Joe Rigney: Reclaiming compassion

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Tuesday, May 13th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, WORLD Opinions contributor Joe Rigney says true Christian compassion isn’t soft on the truth.

JOE RIGNEY: The other day a friend asked how Christians should address the fact that compassion is often regarded as a characteristic of progressives, not conservatives. In the popular imagination, compassion and care are “left-coded”—that is, these virtues are ostensibly given greater priority among liberals and progressives.

My friend was thinking of this problem in terms of evangelism. What do we do when unbelievers feel that they have to give up compassion in order to become conservative Christians? As I thought about the question, I began to consider how Jesus addressed a similar problem. In the first century, righteousness and holiness were “Pharisee-coded.” That is, both in the Pharisees self-understanding and in the popular imagination, righteousness and holiness were regarded as Pharisaical priorities.

And yet think of how Jesus approached this problem. He warned his followers about the hypocritical appearance of righteousness: practicing righteousness to be seen by others, standing in the streets to show off their deeds in the ancient equivalent of virtue signaling. Indeed, the entire Sermon on the Mount might be seen as Christ’s attempt to re-orient the meaning of righteousness among Jews in the first century.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus refused to grant that the Pharisees were truly righteous—they neglected the weightier matters of the law while excelling in relative trivialities.

Again and again, Christ insists that for all of their talk of righteousness, the Pharisees honored God with their lips, but their hearts were far from him. Not only that, but they substituted man-made traditions for the actual commands of God. Empty talk may have garnered them a righteous reputation, but the reality was very different.

So what does this mean for us today? How should conservative Christians address the reputation gap when it comes to compassion?

First, we must actually be compassionate, according to the biblical standards. Kindness, tenderheartedness, bowels of mercy—these must mark us as individuals and communities.

Second, we must be aware that the devil is a liar and will seek to steer us by our reputation. Accusing conservative Christians of a lack of compassion is one of the fundamental tools that the devil and his brood of vipers have used to sabotage and mute the church’s witness by demanding that Christians prove their compassion according to progressive standards. And, unfortunately, Christians have sometimes had heads as soft as their hearts.

Third, like Christ, we must refuse to adopt the framing of the left when it comes to defining compassion. We must tell people, “Beware of practicing your compassion before others to be seen by them. Don’t sound the trumpet or stand on the street corner announcing your compassion like the hypocrites. They have received their reward.”

More than that, we must be clear about the left’s failure to be compassionate. Given their false ideology, the people they “help” often end up worse because of the “treatment.” Just look at the breakdown of the family, failing schools, rampant crime and drug use, and the enfeebling dependence on government aid that afflicts communities that receive progressive “compassion.”

But the evil of progressive compassion goes beyond unintended consequences. In the name of compassion, they castrate children and murder the unborn. In the name of compassion, they celebrate sodomy and other forms of sexual perversion. In the name of compassion, they overwhelm communities with migrants and destroy social trust and cohesion. They outsource compassion to bureaucratic agencies in order to get rich and garner a reputation for mercy and care. Like the Pharisees of old, they have rejected and nullified the word of God for the sake of their so-called “compassion.”

In short, how should Christians deal with left-coded compassion? Be compassionate like Christ. Refuse to be steered by falsehoods. And be ready to puncture the lie of progressive “compassion.”

I’m Joe Rigney.

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