Using empathy against Christians

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, October 10th.

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Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the role of empathy in politics.

Allie Beth Stuckey makes a living encouraging women on how to think through their faith and worldview. She went from speaking at sororities about political matters a decade ago to now hosting her own podcast called Relatable.

MONTAGE: If an entity is not actively Christian, it will eventually become liberal.
Talking about things like gender identity to young children, that is sexual innately.
If you want to debate which policy, whether it’s restricting abortion or making abortion totally free and accessible, is going to end abortion, I think the answer is obvious.

Stuckey also writes on occasion for WORLD Opinions, and she has a new book coming out next week. It’s called Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion. She says she wrote it to help Christian women make sense of pressing issues ahead of the election.

I had the opportunity to talk with her recently. Here’s a portion of that discussion.

Allie Beth, your new book is called Toxic Empathy, so I want to go ahead and jump in on that. Can you tell us what you mean by that term? And also, if you could give us some examples?

STUCKEY: Yes, so toxic empathy is the use of empathy as a kind of a mallet of manipulation, so a tool by which those in power in media exploit and extort people into taking on a particular position by saying, in order to be a good person, in order to be a compassionate and kind person, this is the stance that you must take. And they do that not through good faith persuasion—because that's one thing—but through what I would say is emotional manipulation, or telling only one side of the story, or completely misrepresenting an issue to make you believe that the only righteous position is their position. And they will use Christian language and Christian ideas like loving your neighbor, and welcoming the foreigner, and loving mercy and justice to convince you that, for example, opening up the border, or affirming someone's so-called gender identity, or affirming the redefinition of the family, or affirming a woman's so-called right to choose that these are all not just kind and compassionate positions, but actually Biblical positions because this is what it means to love. And the point is really that 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. And the God who is love—1 John 4:8—gets to define that for us. And so we as Christians are obligated not just to feel how someone else feels, but to actually look at the policies and the so-called culture war from the perspective of what is actually true.

MAST: What’s the better way to view the role of empathy in the life of a Christian, in your opinion?

STUCKEY: I think that empathy can be a powerful tool to love those around you. I use an example in the book of before I had kids, when I would go on a flight and I would hear babies crying. You're like why do parents do this? This is just bothering me, all about me. And then after I had kids, I'm like, what can I do? What can I carry? Can I help you? Because no one wants this baby to stop crying and screaming more than you do. Like, I get it. And that can be powerful. However, it is actually the love of Christ that compels us to be compassionate and other-centered and loving. And so I think really the emphasis that our culture puts on empathy in general is kind of just like misplaced and misguided. But in itself, it is really neither bad nor good. Because empathy can also—if I put myself in the shoes of someone else, and I am so staunchly in their feelings, and I am exclusively blinded to everyone else's perspective because I only feel what that person feels, well, then I can't make very good decisions. Because if I only feel what the media's designated victim feels, well, then I'm not paying attention to the rights and the needs of the well-being of other people. So if I am only focused on, for example, this teenage boy who says he's distressed about his body, and he wants to become a girl, and he wants to identify as a girl, and he wants to go into the women's locker room, if I am only thinking about his feelings, which is what we are told is true empathy. And then, of course I'm going to affirm. But I have to get out of those feelings. I can't only focus on those feelings because there are other people whose rights and well-being and privacy matters. And even more than that, the truth matters. The truth that he cannot become a woman, that he can't become a girl – that matters.

MAST: You deal with all manner of current events on your podcast. I hear a lot of American believers who say that since our kingdom is not of this world, or since God is in control, we need not concern ourselves with matters of culture or politics. What’s your defense of Christian involvement in them?

STUCKEY: Yes. So I came up with an alliteration that I use almost every day to explain to Christians like why politics do matter and it's “politics matter because policy matters because people matter.” Politics affects policy. Policy affects people. And people matter. People matter to God, therefore they matter to us. They matter because they're made in His image. And God did not place us here arbitrarily or accidentally. I don't think any Christian would contend with the fact that we are commanded to love our neighbor, those who are around us, and yet they tend to forget that politics is not the only way. And it's not even the primary way. But it is a way to love our neighbor, because the policies that we vote for have a real effect on people, especially vulnerable people. We don't have to care about everything and everyone at all times. We do not. But the issues that affect your community, the issues that will affect your children, that will affect your children's children, while we still have the right and the responsibility to exercise our right to vote and to influence elections and to raise a respectful ruckus for the things that matter, I do think that we are obligated to do that. Just as, you know, Israelite exiles in Babylon were tasked by God in Jeremiah 29 to seek the welfare of the city in which you live because in their welfare, you will find your welfare. We are exiles in this world. Our citizenship is in heaven. And yet, here we are. Here we are. And so in the welfare of the community around us is our welfare, too.

MAST: Allie Beth Stuckey, we appreciate you being with us today.

STUCKEY: Thanks, Lindsay.

BROWN: Allie Beth Stuckey is the author of the new book Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion. There is much more to this interview and we will post the entire conversation on our WORLD podcast feed on Saturday.

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