Joe Rigney: Empathy untethered

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Next up: Empathy untethered.

Former first lady Hillary Clinton wrote an essay this month in The Atlantic magazine singling out WORLD commentator Joe Rigney by name—for objecting to a sermon delivered at the National Cathedral on Inauguration Day.

Here’s part of it, by Episcopal bishop Mariann Edgar Budde:

AUDIO: In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families—some who fear for their lives.

REICHARD: Clinton called Rigney an “extremist pastor,” citing his book Leadership and the Sin of Empathy. She accused him—along with Allie Beth Stuckey—of waging what she called a “war on empathy” and rejecting Christian virtues like mercy and compassion.

EICHER: But Rigney says that charge misunderstands his argument. Here now is his response.

JOE RIGNEY: When I read an article by Hillary Clinton accusing me of being a bad Christian for waging a “war on empathy,” I realized it was an opportunity to clarify something important.

Set aside for the moment whether Hillary Clinton is the right person to lecture anyone on ethics, morality, or what it means to be a Christian.

But conservative Christians are not against compassion, mercy, or dignity. Quite the opposite. The question is how our love of neighbor is ordered, governed, and directed.

In today’s debates, empathy has taken on a very specific meaning. Empathy now means emotional identification—feeling what other people feel—and treating that feeling as a moral authority.

That is where problems begin.

One of the central arguments I've made is that empathy, untethered from truth and justice, becomes highly selective. It acts like a spotlight. It highlights the suffering of some people, while leaving others entirely in the dark.

In Hillary Clinton’s article, we are urged to feel empathy for families afraid of immigration enforcement. But you’ll find no empathy for families whose loved ones were raped or murdered by people released into the country by so-called empathetic policies. 

Empathy pulls our attention in one direction—and trains us to look away from others.

And this selectivity matters because empathy does not simply describe suffering, it directs moral outrage. And once outrage is activated, empathy often functions as a veto over law, reason, and responsibility.

If someone is afraid, that just means the rules must no longer apply. If enforcement causes distress, that means it’s cruel and needs to be abandoned. If order requires boundaries, that means they’re unloving and need to be torn down.

But untethered feelings cannot be the standard for justice.

Christianity has never taught that compassion means suspending moral judgment. Lawbreakers should fear law enforcement. That’s not heartless. It means we recognize that love for neighbor requires order, limits, and truth.

And so, throughout these debates, empathy is constantly contrasted with cruelty. 

But one of the most uncomfortable realities is that calls for empathy often mask actual cruelty.

In the name of empathy, you can release repeat violent offenders back into communities. You can excuse policies that harm children. You can abandon the vulnerable to chaos and lawlessness.

And all the while, you can reassure yourself that you’re the kind one—because you feel deeply.

But this is not Biblical compassion.

Biblical compassion is not sentimentality or emotional manipulation. It does not allow fear to override justice, or guilt to override truth. 

It sees suffering clearly—but it also sees responsibility, consequence, and the common good.

When empathy is elevated above all else, it becomes a tool of emotional pressure. It trains people to believe that resisting certain policies can make them bad Christians. It suggests that obedience to God must give way to obedience to feelings.

That’s not mercy; it’s moral confusion. Weaponized empathy helped to get us into this mess. 

But Biblical compassion—anchored in truth, governed by justice, and strengthened by courage—is the only thing that will get us out.

For WORLD, I’m Joe Rigney.

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