Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Thursday, August 21, 2025

Empathy is usually regarded as a virtue, a key to human decency and kindness. And yet, with increasing momentum, voices on the Christian right are preaching that it has become a vice. For them, empathy is a cudgel for the left: It can manipulate caring people into accepting all manner of sins according to a conservative Christian perspective, including abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, illegal immigration and certain views on social and racial justice.

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More: "Empathy becomes toxic when it encourages you to affirm sin, validate lies or support destructive policies," said Allie Beth Stuckey, author of "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion."

Stuckey, host of the popular podcast "Relatable," is one of two evangelicals who published books within the past year making Christian arguments against some forms of empathy.

The other is Joe Rigney, a professor and pastor who wrote "The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits." It was published by Canon Press, an affiliate of Rigney's conservative denomination, which counts Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth among its members.

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While their anti-empathy arguments have differences, Stuckey and Rigney have audiences that are firmly among Trump's Christian base.

"Could someone use my arguments to justify callous indifference to human suffering? Of course," Rigney said, countering that he still supports measured Christ-like compassion. "I think I've put enough qualifications."

Historian Susan Lanzoni traced a century of empathy's uses and definitions in her 2018 book "Empathy: A History." Though it's had its critics, she has never seen the aspirational term so derided as it is now.

It's been particularly jarring to watch Christians take down empathy, said Lanzoni, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School.

"That's the whole message of Jesus, right?"

#1 | Posted by qcp at 2025-08-21 08:55 AM | Reply

Republicans are simply going through a generational awakening where they take their hoods off and show you who they've always been.

#2 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-08-21 10:29 AM | Reply

Empathy can be suicidal when taken to extremes.

#3 | Posted by lee_the_agent at 2025-08-21 10:34 AM | Reply

"for I was hungry and you told me to starve; I was thirsty and you said I should've planned ahead; I was a stranger and you renditioned me to a hell-hole, after denying Due Process"
~The Republican Gospel

#4 | Posted by Danforth at 2025-08-21 10:47 AM | Reply

Of course they do.

Jesus is just another gimmick to them. A prop to support their hate club.

Just look at how they treat other Christians, specifically the Christians with a Catholic persuasion born in other countries.

And if you ask them, they are just as persecuted as was their (supposed) Lord. Their self-perceived suffering is sooooo pathetic.

#5 | Posted by horstngraben at 2025-08-21 10:52 AM | Reply

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