Raising a ruckus

Allie Beth Stuckey, whom The Atlantic has called “a new Phyllis Schlafly,” is not one to shy away from hard conversations. Host of the BlazeTV podcast Relatable, Stuckey regularly discusses cultural, political, and theological hot topics. Her new book Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion explores how people misdirect empathy toward political ends at odds with a Biblical worldview. Here are edited excerpts of our conversation.

Could you explain what you mean by “toxic empathy”? Toxic empathy uses empathy as a kind of a mallet of manipulation, by which those in power and media extort people into taking a particular position by saying, “In order to be a compassionate and kind person, this is the stance that you must take.” It says that feeling someone else’s pain must convince you also to affirm their choices, their perspectives, and whatever policy prescriptions they say will alleviate their pain. They do that through emotional manipulation, telling only one side of the story, or misrepresenting an issue to make you believe the only righteous position is their position.

Your book highlights an example—NPR’s reporting on a Texas woman named Samantha. She’s poor, raising five children, and finds out she’s pregnant again. She finds out at 20 weeks that her baby has anencephaly and is not going to live long past birth, if at all. She decides she wants an abortion. But she’s in Texas, and Texas does not allow her to get an abortion. At this point NPR describes her story as heartrending. They say things like: She is forced to carry this baby. Her baby is forced to suffer and die just minutes after birth. She was forced to pay for the funeral. So the media is hoisting up one victim, which they say is Samantha, and negating the real victim, which is actually the baby who would have had to endure the brutality and the pain of an abortion. But they are pulling on your heartstrings to get you to focus only on the woman.

Other examples? Progressives will use Christian ideas like loving your neighbor and loving mercy and justice to convince you that opening up the border, affirming someone’s so-­called gender identity, or affirming the redefinition of the family are actually Biblical positions, because this is what it means to love. And they do this by falsely conflating empathy and love. Empathy and love are different things. You can feel how someone else feels, but love is inextricable with the truth, because love never rejoices in wrong­doing, but rejoices in the truth, as 1 Corinthians 13:6 tells us.

What’s the right role of empathy in the life of a Christian? Empathy, putting yourself in someone’s shoes, can be a powerful tool. But it is actually the love of Christ that compels us to be compassionate, other-centered, and loving. If I put myself in the shoes of someone else, and I am so staunchly in their feelings I’m blinded to everyone else’s perspective—then I can’t make very good decisions. If I only feel what the designated victim feels, then I’m not paying attention to the rights and needs of other people.

You’ve been accused by some of lacking empathy yourself. What do you say to those criticisms? It’s funny, the people who tell me that I lack empathy always disagree with me, and then the people who leave comments saying, “Thank you so much for balancing grace and truth. Thank you for not being too harsh”—those people seem to agree with my conclusion. And so I’m not sure if that’s a really good-faith criticism. Maybe it is. At the end of the day, I am much more concerned with truth than I am with how someone feels.

What motivated you to start talking and writing about cultural issues? I’ve always loved to talk. I was very blessed to be raised in a Christian home with an emphasis on Christian education. And I’ve always had a very strong desire for justice and a desire to persuade people into what I believe is true. After college, in 2014, I started leading a Bible study of young women. And as I started engaging with these college freshmen about the issues in the 2016 election, I realized most of these godly, smart young women hadn’t really thought about the issues, certainly not from a Biblical perspective. And one who was, I think, the wisest, most mature, and most Biblically literate of the group told me, “Yeah, I love Bernie Sanders. He’s my favorite.” But as I started talking to her about things like abortion, I realized that her genuine faith hadn’t really connected with her political views. And that inspired me to start talking to young women more about these issues.

I talk to young Christian women quite often, and many of them seem unmoored, if not in their faith, certainly in the apologetics realm. Do you think that’s a gender problem or a generational problem? A lot of content I see that is geared toward young Christian women is just repackaged self-esteem stuff. It has Jesus’ name and a couple of Bible verses attached to it. It’s basically telling young women that your biggest problem is that you have low self-esteem. And once you love yourself more, once you realize how awesome, beautiful, and perfect you are, then finally you will be happy and all of your goals and dreams will come true. But the truth is that our biggest problem as women is the same one everyone has had since the dawn of time: We are sinners in need of a Savior. The god of self is unmoored. It has no foundation and is completely dependent upon our own whims, our own feelings. Our feelings, our love, our confidence, our identity should be founded upon the solid rock that is Christ, who does not change.

When you debate those who disagree with you, what’s your approach? I try to shift my perspective to “What will change this person’s mind?” versus “What makes me feel good?” Because what makes me feel good is to prove myself right and to make that person feel bad. But if I do that, will that person become pro-life? Will that person change their perspective about the Bible and Jesus by me satiating my fleshly pride? No.

Some Christians say that since our kingdom is not of this world, we need not concern ourselves with politics. Politics affects policy, policy affects people, and people matter. People matter to God, therefore they matter to us. Christians tend to forget that politics is one way to love our neighbor, because the policies that we vote for have a real effect on people. You don’t have to care about every issue. You don’t have the capacity to do that. But the issues that affect your community, the issues that will affect your children and your children’s children—as U.S. citizens we have the right and responsibility to vote, to influence elections, and to raise a respectful ruckus for the things that matter. We are exiles in this world. Our citizenship is in heaven. And yet, here we are. So in the welfare of the community around us is our welfare too.