When Did Empathy Become a Sin?

Everyone counts. Kindness matters. Love wins. Simple principles many of us try to follow. Few people would consider them radical.

Until recently.

Something has shifted in our culture, leaving many of us feeling bewildered, numb and exhausted. Politically-charged animosities have fractured our communities, neighborhoods and families. Efforts to try to understand one another are threatening.

It feels like our social fabric is at risk. Also our long-held tradition of caring for one another. Cutbacks in humanitarian aid have caused more than a half a million deaths in just a few months, two thirds of whom are children. Refugees and immigrants are not just being turned away at our borders, they are being hunted, dehumanized and incarcerated without due process. Kids are being separated from their parents.

As someone who wrote a book about empathy, you might imagine my shock when I learned how certain influencers are calling empathy “the fundamental weakness of Western Civilization” and some Christians are calling empathy a sin.

Their argument goes something like this. Empathy is a trap because it’s too emotional, even manipulative. They believe much better to sympathize, feeling sorry but keeping a safe, unemotional distance from another person. Some Christians take it further by calling empathy “toxic” and “untethered” because it conflicts with biblical truth.

What is Empathy, Really?

There are two primary camps regarding empathy: some lead with the head and some lead with the heart. One group views empathy as primarily cognitive, the ability to know or understand how the other is thinking and feeling, similar to seeing their point of view. The other group views empathy as primarily affective, or emotional, the ability to feel what the other is thinking and feeling, almost like an emotional contagion. Each view has its own theories, supporters, and detractors.

Why not both? To know her pain is to also know her joy. To feel her confusion is to recognize her clarity. Head and heart both. Why can’t empathy be both thinking and feeling?

Researcher and popular author, Dr. Brené Brown, defines empathy as the ability “to join others in their space, essentially telling them they are not alone—in joy or in suffering.” Roman Krznaric, a sociologist at Cambridge University, defines empathy as “the art of stepping imaginatively into the shoes of another person, understanding both their feelings and perspective, and using that understanding to guide your actions.”In order to connect with another person, we have to connect with something in ourselves that knows, at least in part, what she is both thinking and feeling.

Empathy is the state of “feeling into” another person’s reality, their level of emotions. But ot’s also finding the place in ourselves where we connect with others’ perspective, their thought-space.

Let’s Take Off the Gloves

Genuine empathy involves making a sacrifice for the sake of someone else, however large or small, and sacrifice always involves risk. This is where empathy gets controversial.

Blame it on Jesus. Sometimes it’s tempting to sideline the humanity of Jesus—that he actually took on our skin—in order to ruminate on his more divine aspects. Sometimes we forget that Jesus temporarily gave up his place beside God to take on the misery and helplessness of those he came to rescue. He came to us as a baby with a body and needs, born in blood and water. Jesus became human, one of us—approachable, understanding, listening, and ready to know and care about both our joy and suffering because he was there—fully human, fully aware, fully vulnerable, not distant or removed, but walking among us, giving his life away. The incarnation is the fullest expression of the empathy of God.

So empathy is for Jesus, not me?

The word for empathy in the New Testament is splagchnizomai — yes, a mouthful — which is usually translated “compassion” in the Bible. The Gospel writers consistantly reference Jesus’ “compassion” for the people he encountered. “He saw the crowds and was moved with compassion for them (Mark 6:34). He “had compassion on the crowds” (Matt 9:36; 14:14; 15:32). “Jesus had compassion and touched his eyes.” (Matthew 20:34)

So how did Jesus do with keeping that safe emotional distance?

Not so well.

Turns out splagchnizomai means “to have bowels of mercy” or “to love from the guts.” Hardly a distant, unemotional take on the word compassion, hey?

He didn’t stop there. In one of the most important parables in all of history, it was the Good Samaritan’s splagchnizomai, the love from his guts that made him a hero. And not just for anyone, but his sworn enemy.

Then Jesus essentially tells us to follow suit with the same kind of splagchnizomai as the Samaritan: “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:33-37)

The Jews despised Samaritans so much they wouldn’t even say their name. Not in the worst nightmares would they expect the hero of the story to be the one they were trying to ignore, to un-see, to do away with. Who are today’s Samaritans? An immigrant? A refugee? A Muslim? A Democrat? An evangelical?

My final word? If empathy is a sin, then go, sin boldly.