The Charlie Kirk Show - Against "Toxic Empathy" in the American Church ft. Allie Beth Stuckey

Allie B. Stuckey joins us to discuss her new book, Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion, and why the church is no longer acting like an empathy club. She explains how the church needs to understand where empathy has its limits, and how it can actually do a lot of damage. Allie also discusses how progressives are able to exploit Christian compassion and how Christians need to understand how they are being used as a tool by the left to achieve their political goals and get their point across to the American people. This episode is sponsored by Noble Gold Investments, the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you can protect your wealth by becoming a Noble Gold Investor. That's where I buy all of my gold! Go to noblegoldinvestments.org/thecharliekirkshow and use the promo code CHALLENGE at checkout to get 20% off your first order of a 1-piece gold watch! It's where you get 10% off the purchase of a gold watch, a pair of silver and diamond necklace, a watch, and an additional 15% off of your first purchase when you become a member of the Noble Gold Investing Club. That's right, you get a 20% discount when you place an order of $100 or more! If you like the show, you're in the program, you can become a Patron! Subscribe to the show and receive 10% OFF your first month and receive a FREE shipping when you sign up for an additional month of the show! The show will have a limited edition gold membership when you buy a copy of $150 or two-and-a half-piece of the book is available for $150, plus an additional $50, and you get an additional two-week shipping plan when you get the offer of $99 or more get an ad-only offer when you enter the offer starts in the offer is available in Apple Paypal or Amazon Prime or VaynerMedia? Learn more about the show becomes available on Audible.com/VaynerMerry Christmas! TurnPoint USA is the official Gold! Click here to become a Member of the Charlie Kirk is a supporter of the program. Want to support The CharlieKirk Show? Subscribe here to receive a $100,000 and receive 5-of-a-day shipping offer?

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, here on the Charlie Kirk Show, Toxic Empathy.

00:00:02.000 Wonderful conversation with Allie B. Stuckey, all about how the church needs to understand where empathy has its limits and how it can actually do a lot of damage.

00:00:13.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

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00:00:27.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:28.000 Here we go.

00:00:29.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:31.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

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00:01:27.000 Joining us now is one of the brightest and most important thinkers in the, you could call it the Christian movement, but Christian conservative, especially from a female perspective.

00:01:39.000 Her new book perfectly addresses one of my Biggest passion issues that I haven't been able to summarize in a way that makes sense to myself yet, which is how the left and progressives are able to exploit Christian compassion.

00:01:58.000 And guess what?

00:01:58.000 That's the name of her book, literally.

00:02:00.000 I think this is so important.

00:02:01.000 This is how they're able to talk about open borders and all this.

00:02:04.000 It's corrupted empathy is what it is at its core.

00:02:06.000 But the book is actually called Toxic Empathy, How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion by Allie Beth Stuck.

00:02:13.000 You have known Allie for a long time.

00:02:15.000 She's a tremendous person.

00:02:16.000 Allie, welcome back to the program.

00:02:18.000 Thank you so much, Charlie.

00:02:19.000 Glad to be here.

00:02:20.000 Allie, tell us about your book, Toxic Empathy.

00:02:23.000 Yes, toxic empathy, how progressives exploit Christian compassion. 0.72

00:02:27.000 It's exactly what you just described.

00:02:29.000 And I see it particularly from a female perspective and really started thinking about this mostly in 2020 after the George Floyd riots.

00:02:39.000 And of course, in the midst of COVID, it's an election year.

00:02:42.000 It was a confluence of a lot of things going on.

00:02:44.000 and I was just so disheartened by the evangelicals, the Christian leaders, the pastors, the Bible study leaders, male and female, who were not only imbibing but just regurgitating this nonsense about Black Lives Matter, about riots being the voice of the unheard, systemic racism, how white people just need to listen and learn. I mean, it was all the secular progressive nonsense, but it was being said in a way that appealed to Christians 0.55

00:03:14.000 using kind of Christian language.

00:03:16.000 And I actually...

00:03:18.000 I was speaking to a woman about this, an influential Christian woman, and I was trying to get her to understand like there's a dark underbelly to this stuff.

00:03:27.000 I know you just want to be nice.

00:03:28.000 And I was told over and over again by many influential Christian women that you just need to have empathy.

00:03:36.000 That sometimes it doesn't matter what's true.

00:03:39.000 Sometimes the facts, the data, the statistics don't really matter.

00:03:43.000 You just need to have empathy for someone's story.

00:03:46.000 And then the assumption was not only that I would feel badly for them, but that I would agree with them, that I would affirm this defunding the police movement, that I would agree that systemic racism is a plague, that I would agree that I have white fragility and all this stuff.

00:04:01.000 And that's when I started to realize that this Empathy, feeling how someone feels. 0.83

00:04:07.000 While it could lead you in a good direction, and we can talk about that, it can also lead you to make really not just stupid decisions because you're trying to affirm someone's pain, but really destructive, harmful decisions.

00:04:21.000 And of course, the defunding the police, the social justice movement that we saw in 2020 did exactly that. 0.63

00:04:27.000 So that's where this got started, and that's why I wrote this book.

00:04:31.000 I have so many questions, and I just want everyone to understand one of the reasons why the American church is no longer acting like the church and instead like an Eat, Pray, Love book club is because of weaponized empathy, is because we don't understand the root of this word, and we think it's a core Christian thing.

00:04:50.000 Principle and virtue.

00:04:51.000 So let's get to the actual word here, Ali.

00:04:54.000 Where does this word come from?

00:04:56.000 Is it biblical?

00:04:57.000 Is it in the Koine Greek or Hebrew?

00:04:59.000 This word empathos or empathy, which means through feeling or emotion.

00:05:04.000 Do we find this word?

00:05:05.000 And if not, where does this word come from?

00:05:08.000 The only place that we see this word in scripture, it's in the NIV translation, which is not my preferred translation.

00:05:17.000 I'm not saying it's always bad, but it's a thought-for-thought translation rather than a word-for-word translation like the ESV. So it's a little bit less exact in its translation, but you can see this word empathy in And the Hebrews verse that says, we serve a high priest who empathizes with our weaknesses.

00:05:36.000 Jesus was as we are, yet was without sin.

00:05:40.000 And there is some beauty in that, that Jesus, that God became flesh.

00:05:44.000 He dwelt among us.

00:05:45.000 He understands much of the human struggle, even temptation against sin and yet was without sin.

00:05:53.000 But usually we see the word sympathy, which is a little bit different.

00:05:56.000 You can feel pity or feel badly for someone without putting yourself in their shoes, putting yourself in someone's shoes.

00:06:05.000 It may lead you to love.

00:06:07.000 It may lead you to kindness, but it may also lead you to affirm their delusions.

00:06:13.000 For example, if you feel the pain that someone feels who says, say it's a man who says that he's trapped in the wrong body and you feel his distress, you feel his purported confusion, he will lead you to the conclusion that you not only have to affirm his stated identity, but you have to get on board with every policy that he says makes him feel good, makes him feel better, alleviates his pain.

00:06:39.000 That's what we see in the whole emotional manipulation tactic That parents are put through when their child comes out as quote-unquote trans. 0.95

00:06:47.000 Would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter? 0.53

00:06:50.000 Which means if you don't allow your child to transition, they'll commit suicide. 1.00

00:06:55.000 That's what toxic empathy looks like.

00:06:57.000 You feel so much of what that person feels that you're actually blinded to reality and morality.

00:07:03.000 And of course, that's not what Christians are called to and we can get into that more specifically.

00:07:07.000 I want to.

00:07:09.000 And it begs also saying, Ali, and again, we have a full hour to discuss this, so we'll kind of weave and go back and forth.

00:07:15.000 This tends to be a word that is used more by the women of the church than the men of the church.

00:07:23.000 Why is that?

00:07:25.000 Yeah, you know, I heard so much in the 2020 election, people justifying voting for Joe Biden by saying, I'm being led by empathy.

00:07:33.000 And that also sounded the alarm for me.

00:07:36.000 And you're right, it was mostly women, not exclusively women.

00:07:39.000 The men that I heard it from were very feminine men, though, so that really shouldn't surprise us. 0.93

00:07:44.000 But it's because women have this natural good propensity towards feeling others better. 1.00

00:07:51.000 We have this, I think, bigger compassion muscle than most men do.

00:07:57.000 God made us like that.

00:07:58.000 I do think we tend to be more emotional, and I don't even mean that in a pejorative sense.

00:08:03.000 It's just true.

00:08:04.000 We are more emotional.

00:08:06.000 We're meant to be.

00:08:07.000 We're meant to feel the other feelings of people a little bit more strongly than men are.

00:08:12.000 That's one of the beautiful complementary characteristics that men and women have together.

00:08:18.000 We are natural nurturers.

00:08:20.000 We're natural nurturers.

00:08:21.000 Mothers.

00:08:22.000 And actually, I think that this empathy piece in guiding women's politics is misplaced mothering. 0.76

00:08:29.000 As we have seen, there is a change happening in when women get married, when women have children, and many of them insist, especially those who hate J.D. Vance and all of that, they insist that they are so happy to Being child-free, that they're completely fulfilled by their jobs and travel.

00:08:49.000 But really, that instinct that women have to mother, it doesn't go away.

00:08:54.000 It's just directed in a new direction.

00:08:58.000 So you're mothering your job, you're mothering your dog, you're mothering yourself, or you're mothering these hoisted up victims that the media tells you need your help and need your defense.

00:09:12.000 So a woman can feel really good about voting for social justice when she's told that this poor Black person, this victim of police brutality, is being helped and nurtured by your vote for voting Democrat.

00:09:27.000 This poor woman who is pregnant and needs an abortion. 1.00

00:09:30.000 You are helping indirectly mother her, mentor her, We're good to go.

00:09:56.000 I'm so defensive of my children in a very real physical way, like a mother bear kind of way, that if there was a threat toward them, I would shut down the critical thinking part of my brain and I would do whatever it takes to defend them.

00:10:12.000 Well, I think this misplaced mothering has kind of a similar way that it plays out in our politics.

00:10:17.000 So smart, Ali.

00:10:18.000 The book is Toxic Empathy.

00:10:20.000 I encourage all of you to get it, especially those of you that are in churches that have, let's just say, influences where you keep on hearing about empathy and that word.

00:10:31.000 You need to read this and you need to challenge anybody in senior leadership of your church to read it as well.

00:10:37.000 I want to be careful saying this, but I'm going to say it as precisely as I can.

00:10:42.000 Toxic empathy can be used as an unclean spirit to destabilize the church.

00:10:48.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

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00:11:47.000 So, Ali, what is this doing to the church, to the condition and the health of the Bride of Christ, this movement of empathy, as you call it, toxic empathy?

00:11:58.000 Well, toxic empathy can lead to an obsession with people-pleasing.

00:12:01.000 You put people on a pedestal and you care more about their offense and their feelings, their anger, their outrage than you care about shepherding your flock or being faithful to God.

00:12:12.000 It means if you're led by empathy, then you are going to avoid the parts of the Bible that you are afraid will make some people mad, will hurt some people's feelings.

00:12:22.000 I think that's what we see a lot in the church today.

00:12:25.000 And really, they kind of Cover up that cowardice by saying, well, I just don't want to get divisive.

00:12:31.000 I don't want to get political.

00:12:33.000 I'm just preaching the Word of God.

00:12:35.000 Well, look, I mean, politics has become theological.

00:12:38.000 So if you are preaching through the Bible, actually, if you just get to the first few verses of the Bible, Genesis 127, you're going to talk about things that are political, that God made us male and female right there.

00:12:50.000 We've got the definition of gender and the definition of marriage to culture work questions, and that we were made in God's image.

00:12:57.000 Another culture work question, meaning that we are innately valuable and shouldn't be killed inside the womb. 0.61

00:13:03.000 So we've got abortion, gender and marriage all in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible.

00:13:08.000 So if a pastor is simply being faithful to that, not even talking about what's going on in the news, not endorsing a candidate.

00:13:14.000 If you are just preaching the word of God, you're going to get to these big political questions.

00:13:20.000 You're going to make people mad.

00:13:22.000 A lot of pastors think that they are entitled to better treatment than Jesus.

00:13:25.000 A lot of pastors think that they are entitled to a nicer response than Stephen.

00:13:30.000 Stephen shared the gospel.

00:13:31.000 He was full of grace and truth.

00:13:33.000 Jesus, full of grace and power.

00:13:35.000 And yet, of course, Jesus was crucified.

00:13:37.000 They chose a thief over him.

00:13:39.000 Stephen was stoned to death simply for sharing the gospel.

00:13:42.000 Pastors sometimes judge their effectiveness by people's response to them.

00:13:47.000 Judge your effectiveness by your faithfulness to the word of God.

00:13:52.000 If you preach the word of God, you're gonna get to these big culture war political questions.

00:13:57.000 But Ali, I thought it was about bigger churches and nicer sneakers and more book sales.

00:14:04.000 That seems to be the new church.

00:14:06.000 And you're really kind of getting down to the fundamental issue here, which is the incentive structure of who we call pastors or shepherds is completely perverted.

00:14:15.000 And so let me just play devil's advocate, of which I don't believe any of this, because I think, again, it is more of a feminine type. 0.92

00:14:22.000 I don't mean this, don't be negative, it's just a more talking point.

00:14:24.000 Allie, but don't you care?

00:14:26.000 We're supposed to cry with the poor, and we're supposed to lament and weep with the widow, and we're supposed to go be alongside those who yearn for justice.

00:14:35.000 There's a verse in Romans, there's a verse in Haggai, there's a verse in Nehemiah that all kind of relate to this.

00:14:41.000 And then someone will say, but Allie, wouldn't it be a good thing if we empathize more?

00:14:47.000 What is the worst thing that could come out of somebody who is feeling the pain of the downtrodden?

00:14:54.000 Yeah, no, that's a really good question, and I'm glad you asked it like that, because there are probably listeners wondering.

00:15:00.000 And I think it comes down to a mistaken conflation of love and empathy.

00:15:05.000 We are called to mourn with those who mourn, rejoice with those who rejoice.

00:15:09.000 Taking care of the poor and the fatherless, the orphan, the widow, is one of the things that the church does best.

00:15:16.000 And I certainly don't think we should stop that.

00:15:18.000 I make the argument all the time that from the...

00:15:22.000 Pagan Roman era to today, Christians have always created a refuge for the most vulnerable, namely for children.

00:15:28.000 We changed how the world saw children by universalizing the concept of the Imago Dei by telling everyone they're equally dead and sin apart from Christ and can be made alive in Christ by grace through faith.

00:15:39.000 That radicalized how the world changed how the world saw human beings, how the world saw women and children.

00:15:45.000 That's what the church does best.

00:15:47.000 But that is love.

00:15:49.000 And love, as we read in 1 Corinthians 13, 6, never rejoices in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

00:15:58.000 So God is love, 1 John 4, 8.

00:16:01.000 That means he alone gets to say what it is.

00:16:04.000 And one of the qualifications of love, according to the God who is love, It is inextricably intertwined with the truth.

00:16:11.000 So we can empathize with someone, the poor, the downtrodden, the orphan, but empathy becomes toxic.

00:16:20.000 Empathy for anyone becomes toxic when it leads us to agreeing with sin, when it leads us to affirming a lie.

00:16:28.000 When it leads us to make decisions that are ultimately harmful, not just for that person, but for society as a whole.

00:16:37.000 So our empathy for someone, for example, a woman who feels like she's desperate and she needs an abortion, we can feel her pain and think, wow, that is so...

00:16:48.000 Hard.

00:16:49.000 But if we do what the media wants us to do, what left-wing activists want to do, we allow our empathy to lead us to affirming this choice of abortion, well, then we've forgotten about the other human being on the other side of this equation, and that's the baby.

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00:17:58.000 Toxic empathy, how progressives exploit Christian compassion. 0.76

00:18:02.000 So I want to get to a part of this in the political space, Ali.

00:18:05.000 Wouldn't this explain then how a non-disciplined, a Christian not rooted in scripture could fall for open borders, mass amnesty, the abortion lies, because they know they're supposed to be compassionate, and then progressives weaponize the compassion towards their sinister worldview.

00:18:25.000 Can you help build that out for us?

00:18:28.000 Yes, and they typically do so by taking verses out of context.

00:18:32.000 So you mentioned illegal immigration.

00:18:35.000 They might point to, well, in the Old Testament, Israel is called to love the sojourner because they were sojourners, or Jesus says to love the least of these, and therefore we have to be for Open borders.

00:18:48.000 Now, if you ask them what they mean by open borders, or if you ask them what they meant by immigration policy, they wouldn't be able to tell you.

00:18:55.000 Usually they say they're not for open borders, but when it gets down to it, they don't believe in any border enforcement.

00:19:01.000 And they do this in the name of empathy.

00:19:04.000 And there's a great example of this in my book where we tell this story and we tell it from the left-wing perspective to try to get people to see what this looks like.

00:19:13.000 The Washington Post reported about Maribel Diaz And she was a mom who fled gang violence in Mexico.

00:19:20.000 She built a life in Fairfield, Ohio.

00:19:22.000 She was there illegally and then she was deported by Donald Trump.

00:19:26.000 She was separated from her family.

00:19:28.000 And of course, the Washington Post at the end of it wants us to exclusively feel for her and then to conclude that deportation is always wrong.

00:19:36.000 That it's racist and that we shouldn't basically have any border enforcement.

00:19:42.000 But then we show the flip side of that.

00:19:44.000 Who's on the other side of the illegal immigration equation?

00:19:47.000 It's Kate Steinle.

00:19:49.000 And we tell her story from an equally heart-rending perspective.

00:19:53.000 And we show people, look, on every single topic, there are people who demand our compassion, who demand our empathy.

00:20:00.000 The question really isn't who gets...

00:20:03.000 In our feelings the most.

00:20:05.000 Our question is, what is true?

00:20:07.000 What is factually true?

00:20:09.000 Most importantly, what is biblically true?

00:20:11.000 And that's what I lay out in the book.

00:20:14.000 So I want to now get to some examples here.

00:20:17.000 So the church currently, most pastors say, oh, there's nothing wrong with this.

00:20:21.000 But this is an example of toxic empathy.

00:20:24.000 This is Kamala Harris when she was running for president bragging about giving prisoners taxpayer-funded transgender sex changes. 0.83

00:20:32.000 Because if you have empathy, then you must empathize with the murderer, the killer, and then give them what they want.

00:20:38.000 This is a perfect example of toxic empathy.

00:20:41.000 Playcut 57.

00:20:43.000 When I was Attorney General, I learned that the California Department of Corrections, which was a client of mine I didn't get to choose my clients.

00:20:51.000 A client of the Attorney General.

00:20:53.000 A client of the Attorney General, of the Office of Attorney General.

00:20:56.000 That they were standing in the way of surgery.

00:21:01.000 For prisoners.

00:21:02.000 For prisoners.

00:21:03.000 And there was a specific case.

00:21:04.000 And when I learned about the case, I worked behind the scenes to not only make sure that that transgender woman got the services she was deserving.

00:21:14.000 So it wasn't only about that case.

00:21:15.000 I made sure that they changed the policy in the state of California.

00:21:20.000 So that every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access to the medical care that they desired and need. 0.98

00:21:30.000 And I believe it was not only, I know it was historic in California, but I believe actually it may have been one of the first, if not the first in the country, where I pushed for that policy in a department of corrections.

00:21:42.000 Ali, is that not a perfect example of toxic empathy?

00:21:46.000 Yep, that's what toxic empathy does. 1.00

00:21:48.000 It makes you feel so much for one purported victim, quote-unquote, that you forget about everyone else.

00:21:55.000 Obviously, Kamala Harris, I mean, you could say she has empathy for this person, or you could say she's just cynical, but...

00:22:01.000 She has decided a policy based on this toxic empathy at the expense of the other people on the other side, which of course are the women. 1.00

00:22:11.000 These are women who are now being forced into cells with fully intact males who are raping them and impregnating them. 0.89

00:22:19.000 These are some of the most vulnerable women in the world. 0.93

00:22:22.000 They typically have a history of sexual abuse themselves.

00:22:25.000 This is the party that says they care for women. 0.82

00:22:28.000 Remember, when Democrats say they care for women, they're only talking about abortion.

00:22:32.000 They're not talking about other rights.

00:22:33.000 They're not talking about other protections.

00:22:35.000 In the same way that when Democrats talk about freedom, they're only talking about abortion and sexual immorality.

00:22:41.000 This is another great example of that.

00:22:43.000 And they use empathy, how you feel for someone's pain, in order to get you to latch on to really destructive and evil policies like this one.

00:22:52.000 That's perfectly said.

00:22:53.000 I want to now get to this tweet.

00:22:54.000 I know that you responded to it from a guy by the name of Raymond Ortland. 0.92

00:22:58.000 He is the former founding pastor of Emanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee, who issued one of the more foolish tweets I've ever seen from a pastor. 0.99

00:23:11.000 I know you're not supposed to call somebody a fool. 0.98

00:23:13.000 There's kind of a lot of ramifications to that.

00:23:16.000 It's a verse out of Matthew, but I'm sorry, this warrants it.

00:23:20.000 He tweeted, quote, never Trump, this time Harris, always Jesus.

00:23:27.000 Ali, you respond to this on your YouTube channel.

00:23:30.000 How should we think about this?

00:23:32.000 Yeah, this doesn't really surprise me from Ray Ortlund.

00:23:35.000 Unfortunately, he's got people like Russell Moore who are on staff with his church, but it is demoralizing because this is not a church in Nashville that's like waving the pride flag that everyone would look at and say, okay, that's not even a real church.

00:23:49.000 No, these are people who probably consider themselves conservative Christians, probably agree with us on 99% of theological issues, and yet, if you saw a lot of what he posted during the BLM George Floyd era, he clearly has been duped by this toxic empathy, which has made him believe that the truth doesn't matter, that facts don't matter, and has deluded people into thinking that Harris is somehow a better moral choice.

00:24:17.000 I've heard pastors say, Well-meaning, maybe, pastors say, well, yeah, some of the policies on the Democrat side, we know they're demonic, we know they're bad, but Trump's personal character is really bad, as if Kamala Harris's character isn't worse.

00:24:34.000 And policies last a lot longer than someone's personality or personal mistakes.

00:24:38.000 There are a lot more consequences to that. 0.99

00:24:40.000 And so this is the thing about toxic empathy is that it not only makes you wrong, but it can make you very, as you said, foolish. 1.00

00:24:47.000 It can make you very stupid. 1.00

00:24:49.000 And Christians aren't called to be stupid. 1.00

00:24:51.000 No, we are called to be, what is it, gentle as doves and wise as serpents, if I'm not mistaken. 1.00

00:24:56.000 Innocent as doves, yeah.

00:24:58.000 Innocent as doves, thank you.

00:24:59.000 So help me understand how I can properly communicate, because I think there's a communication barrier at times when I'm in the church.

00:25:09.000 When there is someone who is so convinced that Christianity is affirmation, not truth, how do we break through that?

00:25:18.000 It seems to be that is the tension here.

00:25:21.000 Because they say, for example, I don't want to judge.

00:25:24.000 And in judging, you must then tell somebody that you're not as good or you point out flaws.

00:25:29.000 Help me navigate that.

00:25:32.000 Yeah, you know, I have been speaking to a lot of pro-life pregnancy centers and a lot of pro-life organizations, a lot of churches, a lot of Christian women, and this is an idea they have, that even if they personally believe, for example, that marriage is between a man and a woman, that they are obligated to not say that. That actually love compels them to stay silent.

00:25:56.000 And really, when you look at the history of the church, when you look at pagan Rome, it looks a lot like what America does today. There was a lot of gender confusion. There was sexual immorality and fantasy and abortion were widespread practices. 0.66

00:26:09.000 This changed over the decades and centuries because of the persistence of Christians who, against real persecution, against martyrdom, against the tyranny of dictators like Nero, said, no, actually, the child sacrifice is going to end. 0.59

00:26:26.000 Actually, marriage is between one man and one woman.

00:26:29.000 Actually, all people, even poor people, they matter.

00:26:33.000 They spoke against these powerful, deadly ideologies of the day, even to their peril.

00:26:39.000 That is who the church has always been.

00:26:40.000 It's not about garnering our own political power.

00:26:43.000 It's about creating a refuge for the most vulnerable.

00:26:46.000 It is about the liberty to share the gospel.

00:26:50.000 We've got a woman, Beverly Williams, who was just sentenced to three and a half years in prison by the Biden administration because of unlawful assembly.

00:27:00.000 she protested outside of a pro-life or outside of an abortion clinic.

00:27:06.000 That's who the church has always been.

00:27:09.000 And we have a responsibility to stand up against the regimes that are exacerbating and enabling evil.

00:27:16.000 That's what Christians have always done. 1.00

00:27:18.000 It's not about getting political.

00:27:20.000 It's about being a Christian.

00:27:22.000 It's about taking the baton that has been passed to us by the martyrs, by the brave Christians who have stood in the stead of children and the most vulnerable for thousands of years.

00:27:33.000 I think once you realize that, that that is the history of the church, that's the call of the Christian, and you get courage from the fact that that is our calling and that Jesus wins in the end, we can kind of forget about this silly, superficial, toxic empathy stuff, our fear of man, and just have courage to go forward.

00:27:51.000 I think that's so smart.

00:27:52.000 And I want you to repeat this point, Alec, because people come in and out of these broadcasts.

00:27:56.000 At the core of empathy is trying to please man, not God.

00:28:00.000 Is that I want to affirm the human being, not what God wants?

00:28:05.000 Is that a fair summary at its core?

00:28:07.000 At the core of toxic empathy, yes, it is about pleasing man, doing what's easy.

00:28:13.000 And empathy is actually a very cheap replacement for virtue.

00:28:17.000 It's a very cheap replacement for love, which is inextricably intertwined with the truth.

00:28:22.000 With love comes actual responsibility.

00:28:25.000 Empathy just allows you to feel a certain way.

00:28:28.000 That's not necessarily what Christians are called to.

00:28:30.000 We're called to something more, something bigger, something more thoughtful, something wiser, and something a lot stronger than toxic empathy.

00:28:39.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

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00:29:41.000 The book is Toxic Empathy by Ali Beth Stuckey, one of the most important voices in Christianity today.

00:29:49.000 So Ali, I've been very disappointed by just the growing number of pastors that do not have moral clarity.

00:29:55.000 And if you were to get them privately, it comes down to, well, they don't want to say anything that might drive people away from the church, which is just a bunch of BS. They're really saying that they don't want to offend people and they don't want to tell the truth.

00:30:08.000 Can you help explain that?

00:30:09.000 Because at the core, and I know that you're saying this, you've said this all hour, which is we must submit to God's definition of love, goodness and justice.

00:30:17.000 We must submit to what we know is truth.

00:30:20.000 We should not submit to human approval.

00:30:24.000 Why is this so difficult for pastors to understand?

00:30:28.000 Yeah, you're exactly right.

00:30:29.000 And actually, I would just clarify a little bit that most of them aren't just afraid of what people think.

00:30:35.000 And I think I've even said that in this interview.

00:30:37.000 But when I really think about it, most of them care what liberals think.

00:30:41.000 It's not really that they're that afraid of offending conservatives.

00:30:46.000 They're not really that afraid of offending pro-lifers.

00:30:48.000 They're certainly not afraid of offending Trump supporters.

00:30:51.000 Most of them are really afraid of offending their friend who believes in Black Lives Matter.

00:30:58.000 Offending their friend who is nuanced on abortion.

00:31:01.000 Offending their friends at the New York Times.

00:31:05.000 Offending their friends who are on the left side of the aisle.

00:31:10.000 That's whose approval they're really going for because it feels good to be praised by the world. 1.00

00:31:18.000 It feels good to be told, oh, you're different than those dumb MAGA evangelicals. 0.99

00:31:23.000 You're above the fray. 0.99

00:31:25.000 This whole, like, after-party organization that claims to be outside of party politics that really is encouraging a lot of Christians to be dumb in their politics and to be progressive in their values is a great example of that. 1.00

00:31:38.000 They actually think their compromise, their fence-riding, is a sign of righteousness and a sign of maturity when really I think it's more just about pleasing people, as you said, and not pleasing God. 0.77

00:31:51.000 And that's so tragic.

00:31:53.000 And Ali, now also do the rank and file, those of us that go to churches, we have a role.

00:31:57.000 If your pastor is not doing the right thing, it doesn't matter if the music is good or the parking is organized or, you know, the coffee is tasty, you have to demand more out of your shepherds than just vibes and a TED talk.

00:32:11.000 Is that correct, Ali?

00:32:13.000 Yes, gosh, congregations are, they want clarity so much.

00:32:18.000 And you might lose some people because of clarity, but you are going to give more people and more congregants courage and encouragement through your clarity.

00:32:28.000 I know that you just had Pastor Johnny on from, I think it's Franklin, Tennessee, and he is amazing in his giving clarity to his congregation about the reality of the policies set before us, of the evil that is set before us.

00:32:44.000 Because look, pastors, if you are not discipling your congregants when it comes to these issues, someone else will.

00:32:52.000 The The world is happy to disciple the people in your church.

00:32:57.000 And so they will turn to TikTok.

00:32:58.000 They'll turn to podcasts.

00:33:00.000 Hopefully it's a good one.

00:33:01.000 They'll turn to their friends.

00:33:02.000 They'll turn to the media to answer the questions specifically about things like abortion or gender or marriage.

00:33:10.000 I think a lot of pastors think, well, if I just kind of preach through the Bible but avoid some of the controversial spots, then my congregation will be able to somehow deduce and piece together their worldview.

00:33:20.000 That's not what's happening.

00:33:21.000 They're turning to social media to tell them what's true.

00:33:24.000 And if that worries you as a pastor, then you need to offer them the clarity they're seeking.

00:33:30.000 Allie, thank you for spending time with us this hour.

00:33:32.000 Really important.

00:33:33.000 And I hope everyone understands the issue at hand.

00:33:36.000 Toxic empathy.

00:33:37.000 Allie, thank you so much.

00:33:38.000 Thank you so much, Charlie.

00:33:40.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:33:42.000 Listen carefully, everybody.

00:33:43.000 Right now, there is a surge of early voting that is happening unlike anything you've ever seen.

00:33:48.000 We are breaking records in Georgia.

00:33:50.000 We are seeing long lines in Chattanooga, long lines in Mojave County, Arizona, long lines across the country in in-person early voting.

00:33:57.000 We are seeing conservatives, Republicans, turn in mail-in ballots.

00:34:02.000 Go chase the ballots, everybody.

00:34:04.000 I want to repeat something that we have been saying.

00:34:07.000 I do not care that Donald Trump is up in the betting markets.

00:34:13.000 I don't care about the polls.

00:34:15.000 I don't care about vibes.

00:34:17.000 I care about how many ballots are in the box.

00:34:20.000 That is all I care about.

00:34:22.000 And that's all you should care about.

00:34:23.000 The time for poll watching is over.

00:34:26.000 Polls are for firefighters and strippers.

00:34:28.000 What is helpful is whether or not you get ballots in boxes.

00:34:34.000 That is your task.

00:34:36.000 That is your duty.

00:34:37.000 That is your purpose.

00:34:38.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:34:39.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:34:42.000 Thanks so much for listening and God bless.

The Charlie Kirk Show - October 17, 2024

Against "Toxic Empathy" in the American Church ft. Allie Beth Stuckey

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