There’s an argument going around evangelical circles that “empathy” is more dangerous than compassion, with the analogy of jumping in to save someone in quicksand, but getting stuck yourself (empathy) vs throwing someone a rope and keeping your footing (compassion). Like if you understand a bad person’s thinking too much, you are dragged into their sin.
There’s even a tinge of women being more empathetic and “susceptible” than men.
It’s how it sounds.
Dig into the argument, and they all eventually end up focusing on dangerous progressive causes as tempting Christians, basically, and it feels like they’re trying to twist scripture into current MAGA doctrine. JD Vance (a Catholic, not evangelical IIRC) said something related on immigration, that loving your family and those close to you comes before loving distant neighbors, which the Pope very pointedly refuted.
Yeah, glad to see the specific instance but after trying to search I see this seems to be a broader doctrine. That you would absolutely hate people who “deserve” to be hated, accordingly to the viewpoint of whoever is preaching regardless of whether that person’s situation actually affects anyone other than themselves.
It’s kind of like the evil twin of “be tolerant, except of intolerance”: “be tolerant only of intolerance”
Anyone have the background link explaining this?
There’s an argument going around evangelical circles that “empathy” is more dangerous than compassion, with the analogy of jumping in to save someone in quicksand, but getting stuck yourself (empathy) vs throwing someone a rope and keeping your footing (compassion). Like if you understand a bad person’s thinking too much, you are dragged into their sin.
There’s even a tinge of women being more empathetic and “susceptible” than men.
It’s how it sounds.
Dig into the argument, and they all eventually end up focusing on dangerous progressive causes as tempting Christians, basically, and it feels like they’re trying to twist scripture into current MAGA doctrine. JD Vance (a Catholic, not evangelical IIRC) said something related on immigration, that loving your family and those close to you comes before loving distant neighbors, which the Pope very pointedly refuted.
Not a pastor, but this is what a certain used car-company salesman is spouting:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/elon-musk-rogan-interview-empathy-doge/index.html
I posted a comment here with the context
https://sopuli.xyz/comment/15650366
Yeah, glad to see the specific instance but after trying to search I see this seems to be a broader doctrine. That you would absolutely hate people who “deserve” to be hated, accordingly to the viewpoint of whoever is preaching regardless of whether that person’s situation actually affects anyone other than themselves.
It’s kind of like the evil twin of “be tolerant, except of intolerance”: “be tolerant only of intolerance”