be a bridge too far.
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And so there's a lot of telescopic philanthropy or evangelism.
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Nothing is actually serving people in the church, serving the community, interacting with the actual
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Everything tends to get just deracinated, pulled out in a way, disembodied.
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And so I feel like this is something that is certainly prevalent when it comes to the
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But I think this is just a wider problem that modern people are having.
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But this really blows up, I think, a lot of church doctrines once they get completely
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ungrounded from the communities they're supposed to serve in.
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And it is a part of the argument that I'm making is that that phenomenon is actually
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So anybody who's ever been on the receiving end of a pity party or a guilt trip will ought
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to have a pretty good idea of the sort of thing that I'm concerned about, because that's
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an attempt by someone that you care about to manipulate you by virtue of your love and
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And most of us have been on the receiving end of it.
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Many of us have also been on the giving end of it.
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We've exaggerated our pain in order to get our way.
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What's a little bit new, and I think this is where Christianity does have something to
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do with it, is what you said about wokeness is Christianity without Christ.
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It's try to keep as many of the Christian things that have been woven into Western civilization
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And what happens if you take Christ out of that?
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Well, Chesterton 100 years ago said, the modern world is full of all the old Christian virtues
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gone mad, and they've gone mad because they've become disconnected, disembodied, and wandering
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He says that the humanitarians want to talk about pity, but their pity, I'm sorry to say,
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And so I'm coming along and saying, yeah, the modern term for that thing, that thing
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that he recognized in his day and which has been sort of elevated in the modern world is
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So if we're going to be real precise, untethered empathy is the thing that I'm on about.
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Some people, they don't think a lot about language.
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And so empathy to them just means sharing some emotions and weeping with those who weep.
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And I'm not interested in wrangling about the particular terms.
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I'm interested in this phenomenon and it's empathy that often is the headline over it.
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In fact, the article that you mentioned, this was a great illustration of that point.
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A friend sent me a picture of the Mexican side of the border wall.
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And on the wall, written by some graffiti artist, was in big block letters, empathy.
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And it was clear that the message that this artist was trying to communicate was empathy
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Your desire to have boundaries, your desire to have a border is not compassionate, not
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And I thought that's precisely what I'm trying to target is that Western civilization as a
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whole, and Christians in particular, are very susceptible to manipulation at precisely
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that point, because God tells us you must be kind and tenderhearted and full of mercy.
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You ought to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.
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So those biblical commands mean that we want to obey those and we want to have a reputation
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for obeying those, which means that all the enemies of God have to do is threaten that
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And they now have a very potent steering wheel on our backs.
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So what do you feel are some of the biggest ways in which Christians are lied to about
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Because I noticed, as you just kind of alluded to there in that article, your focus on boundaries
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and borders and how much it seems like the deployment of empathy is really weaponized and
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That, yes, we know in theory it would be good if you're compassionate to people, if you were
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But it seems like the focus is always increasing on breaking down those boundaries.
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Could you really have a natural hierarchy in marriages, families, civilizations?
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If you were compassionate, if you really saw the other person, how could you deny them
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entry into your home or into your country or deny them their ascent on the ladder of status
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These seem to be the things that are regularly broken down with this focus on empathy.
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Because empathy at its most basic means emotion sharing.
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And emotions are good, but they're also very powerful.
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There's reasons that we talk about the way that we could be blinded by anger or overwhelmed
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These other emotions or the older theological word was passions.
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And empathy then says, well, you should share those.
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And I go, insofar as that's what we're talking about, that's deeply human.
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It's something that if it leads us to righteous action, good action to benefit others is a
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Christ was moved with compassion and therefore sought to relieve the suffering of those around
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The challenge is that our emotions are so powerful that they frequently do sweep us off
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And so then when you hook everybody up via empathy, you wind up not with a number of
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individuals linked together in solid bonds of community with clear differences between I
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and you and we and them, like where those kind of boundaries would come into play.
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But instead, you basically get one big blob of emotion.
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And that emotion then has a tendency to be highly reactive and it sweeps people back and
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You end up with the kind of social stampedes that we see in society.
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You have these anxiety storms that sort of cascade through the world via social media
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that acts as an amplifying machine, turns up the outrage or whatever the emotions are.
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And empathy is basically one of the ways that incentivizes and it connects us in such a way
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that we lose touch with ourselves and with reality.
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One of the thinkers who was influential to me is a Jewish rabbi named Edwin Friedman, who
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And he was one of the ones who turned me on to the, he called it the fallacy of empathy,
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Um, but he was really concerned with that point about boundaries because he said, individuals
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There needs to be a boundary between me and you in order for me to do good to you in order
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for us to, um, uh, collaborate on common projects.
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If you're hurting in order for me to help you, I have to have a certain kind of emotional
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distance to be able to see the situation and go, what would be good for you?
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And empathy as it's presented in the modern world breaks down that boundary and says, you're
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You need to just jump into my emotional vehicle and go wherever I want to go.
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And that, and that means that we can go to some very dark and destructive places as we've
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witnessed again over the last, uh, especially 15 to 20 years.
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You mentioned this in the article, the, the, the power of victimhood, right?
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Because now the person who is feeling the feelings, the person who needs the empathy,
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they are in the driver's seat that you, you, if you are not empathizing with me, if you
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are not feeling these feelings along with me, then you are being callous.
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And so if I am the one who is victimized, if I am the one who's in need of empathy, I
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now get to determine where we're going and what we're doing.
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And I hate to say this, but that obviously drives a lot of behavior in the church.
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It's very clear, uh, that unfortunately many churches are involved in pushing this idea
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As I mentioned earlier, Russell Brand, obviously recent convert to Christianity, uh, struggling
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This isn't the bag on him, but it, you know, he gets in this podcast and he says, we need
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to figure out how to accommodate the LGBTQ community.
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And, uh, this is something of course we hear over and over again.
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Uh, this is, this is something that many churches capitulate on because ultimately if we're setting
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standards, if we're putting up barriers, what we're really putting up are barriers to Christ.
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If people, you know, approach Christianity and see that there's something that is wrong,
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that they have, you know, that we're not feeling their feelings in this area, not understanding
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them and on that level, then they're just never going to find their way to God.
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What, what do you think is, is the largest problem with what is kind of being taught
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So I think it is this notion, well, there's, there's layers to it.
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Um, but one is that we presume to know better than God, what's good for people.
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So, so it's, it's an attempt in some ways, one way to put it is that empathy is our attempt
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to be more compassionate than God is, um, to, we're going to out, out mercy him.
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And so when it comes to, um, like the example you gave with Russell Brand, I think that the
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LGBTQ movement as a movement, um, was highly, um, adept at manipulating the compassion of
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And, uh, so in Friedman's terminology, one of the, the, the symptoms of a highly reactive
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and anxious passions driven society is that it does tend to accommodate, um, not just
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accommodate, it allows the most reactive and immature members of it to steer.
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Um, and so in this case, once you elevate empathy is that, that cardinal virtue, like
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it's the virtue around which other virtues must bow.
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What you do is you, you do incentivize victimhood.
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So we have, what we've seen over the last 15 years is the victimhood Olympics, where you
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compete to be the greatest victim because the greatest victim wins and they get to set
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And so when the LGBT movement presents themselves as we've long been.
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persecuted, um, for our identity, um, we, um, there's historic wrongs that need to be
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righted and, and, and they present themselves as, and, and then they'll often do all we want
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So they'll link justice, uh, to some concern with this.
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It becomes very potent and it's really hard to kind of keep your eye on the ball of like,
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Like, is, is this simply, am I being uncompassionate?
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Uh, if I say, but God said you can't, but God said that's not true, but God said that
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that's, those are vile affections and you shouldn't indulge them.
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And it's really hard in that moment to say, I'm going to stay tethered to what God said
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and who God is because other people's feelings are so potent.
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And, and the other, the other element of this, that's probably worth talking about
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is in terms of the social dynamics, it's, there's both the, what you might call, um,
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Then you have the advocates on their behalf, right?
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Who are sort of agitating for justice for whatever victim group, but the actual threat
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and the reason my book is called the sin of empathy and not the sin of manipulation
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is that the, the real weakness in that system is actually the nice and respectable people
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around you, they're the ones who will leverage social pressure to get you to cave, right?
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So, um, you might be able to say like, I, I, I know intellectually this isn't good for
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them, but if you resist, it's a good chance as a Christian that it's other Christians who
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are going to come along and say, but you need to be kind and compassionate.
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They're the ones who are actually going to try to police you to, um, drop your resistance
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or to not, um, to not say things like, but sodomite marriages, is, uh, vile, right?
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Like just even statements like that, like it's the, the, the sanitation of our language,
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Was a part of this because if I say sodomite, that's hurtful, don't say sodomite, right?
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It's a person with a homosexual orientation or they're gay or you, you, we use these other
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languages because the older language was hurtful and harmful to their feelings and you need
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But as a result, over time, you have a weakening of the larger moral order of society, um, that
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then leads to greater and greater capitulations over time.
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And what we're seeing, I think right now is actually a somewhat of a backlash because
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I think the trans movement for a lot of people was kind of a bridge too far, but it is the
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natural result of these earlier forms of capitulation, whether we're talking about feminism
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Um, all of those things are, I think part of my case in the book is basically that running
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underneath all of the, um, ideologies and issues that we typically lump under wokeness, whether
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it's race, whether it's gender, whether it's sexuality, all running underneath is this common
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emotional dynamic involving untethered empathy.
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And so while there is an ideological dimension to it, right, whether it's critical theory or
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intersectionality or all of these sorts of things, I think that that intellectual level
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runs on this more emotional and social dynamic, which is why you can write what's happening
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now is that corporations under, in light of the backlash are dropping their DEI extensively.
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They're going to, they're dropping at least rebranding it.
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Um, but they haven't actually altered the, um, the fundamental fuel that it's running on.
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And so it's just going to reappear in another form.
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Um, and that's true, I think on both sides of the aisle, that's not simply a comment
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about the Democrats who are going to go into hiding.
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I think this is deeply affected, even conservatives and, uh, uh, the Republican party.
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Um, you, I could give you multiple examples of Republicans doing appealing to this in a
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kind of what I would call people talk now about, um, there's the woke left and there's
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Um, but there is such a thing as woke light and woke light is whatever it is that the Republicans
00:22:15.240
When I found out my friend got a great deal on a designer dress from winners, I started
00:22:20.620
wondering is every fabulous item I see from winners like that woman over there with the
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Did she pay full price or those suede sneakers or that luggage or that trench, those jeans,
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Stop wondering, start winning winners, find fabulous for less.
00:22:46.520
So one of the other ones that I see faced routinely, uh, by churches is the immigration issue.
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Uh, many of them feel, you know, I'm supposed to serve the poor.
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Uh, I I've had this exact argument been made to me who, by people who are actively helping
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illegal immigrants saying, well, they're my neighbor now, right?
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They're the person who doesn't have a place to stay.
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So however they ended up here, whether they followed the rules or not, my job as a Christian
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is to take care of this person because now they are my neighbor.
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And I think this is a really difficult, uh, thing for a lot of people to approach because
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of course, you know, you hear the story of the good Samaritan.
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You want to be kind to the people around you, but underlying, this is really the truth that
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ultimately, if people are coming across the border illegally and then immediately receiving
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food and care and assistance, what you're involved in is facilitating their lawbreaking.
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You are involved in, in creating an incentive for them to come here because if, even if they
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can't find a job or they don't know what they're going to do, maybe, even if the government
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is trying to deport them, ultimately they're your neighbor now.
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So it's your job to take care of them, feed them, protect them.
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And I think a lot of Christians really struggle that they know that maybe there should be borders,
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but once that border law is breached, well, I mean, ultimately this is still my Christian
00:24:18.980
How should they address that breach of hierarchy and boundary, even though now this person is
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So, I mean, I think to distinguish between things like, let's say that you came across
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an illegal immigrant who was actually starving, right?
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Like in other words, they have no food or they're out, or you live in Minnesota and it's
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I do think that the Christian obligation there is to provide some sort of, you know, out of compassion
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and mercy, provide relief to that kind of suffering.
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That's different than saying, and therefore we have to provide it with open-ended commitment
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So like if you were to take the parable of the good Samaritan and let's just put the
00:25:02.220
immigration issue in the middle of it, that the guy on the side of the road was an illegal
00:25:06.960
I think it would be entirely appropriate for the good Samaritan to do exactly what he did,
00:25:11.340
take him to a hospital, you know, get a nurse and back to health, and then send them
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Like that, like that would need to be a part of the, of love because it's, it's about loving
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not only that neighbor, but all of your neighbors.
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And if you do create this incentive structure, like you're talking about, where you can move
00:25:28.740
to America, as long as you can get across the border and then you're guaranteed housing
00:25:33.140
and you're guaranteed a job or you're guaranteed welfare or whatever it is, you are just in,
00:25:40.320
you're going to get more of what you subsidize and you're, that's what you're subsidizing.
00:25:43.420
And therefore in the long run, you're not loving your neighbor because you're contributing
00:25:49.600
And I think this is one of the hard things is that empathy tends to be myopic and it
00:25:55.080
tends to fixate on certain groups and not other groups.
00:25:59.280
This is why Paul Bloom, who is a secular author and wrote against empathy, wrote it in 2016.
00:26:05.040
He always said that when most people hear the word empathy, they think of kindness.
00:26:08.320
He says, I think of war because of the way that empathy sort of hijacks us to where we
00:26:14.100
focus on certain groups to the exclusion of others.
00:26:18.500
So empathy for say the migrant, the illegal immigrant is often goes hand in hand when it's
00:26:24.780
untethered from rational and moral concerns, goes hand in hand with a neglect of the neighbors
00:26:29.880
who are already here and whose hospitals and social services are overwhelmed by this influx
00:26:35.420
of immigrants, the sort of things that ended up getting Trump elected because of the various
00:26:39.960
communities that were highlighted that had had, say the Haitians had been sort of just
00:26:43.620
dumped there in the name of compassion for the Haitians.
00:26:46.460
But what about compassion for the people in Ohio?
00:26:48.900
And so that myopia takes over because empathy short circuits and becomes untethered from the
00:26:58.740
And so biblical compassion, true compassion, I think keeps that larger good in mind.
00:27:03.380
It doesn't merely focus on the immediate distress or the immediate dangers, but actually thinks
00:27:08.480
long-term and big picture because it has the emotional space to do so.
00:27:13.880
And so that's a big part of what I would want to commend in those situations is, yes, if there's
00:27:18.200
an immediate need in front of you, God's providentially placed this person, feed them, clothe them.
00:27:24.140
But that's not at any way at odds within saying, and now they need to go back to their country
00:27:29.080
Is another big part of this, the abstraction, right?
00:27:33.100
Is that, like we said, we're disconnecting, you know, the story of the Good Samaritan is
00:27:38.180
about a person doing something for another person.
00:27:42.060
It's not about the Samaritan building a network of NGOs in order to support this.
00:27:47.420
It's not about him, you know, building a perpetual machine to take care of everyone who walks in.
00:27:52.380
It's, you know, it's the difference between having one person, a sojourner who is Haitian
00:27:58.300
traveling through your town who you help in a moment of crisis, as opposed to moving 5,000
00:28:03.920
people from Haiti to your town and thinking that this is the same thing.
00:28:11.240
And I'd go even a step farther, because the modern compassion was, it was you moving 5,000
00:28:19.660
So it wasn't, and this was one of, you know, sort of one of the brilliant political moves
00:28:23.500
that I think first Ron DeSantis and then others picked up on Governor Abbott, I think in Texas,
00:28:29.880
where they would move the immigrants to the communities that were ostensibly in favor of open borders
00:28:34.380
and say, okay, you guys want these, here they are.
00:28:37.720
So like, if you really want to love them, if you really want to show compassion to these
00:28:42.800
And then how quickly, you know, there was sort of oftentimes, I think in that moment, there
00:28:47.420
was like an initial like, oh, we better, we better do something, but not sustainably,
00:28:52.060
It was like, no, eventually they need to go someplace else.
00:28:54.500
But it was always, it's the, and I think this is one of the chief challenges on this issue
00:28:59.180
is the way that compassion and empathy have become left coded and therefore left defined.
00:29:07.720
So meaning if you ask your normal person on the street, which of the political parties
00:29:12.240
is more compassionate, people will say, you know, if you did that survey, I would assume
00:29:16.200
that the Democrats would win on the compassion thing.
00:29:18.440
And if you ask one, which one's more concerned about law and order, the Republicans are going
00:29:22.280
But that means that then that in our popular imagination, the definition of compassion is
00:29:30.240
They're the ones who decide who's empathetic or not.
00:29:33.180
And as a result, they can do all sorts of really, really unjust and wicked things in the
00:29:38.200
name of compassion and yet maintain that reputation.
00:29:41.220
So, um, set aside the kind of indifference, you know, who, do you have compassion on the
00:29:46.360
immigrant or, um, the coal miner in West Virginia, whose communities now overrun by, and whose
00:29:52.540
jobs have been taken and all this kind of stuff.
00:29:54.160
So set aside that, think about the kinds of cruelty that you can do in the name of empathy,
00:29:59.420
how, um, castrating children, murdering unborn children, right?
00:30:03.080
There's, it's amazing how much evil you can do.
00:30:05.620
And yet still think of yourself as an empathetic, compassionate person, um, because you've absorbed
00:30:11.340
an ideology that has defined compassion according to the whims and desires, uh, of human beings
00:30:16.860
rather than something sturdy like the law of God or the moral order that he's embedded
00:30:22.780
This one might be a little more controversial, but I think it's hard for people not to notice
00:30:27.840
that as the focus on perhaps the feminine, uh, trying to attract more women, uh, elevate
00:30:35.720
more women into leadership, these aspects have become to the forefront of many churches.
00:30:40.060
They prioritize these, uh, to kind of, uh, you know, work with, uh, the kind of modern culture
00:30:48.480
And if you look when it comes to, you know, support for mass immigration or for LGBTQ causes,
00:30:54.300
it's disproportionately much more popular with, uh, females than with males.
00:30:59.620
Do you think that that gender dynamic plays a role in the rise of empathy and its focus?
00:31:05.280
And if so, is there any solution to that problem or is that a dynamic that's just going to exist
00:31:13.700
So there's a, there's a chapter in the book called feminism, queen of the woke for this
00:31:17.180
reason, because this is a fundamental element, uh, of the rise of empathy, the feminization
00:31:22.120
of our politics, the feminization of our wider culture, because women sort of by nature are
00:31:27.260
the more empathetic, compassionate, nurturing sex.
00:31:30.220
And, um, in saying that, I want to say that's an enormous blessing for everybody, provided it
00:31:37.520
It's provided that empathy, like empathy in certain places is a great blessing.
00:31:41.260
It's why women excel, um, at nurture and care, uh, for infants, for children.
00:31:46.760
Um, it's why they're, uh, they, they go into the nursing profession.
00:31:51.860
And people get to choose their thing, women gravitate to those kinds of caring, nurturing
00:31:57.440
But what's a blessing in one place becomes a liability in another.
00:32:00.820
If, if you say, um, Hey, we need someone to guard this wall.
00:32:05.400
We need somebody to set this boundary and enforce it and make sure that nothing, um,
00:32:10.460
evil or unclean or nothing, um, harmful or destructive makes it in.
00:32:15.240
Um, empathy is probably not the virtue that you want there.
00:32:17.940
You want someone who's going to be shrewd and wise.
00:32:19.780
You're going to want somebody who's going to be able to make hard decisions, even in the
00:32:24.920
Um, and in that sense, therefore, um, I'll use the church as kind of the, the, um, example.
00:32:31.440
Um, it's one of the reasons I think that God restricts the pastoral office to men is because
00:32:36.740
when it comes to guarding the doctrine and worship of the church, female empathy is actually
00:32:43.120
Um, because when a, an aggrieved group comes to you and says, you know, your, your scriptures,
00:32:50.640
All of these hard rules that say that we can't love who we want, or we can't do these things
00:32:59.740
And there's a reason that all of the denominations say the mainline denominations that in the
00:33:04.900
fifties, sixties, and seventies decided to ordain women to the priesthood or the, or
00:33:08.920
the pastorate, um, within 20 years had all sanctioned sodomy, were ordaining, um, homosexuals
00:33:14.700
to the priesthood, and that eventually were supporting of gay marriage and now beyond all the
00:33:23.460
It's the logic of that's it's working its way out.
00:33:29.060
And female ordination was a kind of watershed on that because the, the pastoral office, the
00:33:34.440
theological office was designed to guard the doctrine of worship of the church.
00:33:39.440
I think societally, that's not, that, that doesn't stay isolated.
00:33:41.980
Uh, and is why, um, I think one of the places on the, so if I, if we can see it clearly on
00:33:49.280
the left as sort of the, um, this is the, uh, nine months pregnant version, but there's
00:33:56.720
This is woke light in which, uh, when Republicans brag about how many females they've elected
00:34:05.760
It's just an earlier stage of the same problem.
00:34:08.160
Or, um, I think an actual, a really interesting example was the recent controversy in Congress
00:34:12.900
about whether they would allow proxy voting for, uh, new mothers, right.
00:34:17.660
And that, that's a good example where here's a mother who wants to nurse her child and she
00:34:22.440
She has to go into Congress in order to cast her vote.
00:34:24.620
And they want to sort of, what do they want to do?
00:34:26.800
Rearrange all of society in order to make this accommodation.
00:34:29.760
That request was the same kind of request that the trans people are making.
00:34:35.480
It's, it's the same fundamental kind of logic, as opposed to saying, you know what, you're
00:34:41.120
Like you have one of the highest callings on planet earth.
00:34:45.040
You're caring for and nurturing an eternal soul.
00:34:47.540
Your baby needs you go be a mom, like pour yourself into it.
00:34:52.080
And does that mean that women can never run for political office or serve?
00:34:56.880
But I think a society that views widespread female political rule or ecclesiastical rule
00:35:04.140
is one that is deeply sick and will suffer from a lot of other pathologies as a result
00:35:08.920
of it, because that's not where that female empathy belongs.
00:35:14.880
And in its place, it's, it's the glue that holds societies together.
00:35:23.820
The Bible talks about as woman is the glory of man.
00:35:27.480
But when it comes to setting boundaries and guarding doctrine, um, and making hard decisions
00:35:32.920
in military context or, or in political context, it's, it's not the way that God has designed
00:35:40.920
So now that we know the nature of the problem, how can we protect ourselves against this?
00:35:47.500
How can we make sure that we are not being manipulated?
00:35:50.640
We are not falling into this emotional blackmail.
00:35:54.120
What are some common strategies or some things to watch out for and ways that we can guard
00:36:02.780
So I think, uh, I think the first, first step is to become more self-aware.
00:36:07.140
Um, so at a very personal level, um, all of us know the circumstances in which we, there's
00:36:12.680
some true thing that we're wanting to say, and it catches in our throat because we're afraid
00:36:20.000
The, the last little bit of the conversation might be an example.
00:36:22.820
Like I can, I can, I know what I think, but if I say it out loud, I know the sorts of reactions
00:36:28.540
Um, and I know the way that I'm likely to get police.
00:36:30.520
So growing in our own awareness of, um, are we actually able to talk about the elephant
00:36:36.320
Can we actually have the conversations at a rational level?
00:36:39.060
I think there's a way in which even the feminism thing affects men in this way.
00:36:42.160
Um, and that men have been taught from a young age, right?
00:36:44.420
You don't hit girls, especially good men are taught you treat girls different.
00:36:48.080
And therefore, if you enter, introduce women into, um, combat, theological combat, political
00:36:55.120
Men will defer in ways that they would not otherwise, if it was a male making the exact
00:37:00.320
And that's just a fact of human nature that has to be faced head on.
00:37:03.740
And then you need to then go, okay, so what do we do in light of it?
00:37:06.440
Um, but I think, so I think recognizing your own hesitations, reluctances on these issues.
00:37:10.680
Um, I think calibrating your definitions of what compassion is by what God says and not
00:37:20.220
Um, so, um, does God think that there are times when empathy is inappropriate or pity or
00:37:26.760
And there is, there's times where the Israelites in the old Testament were commanded, you shall
00:37:32.260
And it was usually circumstances like, um, here, you know, the son of your, uh, your son or
00:37:37.080
your daughter or your wife or your best friend are trying to entice you into idolatry.
00:37:45.460
And I think that's the sort of thing that evangelicals in general, Christians in general,
00:37:49.880
conservatives in general need to recover and say, there are times when we're talking,
00:37:56.740
Um, if someone says, um, uh, does your compassion reserve the right not to blaspheme God, not
00:38:03.060
to tell lies in order to appease, um, certain groups, those are, those are the sort of, it
00:38:09.560
requires both an intellectual and then a, uh, internal fortitude to sort of press through
00:38:16.100
it, knowing that you're likely to provoke a very intense reaction and response.
00:38:20.420
And then I think the other thing is you should actually be compassionate.
00:38:22.860
Like you should actually model in your own life, a real concrete compassion, um, flowing
00:38:27.380
from the mortal duties that God has assigned you.
00:38:36.680
Are you showing compassion to those under your care?
00:38:39.500
Those who, for whom you are responsible, that needs to be worked out in a very concrete,
00:38:43.300
specific way, as opposed to what you were talking about, which is this abstract notion of
00:38:47.880
universal, uh, compassion that often neglects the things close at hand in favor of the
00:38:54.740
It, it's easy to post a little, to put up a little, um, uh, black square or a rainbow
00:39:06.620
Um, it's much harder to do the real work, uh, of upfront people are harder and loving,
00:39:18.900
Um, the heat map meme, I, I'll say I've been working on this for seven, seven or eight years.
00:39:22.380
And the heat map meme was like, yeah, that's it.
00:39:24.440
Like there really is, there really is something there.
00:39:28.540
The point is not that you never work your way out to the extent it's that you can't be
00:39:36.100
You, you have to work from where you are as a human being, limited, finite in a particular
00:39:41.480
location, embedded in a particular web of relationships.
00:39:45.760
Don't dream about your feats of compassion and glory on the other side of the planet.
00:39:52.840
It's not that you never get to the outer rings.
00:39:54.740
It's that you need to fill every ring before you get to the outer ring.
00:39:59.100
So, uh, I think for a lot of people, like I said, unfortunately, some of this bad doctrine
00:40:05.200
It's, it's, they are being discipled in this model.
00:40:08.700
And so my next question would be, if you have a pastor, uh, that has this understanding
00:40:18.460
Is that something, you know, do you just go find a new church?
00:40:25.940
If you've got a good church, otherwise you feel like you're serving the community.
00:40:29.440
Most of the doctrine is good, but they are just hitting on empathy as like the central
00:40:36.400
If you're sitting in the pew there, obviously you're, you know, you're in the front, but
00:40:39.760
if you're, if you're sitting in a pew there, what would you think would be the Christian
00:40:44.140
So oftentimes I think these, those situations are hard because, um, like many things, the,
00:40:53.260
So you're saying there's a lot of good things happen and you can see those and you're not
00:40:57.000
So you hear maybe a comment from the pulpit or something in the pastor's newsletter that kind
00:41:02.760
I think the first thing that you should do is press for clarity, right?
00:41:06.160
So have the conversation, ask the questions with your goal being, bring clarity as much
00:41:15.040
Um, and then if you, as you do so, you'll likely discover fairly quickly if those questions
00:41:22.080
You can't even ask those questions without, um, provoking a kind of, uh, emotional reaction
00:41:27.940
Um, then I think it's a pretty good indication that you probably need to find a different church
00:41:31.020
or you might discover that the, in pursuing the clarity that, yeah, you were right.
00:41:36.160
There was something embedded in there that was a problem.
00:41:38.760
And in the same case, you probably are looking for, for an exit.
00:41:41.760
Um, or you might discover that they simply hadn't thought about it.
00:41:46.740
And then I would say you ought to try to, um, uh, bring the other side and say, well, can
00:41:54.580
You, in other words, the thing that, um, I think this is one of the, um, the things
00:41:58.680
that happened among evangelicals over the last 10 years, um, was that as, um, we came
00:42:05.020
to live under the progressive gaze and there was a way in which evangelicals came to have
00:42:09.340
a little progressive on their shoulder that was evaluating all their rhetoric, all their
00:42:13.820
priorities, the things they cared about, the things that they opposed, um, which is,
00:42:20.700
And part of that progressive gaze included who are worthy objects of empathy and who isn't.
00:42:25.320
So there was a kind of, we got to differentiate from the Christians who care about the wrong
00:42:28.580
things, those culture warriors, that moral majority.
00:42:31.380
Um, and we need to be the Christians who care about the right things and the right things
00:42:34.760
are defined according to the left's list of list of priorities.
00:42:37.240
So we can talk about climate change because it's a left priority.
00:42:40.240
Um, and we can talk about immigration, but only from a leftward frame.
00:42:44.320
And so there became two sort of, um, postures for pastors.
00:42:53.980
So, so on paper, we're still pro-life on paper.
00:42:58.220
But the, you know, the left is actually right about this or it's, you know, we're neither
00:43:06.140
And I think that progressive gaze was a fundamental tool.
00:43:10.520
I think, uh, leftists intentionally exploited that.
00:43:15.000
Like they funneled money to places where they thought there was fertile ground, um, to either
00:43:19.360
mute Christian resistance to their policies, um, or to, to hijack it altogether.
00:43:24.240
Uh, but I think a lot of churches just absorbed this by osmosis.
00:43:33.780
So you think about, so if I'm in a church and you're trying to go, is this my church?
00:43:37.160
It might be, well, if, if your pastor were to say to you, the world is watching, remember
00:43:46.400
Is the world always elite, secular, progressive, coastal, or does the world include the coal
00:43:53.480
miner in the red hat who hasn't been to church since he was eight?
00:43:57.700
Do you, are you, whenever the world is watching, is he watching?
00:44:02.880
Can you show the way that the gospel subversively fulfills his aspirations and dreams, right?
00:44:08.020
So like, but it was always selective and it was always tilted left, which is why the church
00:44:16.160
Now, thankfully, I think there's an awareness of the way that our compassion was manipulated,
00:44:24.140
Um, and so, um, I'm hopeful that certain churches at least are going to recognize this
00:44:28.900
and anchor their compassion to something sturdy.
00:44:31.180
Um, but if you don't know, that's the sort of question I'd be asking in your own church.
00:44:35.480
Yeah, it really makes a case for the much maligned cultural Christianity, because it
00:44:39.700
turns out that even churches who think that they're serving Christ will eventually drift
00:44:44.600
towards the world if they think that if that's what's impacting their understanding of what
00:44:51.000
Uh, so the last thing I want to ask you before we move to the questions of the people real quick,
00:44:55.540
uh, really dovetails into what you were just talking about.
00:44:58.520
I think ultimately, which is recently, obviously we had a stabbing, uh, at a high school event,
00:45:06.660
a track meet, uh, tragically Austin Metcalf was killed in this and we still don't know all
00:45:11.880
Uh, but from what we can tell, uh, it looks like Carmelo Anthony, uh, the alleged, uh, killer,
00:45:17.340
uh, was the one that ultimately after being, uh, getting a bit of a tussle produced a knife and,
00:45:24.480
Now his father rushed out and immediately said, I forgive the killer.
00:45:28.760
And as I've said before, I did a whole episode on this, uh, I don't want to retread the whole
00:45:33.220
thing, but, uh, you know, as I said at the beginning, this is not to attack his father.
00:45:37.140
I understand in a, in a moment of that level of, uh, loss.
00:45:41.320
I mean, there's, there's just, you're just reaching for whatever you can.
00:45:45.840
Um, but I, I think that the fact that, um, he placed a non-reciprocal, uh, forgiveness
00:45:54.240
or a forgiveness that had no, uh, there, there was no, uh, repentance.
00:46:03.880
And then he rushed out and, and provided that forgiveness before even a discussion on justice
00:46:08.080
had occurred, uh, I think really, uh, hit a lot of people's nerves.
00:46:12.420
And there were a lot of people who ran out there and immediately said, oh, of course you
00:46:18.520
And that's the model of forgiveness in all situations for all of humanity.
00:46:22.140
Uh, and, and, you know, I, I, uh, did this episode and I'm not a pastor, but I consulted,
00:46:28.000
uh, my friend David Shrock and I think over at Christ overall.
00:46:30.680
And I think he, he had an excellent article he referred me to, and I tried to use that
00:46:34.480
as a basis, but you know, a lot of people look at that situation, even people on the
00:46:38.760
right, like people who think they're very right wing came out immediately and gave this
00:46:43.200
model of Christian forgiveness, which is no repentance, no remorse, no justice.
00:46:48.800
Uh, just you immediately forgive without a second thought.
00:46:52.120
Uh, and, and that's all there is to being a Christian.
00:46:55.540
I feel like that really speaks to how deeply a lot of Christians have had their understanding
00:47:01.000
of forgiveness itself manipulated by kind of the, the, the moral blackmail.
00:47:05.740
And very importantly, uh, you know, the, the cultural zeitgeist around this, you know,
00:47:10.260
we're, we're never going to see anyone rushing out being like George Floyd's family.
00:47:15.240
If they're Christian needs to immediately forgive Derek Chauvin before any justice or any repentance.
00:47:22.560
Anytime someone who is white is victimized in this way.
00:47:27.120
And I think that it's, it's re it's recognizing like it, what it reveals, what reveals it is
00:47:33.720
When you, when you put the shoe on the other foot and say, would we require, is this a
00:47:36.960
universal human obligation, then it ought to apply to all universal humans.
00:47:41.580
Instead, what we have is, um, a adapt, adaptation of a human obligation, extend forgiveness, um,
00:47:49.160
to particular social circumstances in an American context that is highly fraught on all of these
00:47:54.260
So I, when I think about that, um, when I think about the father, um, I read him as wanting
00:48:03.260
This is, this is a way for him of clinging to faith in an unspeakable tragedy, right?
00:48:11.060
I'm still anchored in Christ in, in God, um, in the midst of this tragedy.
00:48:15.720
So in that sense, I think it's a very noble thing and I, I admire him for it, but I think
00:48:19.420
it does evidence a kind of, um, a catechism that's that like the, the shape of it is, is
00:48:27.980
So that if you, if you were to ask, okay, but what if he would have said, um, I just
00:48:32.240
want to know that I, I, um, I forgive, or I at least extend forgiveness, um, offer, the
00:48:37.160
offers there, I'm willing to forgive, however you want to say it to this young man who killed
00:48:42.260
Um, and I hope that he's, um, he receives a just trial and is prosecuted to the full
00:48:50.160
Would, would we have said, well, man, he, that would we have said that's actually a full
00:48:54.980
He's, he's allowing, um, civil justice to have it say, and is, is praying and encouraging
00:48:59.840
that and also offering extending forgiveness at a personal level to the person who's, um,
00:49:05.920
Um, and he could have added, you know, and I'm praying that he also in the midst of all
00:49:09.440
of this finds salvation in Christ for all of his sins.
00:49:12.660
Like that, like that's a fuller picture, but what we've done is we've taken one, this is
00:49:17.220
We've taken one of the virtues and we've isolated it from the others.
00:49:19.940
Um, Lewis made a similar point in his day when he said mercy, when it's detached from
00:49:24.700
justice grows unmerciful, mercy detached from justice grows unmerciful.
00:49:29.420
And he compares it to a certain kind of plant that can only grow in a mountain climate, right?
00:49:34.040
So mercy grows well in the rocky crags of justice.
00:49:36.780
But if you try to transplant that, that plant into the swamp of humanitarianism, it becomes
00:49:41.920
a man-eating weed and it becomes, and it says it's all the more destructive because
00:49:45.700
it still shares the name with the mountain variety.
00:49:48.080
So the mountain variety goes by the name mercy and it is mercy.
00:49:52.280
The, the swampy variety also goes by the name mercy, but it's now become highly destructive
00:49:57.480
But the shared name is what gives them was what makes it so dangerous.
00:50:01.380
And I think this would be another case that they're both called forgiveness.
00:50:10.380
There's, there's other elements that need to be in play.
00:50:13.280
And if they're not, this really, really good thing becomes a really, really destructive
00:50:20.940
And I really hope that people will look at this article and the book if they enjoy it,
00:50:26.060
because I think this is one of the most important topics that churches are facing right now,
00:50:31.100
that Christians are facing right now, especially in a moment of political upheaval where a lot
00:50:38.480
Um, people have difficulty finding a ground to be strong and push back in those moments.
00:50:44.560
And so I think this is a good way to allow people to understand when are we still acting
00:50:50.980
When are we, you know, how, how should we go about being compassionate, being kind, but
00:50:55.280
understanding that actually having these barriers, having these natural hierarchies, having these
00:51:00.780
Christian understandings is not opposed to any of that.
00:51:07.460
And if you separate the empathy from the rest of this, as the left has done, it makes you
00:51:12.420
particularly vulnerable to all of the different attacks that you're talking about.
00:51:16.380
Uh, Joe, we're going to go to a few questions from the audience real quick, but before we
00:51:19.780
do, where can people find your work, the book, everything that you need them to find?
00:51:26.640
Um, I regularly, uh, I write for American reformer.
00:51:30.120
Um, there's a lot of old articles at desiringgod.org.
00:51:32.460
Uh, Canon plus is a place that you can find a lot of my stuff these days.
00:51:36.520
And if you want the book, um, and it's companion, there's a, there's a second book called leadership
00:51:41.080
and emotional sabotage, which fits into the same kind of mold.
00:51:43.940
You can go to sin of empathy.com or emotional sabotage.com.
00:51:53.000
Is the cartoon character agrees with me of philosophical and political arguments, low rent
00:52:01.360
I don't want to be overly semantic, but do you think there's a significant, significant
00:52:08.260
I think that like on a lot of these things, uh, modern virtues are kind of degenerative
00:52:17.360
Uh, clarity, I think is a biblical virtue, uh, often degenerates into selective nuance,
00:52:23.380
We're going to be nuanced, which is usually we're going to be nuanced with certain people.
00:52:26.220
And then we're absolutely not going to be nuanced with other people.
00:52:28.660
Uh, we're, we're going to try to represent certain people fairly in others.
00:52:31.220
And then I think the same thing, uh, biblical compassion degenerates into this untethered
00:52:35.620
So in all of those cases, there's a kind of, um, and it's, it's, again, they all go by
00:52:45.980
Uh, and I want to commend the real virtue and yet be willing to attack the pretenders.
00:52:52.560
BJJ wins again, says the worldly tendency to empathize with a
00:52:56.160
criminal more than the righteous doesn't seem random.
00:52:59.160
What makes them value the pain of the evil more?
00:53:04.460
So I think, uh, it's, it's not just, so we think it's criminal, but it's actually because
00:53:09.720
certain classes have been categorized certain ways.
00:53:12.880
So, um, certainly in other words, certain criminals aren't going to get any empathy from
00:53:19.220
So there's certain criminals that if they did, Derek Chauvin was a criminal, right?
00:53:24.700
Not a lot of white supremacists are going to get a lot of calls for sympathy.
00:53:28.380
You know, won't someone fundraise money for this guy who's, you know, guilty of shooting
00:53:36.460
Um, and I think that there's ways in which actually that's instructive for us.
00:53:40.180
So we do know how to treat criminals, evil people who have done really wicked things.
00:53:49.440
And I think this is again, one of the, the, that selectivity is really driven by, um,
00:53:55.040
and over that overemphasis on empathy leads us to myopically identify with certain groups.
00:54:01.920
And this is also why actually, um, empathy and outrage or empathy and hatred do go hand
00:54:06.880
in hand because empathy for the groups that I'm with or for is often accompanied by intense
00:54:14.540
I must, I like it like they're, they're corresponding, uh, emotions.
00:54:19.200
So, um, I, there is no mob, like an empathetic mob, like the empathetic mob that really,
00:54:26.340
really was outraged, say by the death of George Floyd, right.
00:54:29.560
Was willing to burn down cities in order to like express that outrage and then dismantle
00:54:34.680
all of society in pursuit of quote unquote justice.
00:54:38.060
Um, and it was fueled by, and you go, but I thought these were the empathetic people.
00:54:41.560
Um, they actually do studies on this, interestingly, um, when they try to measure, like, what are
00:54:47.340
People who report high empathy are often the most polarized.
00:54:50.900
This is, this makes sense because empathy for your people means hatred for others.
00:54:54.940
And so there's the tribal that we, people lament tribalism.
00:55:01.600
You need to anchor your empathy to something else because otherwise tribalism is the fruit
00:55:08.960
In the absence of a shared moral vision and basis for truth, you ultimately end up in
00:55:14.280
the most tribal situation possible because it's all relative to who you're aligned with.
00:55:20.920
Uh, Templar says always important to remember the good Samaritan brought the injured Jewish
00:55:30.140
He, uh, he placed the, uh, healing responsibility on their own.
00:55:39.160
Well, and I think there's second Chronicles 20.
00:55:41.280
So the interesting thing about that, the good Samaritan does have something to say to our
00:55:52.660
It doesn't, you can't apply the whole thing all the way down the line.
00:55:56.820
Jesus is asking, like, he's, he's got a guy who's trying to evade moral duties.
00:56:02.520
And he knows that because these people have gotten out of all sorts of other moral duties.
00:56:06.060
They've tried to evade their, uh, honor your father and mother.
00:56:17.680
We don't have to, I don't have to care for mom and dad in their old age, um, because I'm
00:56:22.140
And so Christ's criticism of the Pharisees was always that they're trying to choose the easy
00:56:27.120
And so when he's giving this parable in response to that, who is my neighbor question, that's
00:56:31.840
the thing he's dealing with, which isn't the thing that we're always dealing with.
00:56:41.380
The more that we try to, um, we, we pick, we pick and choose.
00:56:45.840
We pick out elements of the story that are going to surface.
00:56:48.100
Cause the other thing would be, um, if the good Samaritan's the model, then it really
00:56:51.200
is like, it's about proximity and moral proximity.
00:56:54.540
It's like, so I shouldn't help the person, the, the neighbor.
00:56:58.080
I should never, ever think about the guy across the country because he's not on my Jericho
00:57:03.400
And it's like, if, if we were to conclude that, that then, then our heat map never gets
00:57:07.140
to the edges because of the parable of the good Samaritan.
00:57:09.560
And everybody would go, well, that's not what that's meaning.
00:57:12.580
You have to do more careful biblical interpretation before you know how to apply it.
00:57:16.360
It turns out wisdom, wisdom and discernment are just always important.
00:57:21.760
You never get to set up some automatic rote way to understand these things.
00:57:25.840
You've just actually have to apply the level of wisdom and prudence provided to you.
00:57:31.280
All right, guys, we're going to go ahead and wrap this up.
00:57:35.000
Rigney for joining me today and make sure to check out his work and his book.
00:57:38.920
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00:57:44.800
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00:57:49.800
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00:57:54.160
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00:57:56.200
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00:58:01.960
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