This article was first published in the State of Faith newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Monday night.
Somehow, the debate over empathy, and whether it should have limits, has become political.
Last week’s iteration of that debate revealed just how different the left and the right understand what long seemed like a unifying imperative for all Christians — the call to love their neighbor and follow Jesus.
Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed this divide in an Atlantic essay titled “MAGA’s war on empathy,” reflecting on recent events in Minnesota and the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
“The glorification of cruelty and rejection of compassion don’t just shape the Trump administration’s policies,” Clinton wrote. “Those values are also at the core of Trump’s own character and worldview. And they have become a rallying cry for a cadre of hard-right ‘Christian influencers’ who are waging a war on empathy.”
She went on to recall a sermon delivered by the Episcopal bishop of Washington, Mariann Edgar Budde, at a National Cathedral prayer service, in which the bishop urged the president to show mercy to vulnerable groups — immigrant families, refugees and LGBTQ youth.
Clinton then cited an X post by conservative Christian podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey, who described the sermon as an expression of “toxic empathy that is in complete opposition to God’s Word and in support of the most satanic, destructive ideas ever conjured up.”
Clinton responded sharply: “Toxic empathy! What an oxymoron. I don’t know if the phrase reflects moral blindness or moral bankruptcy, but either way it’s appalling.”
Faith, Clinton emphasized, has long mattered to her, even though she has “never been one to wear my faith on my sleeve.” She wrote that she believes “that Christians like me — and people of faith more generally — have a responsibility to stand up to the extremists who use religion to divide our society and undermine our democracy.”
”We can debate policies. We can debate theology. But if we give up on empathy, we give up on any real chance of coming together to solve our problems,” she wrote.
After the Minnesota events, Stuckey compared reactions on Instagram to the unrest of 2020. “Women, including many, many Christian women, are being completely duped by the anti-ICE propaganda. Believed the ‘ICE arrested a lone 5-year-old’ completely. It’s demoralizing. I am working HARD in my DMs and posts and on my show trying to combat this nonsense and appeal to these women,” Stuckey wrote.
Stuckey, the author of the bestselling “Toxic Empathy,” has argued about the dangers of over-empathizing with those who commit crimes or engage in actions that do not align with the Bible. To be truly loving, she argues, is not to affirm sinful behavior, but to cut through what she sees as deception by telling the truth.
In response to Clinton’s op-ed, Stuckey first corrected the record. In the X post Clinton cited in her Atlantic article, Stuckey said she was referring to a different speech, in which Bishop Budde expressed support for trans children.
“The idea that a child should go on puberty blockers or should change the hormonal makeup that God providentially gave them is not only unbiblical, it is downright wicked,” Stuckey said in a video and episode of her podcast Relatable. In this framing, Stuckey argued, “toxic empathy” is the result of “feeling so deeply” for someone that moral clarity is lost. Empathy, she said, is not always wrong, but it becomes dangerous when it “blinds you to both reality and morality.”
Jesus showed mercy to outcasts, she argued, but he also called them to repentance. Clinton, she said, misrepresented the concept of “toxic empathy” and showed inconsistency by defending the humanity of undocumented immigrants while supporting abortion.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the term empathy as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.”
The term has become a heated subject of debate lately, with some conservatives probing the excesses of empathy. Elon Musk called it “a fundamental weakness of Western civilization” and Joe Rigney, fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College and pastor, called “untethered empathy” a sin.
Clinton’s willingness to write explicitly from a Christian perspective is also part of a broader shift on the left, where more public figures are embracing religious language. Recently, Ezra Klein interviewed Democratic Texas legislator James Talarico, who has spoken unapologetically about his Christian faith, although drawing on his faith to argue very different points than the religious right.
Reading Clinton’s piece and then listening to Stuckey’s response, I kept thinking about a scripture from the Bible and also the Book of Mormon, the scripture in my Latter-day Saint faith tradition.
It’s among the most quoted lines in my faith and to me it gestures to a link between the “feelings” of empathy and the actions it might inspire.
In Romans 12:15, Paul is writing to the Christian community in Rome, urging them to live out the gospel not just in belief: “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.” A similar instruction says that followers of Christ should be “willing to bear one another’s burdens” and be “willing to mourn with those that mourn; and comfort those that stand in need of comfort…”
This language seems to emphasize proximity — being close enough to another person to be able to see them and to understand them. Empathy carries an almost embodied quality: you have to get close to know someone in their particularity, rather than at a distance. It is a lot harder to step into another’s shoes when their joy or suffering remains abstract or remote.
As often happens in polarized debates, complex human experiences risk being reduced to buzzwords, detached from specific situations and real people.
In reality, these experiences, including empathy, are concrete and often messy, and they frequently involve tension. Leaning into empathy might require a willingness to suspend judgment, even if briefly, to allow ourselves to feel what another person is feeling within their particular and unique context.
If you’d like to know more about Stuckey and the conservative movement she’s built, read my dispatch from the “Share the Arrows” conference Stuckey hosted in Dallas in October.
Faith in the news
- In a bipartisan conversation at Harvard University, Utah governor Spencer Cox discussed the importance of elections, local media and the response to Minneapolis. — Deseret News
- Former CNN host Don Lemon arrested, as new details emerge about Cities Church protest. — Deseret News
- This Hasidic reporter has a few questions for Mayor Mamdani. — The New York Times
- Catholic Church emerges as a bulwark of resistance. — Axios
- Patriots vs. Seahawks: 3 Faith Storylines To Follow During Super Bowl LX. — Religion Unplugged
- Nicki Minaj calls herself Trump’s ‘number one fan’ and shows off gold card visa. — BBC
End notes
With the release of “The Testament of Ann Lee,” a movie about the founder of the celibate shakers community, I became curious about what the group looked like today. As of August of last year, there are three shakers living in Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in Maine, according to NPR. Sister April Baxter, 59, was the latest addition. Before joining the shakers, she lived in an episcopal convent for four years. She described visiting the community “like coming home.” She joined two other members, an 87-year-old woman and 68-year-old man.
Although there are only three shakers, the community appears to be more vibrant. “It’s not just the three Shakers that are living here. It’s everyone that’s growing with us. It’s the employees here. It’s the volunteers. It’s the visitors. That’s such an important part of who we are and why this community survives,” Baxter told NPR last year.