Last week Alistair Roberts hosted Joe Rigney, the new president of Bethlehem College & Seminary and author of multiple books, alongside Hannah Anderson, author of multiple books.
They disagreed about empathy, and did so amicably. That part was refreshing.
But I confess, some parts of the conversation were befuddling to me.
Yes, empathy is definitely still a sin, according to Joe Rigney
Empathy is always sinful, according to Joe Rigney, because (1) it sets aside all judgment of rightness and wrongness (as Brené Brown recommends), and (2) the empathetic person gets down in the quicksand with the sufferer instead of staying safely on the shore and casting out a rope.
I agree we should stay stable while helping others. If in my work with extreme abuse survivors, I get pulled in or overwhelmed by the extreme nature of the evil perpetrated against them, I won’t be helpful to them or anyone else.
And I agree we should still be alert to “righteous judgment” when we’re helping the sufferer (even though we might wait for a more opportune time to express it). If a confused child trafficking survivor tells me she has positive memories of being with her father in a sexual way, then it’s right for me to speak firm truth to her about that matter.
But just as in my previous blog post about this topic, where the real issue lay not with where we agreed but with where we disagreed, so is the case here two years later. Though I’d like to respond to much more of this conversation, I’ll keep my points limited.
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“the words of Martin Luther, written during a plague ravaging the German people”
“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus, perchance, inflict and pollute others and so cause their death by my negligence. If God should wish to take me, He will surely find me and I have done what He expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however, I shall not avoid place or person I shall go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.”
Luther’s Works: Volume 43, page 132
A fascinating quotation. Though I think Joe Rigney would say this is not empathy, because according to him, sinfulness is inherent to empathy, kind of “baked in,” if you will.
So I believe he would say this must be compassion.
I think Martin Luther was empathetic!
In a church supposed evangelical the pastor kept like mocking people in the church who he said had pity parties telling them how bad they are and or stupid or sinning or that God is angry or not pleased with that! I heard this often as if a teaching almost and the pastor would express his disapproval by expression and since the attendees worshiped him seemingly this was not questioned or even discussed at all as far as i seen it. This is one matter that made me a Christian leave this church.
You had to be cautious in the community if you mentioned this or this pastor or doings because you can be branded as trouble.And people do not care if you are a good honest person either as they ignore your words or choose to and look to bring guilt on you or they show they are willing to do.
There are other things that were there too. Like just because the church had like well over 300 or 400 people it was not a great church as claimed but seemed like a hard core driven business that was trying to procure money to fund anything as money was important.The rich in the church were honored for being that but anybody poor was looked down on or you never saw them there / or there really are richer churches around that cater to such or secretly reject those who can only give 20.00 a week which used to be a lot at one time as many give 45.00 plus a week oddly.
Absolutely brilliant article!
Jesus wept when He was told Lazarus died. Even though Lazarus was to rise again. (To be fair, only God the father is all knowing, so we don’t know for sure Jesus knew that. Although maybe He did!)
empathy is not only natural but an appropriate response to sin
I have heard this type of teaching “don’t feel sorry for them, you will feed their self pity! They need to get over abuse in time and lots of empathy will keep them stuck!” Well as a survivor I needed that empathy as validation. Because the abuser kept telling me I was imagining it, that God was angry with me for ” feeling sorry for myself”
you are like a breath of fresh air, Rebecca! Keep up the fantastic blogs. Your words are healing to my soul
Thank you, Carmen. To clarify, I would say empathy is a natural, God-given heart response to the suffering of others.
If empathy is the only thing I offer, then I’ll be limited as to the meaningful help I can give. But whatever you call it–empathy, compassion, even pity!–we need to have that sense of “I’m with you in this and I’m not leaving” from others.
And oh, how especially true this is for those who have suffered extreme, diabolical abuse! Their journey of healing can be so long, and they may find that some grow tired of walking the road with them for so long, “aren’t you over that yet??”
With Joe Rigney’s fear that empathy will overtake the conservative Reformed evangelical church unless he persistently warns against it, the problem I see, finding the suffering souls in the darkness, is far more like what you describe here.
The realm of his experience must be very limited, if the most serious issue he finds worthy of discourse is the subtleties of difference between compassion & empathy. There is a Presbyterian youth pastor in this area who was thrilled with the series he was teaching his youth. Convinced it would be of life-long help to them. Something they for which they had dire need: the ability to choose a good hymn. My astonished thought was, “Sir, you are either extremely out of touch with the young ones for whom you care, or they are a highly unusual group.” How is it that “theologians” become so blind to the people around them? Jesus help!
I can’t help but think that theologians in seminaries can become “ivory tower isolated” from what’s actually going on in the lives of regular struggling people, along the lines of New York news reporters.
This can also be true of senior pastors, who dole out responsibilities to those below them. In the pyramid structure of many Reformed church networks, a very small handful of men are the primary teachers, and they teach only those men below them, rarely interacting with rabble at the bottom, because God has called them to be a pastor to pastors, you know?
And then those younger men who want so much to learn to be godly from those older men, take the theology they’ve learned and believe that’s enough to understand what their people are enduring and how to help them.
It would be enough if it included a robust and accurate theology of evil and spiritual warfare. But I’ve yet to hear that from these teachers.
No, maybe it wouldn’t be enough. With the extreme prevalence of cases of extreme abuse, I would say they also need to have a rudimentary understanding of brain science and what trauma does to the brain and body.
In the Joe Rigney article I critiqued two years ago, he indicated that sufferers regularly act in a dual manner: “Why won’t you help me?” and then “How dare you help me!”
Though I challenged him that this isn’t regular at all, I pondered it more and thought that this sounds like it would describe someone with borderline personality disorder, which indicates the dividedness of extreme abuse in early childhood.
And borderline personality disorder can in fact be a misdiagnosis of dissociative identity disorder. It could actually be two different “identities” of a person responding, one asking for help and the other one angry. I have certainly encountered this in the people I’ve worked with. I imagine some of them might be reading this comment–they’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about.
Is the potential problem there that the pastor might have “sinful empathy” for them? No, the potential problem there is that he might have no idea what is actually going on inside them, that their true situation is complicated far beyond his understanding.
The true solution for this potential problem is not for the pastor to learn about “sinful empathy,” but for him to get educated in brain science, trauma, and dissociation, at least enough to be able to recognize the possible indicators and refer people like this to someone he trusts who can help them.
“Complicated far beyond his understanding!” This!!! Yes. And often, far beyond the understanding of the victim. For so many years, I was at war with myself over this very idea of opposite/conflicting parts of me that I could not understand or reconcile- all due to abuse. I -and thousands of hours of religious-sounding but harmful sermons- heaped more pain upon myself by cutting off parts of myself/ labeling them as sinful/ etc. So very not helpful. Have you heard of Internal Family Systems? IFS? That & Immanuel Prayer is the only reason I am alive today. One by one, wading through all the conflicts. When I hear “theologians” spewing this sort of abuse out, it makes me nauseous.
Thank you for continuing to stand up & defend.
Thank you for commenting, Catvand, and I’m so thankful that IFS and the Immanuel Approach have been helpful for you. Yes, I’m familiar with IFS, and Immanuel prayer is way of connecting with Jesus that I use in my own ministry. It’s what I’ll be speaking about in May at the retreat I describe here: https://heresthejoy.com/2021/01/5-reasons-you-need-to-come-to-the-ctpm-retreat-in-may-2021/
I’m so sorry for the religious abuse you experienced. Yes, I do understand what you’re saying when you say that the problem is often far beyond the understanding of the victim, because the memories of abuse have been dissociated and the survivor of abuse doesn’t understand what’s happening. When we connect with Jesus in prayer ministry, though, He is wonderful at helping us sort out the memories and bring healing to the trauma bit by bit.
Many, many blessings to you as you continue to pursue healing with Him.
Well done, Rebecca. What you say is sound. Those who will listen to you and recognise good as good are the Church; those who love one another are the ones recognisable as disciples of Jesus.
I am long past recognising the institutional churches as The Church. Some disciples are found there, but the institutions are not The Church. They do not reflect the discipleship life Jesus spoke of, but an Old Covenant life that Constantine also wanted, to help maintain his power and control in his empire. It is not a picture of following Jesus the Messiah in freedom. Power and control in marriage reflects the power and control structures in institutional Church, where there is no ‘all one in Jesus, answerable directly to the King of kings’ but business structures and heirarchy.
Those that call good evil (empathy is a sin!?!) are at best not abiding with Jesus, and at worst…
Thank you Rebecca.
The Bible says,
Romans 12:15
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Yes, certainly the top empathy verse.
You pointed out the empathy that was shown to Ravi by TGC. These men have accepted positions as leaders. As such, it is their responsibility to put walls of accountability around themselves, realizing the enormous responsibility they bear. And then, when one of their own falls, deal with it with courage…don’t meedly-mouth around declaring how “it could have been me.” Good grief! What do you think the Apostle Paul would have said if he found out Peter had been raping, using and exploiting women. I’ll bet it wouldn’t be by hesitantly shaking his head saying how tempted they [men] all are. No. It would have probably been by denouncing his sin and calling out how he hurt those over whom he had charge. This is all so exhausting.
Interesting that you say it’s exhausting. This post originally had a line that said, “I am weary.” But I took it out lest the focus be too much on me and my feelings, lol.
Actually, Joe Rigney was the one who said empathy was shown to Ravi Zacharias. I said the identification these men felt with RZ was about his sin rather than his suffering, so I believed it didn’t fit the concept of empathy. I wrote more about why that identification was wrong here: https://heresthejoy.com/2021/02/we-are-just-as-vulnerable-a-response-to-the-gospel-coalition/
And yes, you make very good points about what they should have done and what the Apostle Paul would most likely have done. Thank you.
I may be taking this out of context, but Brene Brown actually is a church-going Christian.
Thank you; apparently I didn’t know enough about her. I’ve edited the article to delete any reference to her religious beliefs.
I guess no one actually knows what empathy actually is.
Compassion the latin synonym for the greek sympathy. They literally both mean “suffering with”.
Empathy is nothing but experimental sympathy. It has turned into being used for a whinier, more simpering version of ‘sympathy’ when the word ‘sympathy’ became patronizing or shallow, according to those dissatisfied with the meaning of the word. But that usage is wrong and should not be embraced for any reason.
DesiringGod is once again slandering the faith, showing off their loopy and callous ’tism, perpetuating an old lie, and then feeling so happy with themselves for making the gospel as offensive as possible to the audience the gospel was never meant to offend. Jesus has always preferred the company of whores and tweakers over any of us.
A husband who was not abused cannot empathize with a wife who was. It is literally impossible. You can’t have empathy for what you have not remotely experienced.
When Sotomayor claimed to have empathy with the poor, she was lying, full stop. She helped destroy the meaning of the word fake her fake heart and all of the president’s slobbering worshippers in the media. She didn’t go through public schools, and she was never poor. She has no empathy to anyone save her own bubble.
[…] Note: A follow-up article to this one is posted here. […]
I am no longer a believer. Part of how I got here is the amazing tone-deafness of Christian thought leaders as demonstrated by this ridiculous ’empathy’ dustup. Rigney et al have conflated a legitimate and nearly universal human experience with a political philosophy. For conservative believers, ‘woke-ism’ is an existential threat to the objective truths of divine revelation. And it’s true that ‘woke-ists’ like to invoke empathy as a substitute for objective truth, equally fallacious.
What is unfortunate is that the Desiring God folks cannot see they have actually bought the ‘woke’ definition of empathy. By conflating it with all they hate about the uber-subjectivists, they are accepting the political/philosophical baggage the ‘woke’ crew has added to the term. They are ceding the field to the Warriors of Woke, while simultaneously shooting themselves in the foot in terms of public relations.
But empathy minus all the political baggage just means you’re human, you can do more than sympathize, you can actually feel what another person feels. That basic human trait is the foundation of compassion. The absence of empathy is a marker for malignant narcissism and other extremely serious psychopathies.
So the inability of the Desiring God folks to parse this out casts a dark shadow over their emotional intelligence. How can they not know that the vast majority of the evil in the world is perpetrated in the name of a ‘higher cause’ that tramples down genuine suffering with unfeeling boots of steel? How might the Inquisition have turned out differently if only there had been more of empathy and less of ‘greater good’ self-righteousness? Could there have even been a holocaust if the grandiose dreams of a master race utopia had been set to a lower priority than mastering empathy?
But having been reformed and deeply Calvinistic myself at one point, I do bear some empathy toward these shrill judges of humanity. What is the model they admire most, but a deity who commanded mass slaughter of men women and children, who routinely displays an utterly heartless commitment to eradicating the ‘evil’ opposition, who stigmatizes natural human needs and desires as signs of depravity, in order to establish a beachhead for invasion of the human soul?
It was all too much for me. It was too much to see how that deity, taken honestly from the pages of the Bible, was truly lacking in empathy. Of course, the counterclaim is Jesus as the very epitome of empathy. And a true narcissist will always do that, claim to be the most empathetic person ever, hugely empathetic, while at the same time demanding worship on penalty of endless torture. For those of us recovering from that kind of abuse, it’s too much to handle. Like I said, that, and the lack of evidence any of it is real, is why I’m out. If you have no empathy, you’ve lost your humanity.
I’m so sorry, Joseph. I’m sure you can see from my website that I’m a follower of the Lord Jesus. However–and this is something I don’t talk about much on my website because it is so (might I say uselessly?) polarizing–I am no longer a Calvinist. I deal every day with those who are seeking Jesus in the midst of recovering from massive, massive evil, “free will” is the only answer that even comes close to making sense of the evil, and I do not see it as being in opposition to the God of the Bible.
And yes, “endless torture” is another thing I haven’t talked about on this blog, but after studying the topic at length, I’ve come to agree with the teachings of Edward Fudge (and I believe John Stott), what has been called the “conditional immortality / modified annihilationist” view. But here I am talking about it now, so we’ll see where this goes.
The anti-empathy “empathy as sin” teaching is appalling to me, as I suppose you can tell from what I’ve written.
The two of you are really using the same word, “empathy”, to describe two different things. I can reconcile both articles very easily, as both have great merit. The truth of the matter is that empathy in and of itself is NOT a sin but in fact a virtue. But like most virtues, the devil seeks to twist them from God’s purpose to his own. Essentially, this article describes empathy used rightly, and the other article describes empathy as it is now being twisted and weaponized by the secular world we live in to justify condoning evil because you may otherwise hurt someone’s feelings.
A commenter on my other empathy article had such an apt observation that I ended up quoting her in my third Untwisting Scriptures book (“Your Words, Your Emotions”), which has a chapter on empathy. Here’s what she said:
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this really is a silly false dichotomy, which I highly doubt he would apply across the board. For example, taking “honesty” as a sample virtue, if I go around rudely (but accurately) telling people how unattractive and overweight they are, I am not engaging in the “sin of honesty.” I may be being honest, but I am failing to balance honesty with, among other things, compassion (not to mention that I would almost certainly have sinful motivations, assuming I wasn’t neurodivergent). I would likely be sinning, but the sin would be the sin of unkindness, not honesty.
Likewise if (hypothetically speaking) I am spending all my time waiting for my small children to obey me and not doing anything about their dawdling lazy tendencies, I am not engaging in the “sin of patience.” I may be being patient but I am also being irresponsible – the solution is not to be less patient per se but to act in a way which is truly in my children’s best interests. I would need to repent of irresponsibility, or perhaps laziness, but not my patience. To give into the sinful demands of others as he describes, might be weakness, people-pleasing, or lovelessness, but it is not the “sin of empathy.”
And yes I know the word empathy is not used in most Bible translations but “weep with those who weep” is pretty hard not to read as a command, not just to verbally acknowledge, but to actually enter into the negative emotions of others.
I’m late to the conversation. But I’d like to respectfully disagree that conservative reformed churches don’t make their feelings gods. People who deny their feelings because they think feelings are bad, are prone to confusing their feelings for logic. If there is one thing reformed circles have elevated to a god like status, it is cold hard logic. This is the basis of complementarian theology which teaches that men are logical and women are emotional and that is why the Bible says women are the weaker vessel.
This is why so many “had empathy” for Ravi Zacharias. You see, he succumbed to lust – which is the only logical, masculine response to a beautiful woman. Way to often, in conservative circles, lust is treated as the logical outcome of a man seeing an attractive woman. Though the Bible puts clear responsibility for lust on the luster, there are enough references to modesty and not causing your brother to stumble, that if you have confused lust for a logical end rather than a feeling, you can offload the responsibility for it, and/or excuse it in others.
The same applies to the husbands of abuse survivors you reference. Un-knowledgeable people reduce trauma to feelings. So a woman who suffers as a result of trauma is “in sin” because she isn’t “trusting in God” because supposedly, if she had enough faith, she wouldn’t feel that way. And her husband, has no interest in learning any truth about trauma and all the studies on just how logical/predictable, well documented it is, because he is lost in his own sense of superiority for not being traumatized and therefore not feeling the feelings associated with trauma. He’d have to be humble enough to know that he is a mere emotional human (just like his wife) to do that.
I think Joe Rigney is so concerned about redefining empathy because he believes that feelings are inherently bad and logic is inherently good. By redefining empathy, he gets to criticize feelings, while still creating a theology that is “in line” with clear Biblical teaching regarding compassion. It is worth noting that Mr. Rigney also subtly redefined compassion in his zeal to make it the opposite of empathy. His definition of compassion more closely resembles the old definition of condescension. Condescension used to mean being willing to associate with and use ones resources to benefit people of lower class or economic status. The receiver should be grateful for the condescension of the giver. IE I’ve read old sermons discussing how Christ condescended when He was made man and died on the cross for our sins. This more closely resembles what Mr Rigney seems to expect when he offers help to those who are suffering.