Dispelling the "Sin" of Empathy
There are many reasons why some “Christians” have forgotten about what they were taught about Jesus and his ministry.
These believers follow a Spirit-deficient president but maintain that he is a “Christian leader.”
These “Christians” are the ones who stand with him as he deports immigrants, discontinues social justice policies and government assistance programs, and influences and limits media coverage of medical research.
One can look back at the Reagan administration and the founding of the Moral Majority as the beginning of this unholy union of religion and politics.
To justify their abandonment of the Savior and His teachings, they have developed theology to support their heretical behavior.
One of the more pernicious dogmas that the Religious Right has developed is the so-called Sin of Empathy.
This “sin” has been defined as “entering into someone else’s experience totally, without keeping a firm grasp on objective truth at the same time.”
Furthermore, this line of thinking makes compassion and empathy opposites:
“Empathy is the counterfeit of compassion, and it shifts the focus from the sufferer’ good to the sufferer’s feelings, making them the measure of whether a person is truly loved.”
Christian believers are taught that God is love.
Love is the basis for everything He is and everything He does.
Sending Jesus to live fully as a mortal was not God expressing sympathy with humanity.
He was expressing empathy.
Empathy is not a sin.
Empathy is awareness of someone else’s position, whether the person is happy or sad, experiencing joy or suffering.
One does not have to have faith to understand or express empathy.
But people with or without faith will demonstrate empathy if they are demonstrating love because empathy is a key component of love.
Jesus’ entire ministry, his core teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, his willingness to walk and live among humanity, came from a place of love that was focused by empathy.
The understanding of what it means to be human.
To those of us who believe, God is an empathetic God.
Believers attempting to follow Jesus do life with others, believers and non-believers alike, and attempt to demonstrate love by being understanding, compassionate, and empathetic.
It is never sinful to gain understanding by listening, learning, and showing compassion.
True empathy is not reckless.
It doesn’t ignore facts, reason, or logic.
It allows someone to broaden their perspective so they can offer loving, merciful support.
I am not a woman.
No matter how much I will try to understand women, I’m incapable of understanding what it is to be a woman.
But that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t try to understand.
By listening, learning, and extending compassion, I can show while I will never fully understand, I care about women and their experiences.
This is also true about White people understanding me as a Black man.
They will never fully understand me.
But I appreciate it when they try.
It is convenient for the Christian Right to believe that empathy is a sin.
It provides them with many reasons and excuses.
It provides them with a reason why they don’t need to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
For them, race, gender, gender nonconformance, and different physical abilities are unfortunate circumstances. For other people, their societal experiences are based on inherent sin, mental illness, or a combination of both.
Rather than gaining understanding to have a broader perspective, believing that empathy is a sin allows them to think:
“I’m sorry that life is hard for them, but it is what it is.”
Those of us who are “different,” or “other” (Non-White, Non-Male, Non-Straight, Different Physical Abilities, Non-Gender Conforming) need to accept that we are different and play by the rules the “normal majority” creates for us.
Their compassion is pseudo-compassion because it lacks empathy.
The immigrant is different. They don’t look like us, worship like us, or speak our language.
They conveniently forget what the Bible says about treating strangers with love and dignity.
They forget how the Bible says that how we treat others directly related to how we treat God.
Treating empathy as a sin removes the responsibility to learn and understand, to admit the existence of systemic social problems, and to acknowledge important differences.
Without empathy, it’s always the other person’s problem.
Compromise and tolerance are to be used by “the others” in their interactions with the “majority,” but not the other way around.
It is an abomination to consider empathy a sin.
America has never been as empathetic as it should have been.
And in the current environment, the bar is lowered every day.