The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits | Dr. Joe Rigney

Episode Summary: 

Everyone loves empathy these days. But beware! Empathy seems to be a virtue perfect for hijacking and using for evil under the banner of good. 

In this provocative episode, we sit down with theologian Joe Rigney to expose the dangerous confusion between biblical compassion and what he calls “the sin of empathy.” When compassion is untethered from truth, it can manipulate hearts, distort justice, and harm the very people it claims to help.

From gender identity and immigration to poverty, criminal justice, modern therapy culture, and almost every other social issue, we explore how empathy is often used to silence truth, reward dysfunction, and pressure Christians into moral compromise. This conversation challenges today’s “compassion narratives” and calls believers back to a deeper, stronger, and more truthful love that’s anchored in Scripture.

This is a call to true Christian compassion: the kind that tells the truth, seeks genuine healing, and refuses emotional manipulation.

Who is Disciple Nations Alliance (DNA)? Since 1997, DNA’s mission has been to equip followers of Jesus around the globe with a biblical worldview, empowering them to build flourishing families, communities, and nations. 👉 https://disciplenations.org/

🎙️Featured Speaker: 

Dr. Rigney serves as Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College. He is the author of seven books: Live Like a Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis’s Chronicles (Eyes & Pen, 2013); The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts (Crossway, 2015); Lewis on the Christian Life: Becoming Truly Human in the Presence of God (Crossway, 2018); Strangely Bright: Can You Love God and Enjoy This World? (Crossway, 2020); More Than a Battle: Experiencing Victory, Freedom, and Healing from Lust (B\&H, 2021), Courage: How the Gospel Creates Christian Fortitude (Crossway, 2023), and Leadership and Emotional Sabotage (Canon Press, 2024). Previously, Dr. Rigney served as a professor and president of Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis, a pastor at Cities Church in St. Paul, and a teacher at Desiring God.

📌 Recommended Links

     👉 Joe’s Book: Leadership and the Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits – Canon Press

     👉 Scott’s Book: Why Social Justice is Not Biblical Justice - Disciple Nations Alliance

     👉 Recommended by C.S. Lewis: The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment

     👉 University: Home | New Saint Andrews College | Classical Christian College in Idaho

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Episode Webpage

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Luke Allen 0:02

Okay, all right, good to go.

Scott Allen 0:05

Well, we're so excited today to be uh having with us Joe Rigney. Joe Rigney is a uh serves as a fellow of theology at New St. Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho. Um he's the author of seven books, including Live Like a Narnian, Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles. And then the book that we really want to talk about today, one of Joe's most recent books, um Leadership and the Sin of Empathy, Compassion and Its Counterfeits. Uh previously, Dr. Rigney served as professor and president at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, um, and pastor at City's Church in St. Paul, and a teacher at Desiring God, so uh very close to John Piper. Is that correct, Joe?

Joe Rigney 0:52

Very close to John Piper. John's a uh has been a very um significant influence on me, and I'm grateful for all of the years that I was able to serve alongside him.

Scott Allen 1:02

Yeah. Well, Joe, what brought you to to Moscow to serve with Doug and New St. Andrews, Doug Wilson?

Joe Rigney 1:08

Yeah, so um a couple couple of different things. Um so one of them was actually um for all of uh John appreciates me, I appreciate John, but there were some some notable differences uh that particularly began to emerge um more strongly. I think they'd been there, just hadn't been quite as big of an issue around the topic of Christian nationalism and Christendom. Interesting. And so I I was the uh I was serving as the president of the college and seminary there, and um and as the Christian nationalism conversation in 2021-2022 began to really um take off, um we kind of found ourselves on opposite with opposite instincts and visions for how to approach that. And uh and it wasn't acrimonious, it wasn't, you know, there's still all kinds of warmth and affection, but just a difference of kind of theological and um and cultural vision for how to approach that. And uh as the conversations went on, it became clear that um this is just not gonna be a great fit for the present present time. Um so that was kind of the the driving force. Um and then kind of ancillary to that was um a theological shift on my part um that kind of came a little bit after, but was wrapped up in it at some level um in relation to baptism. So um Credo baptism, and then um I'm now a Paedo Baptist. Uh and so just so that was kind of the uh maybe the nail in the coffin. Um that's a terrible image, but uh the straw that broke the camel's back. I don't know, whatever the whatever image you want to use for the last little thing. Yeah. But it really was kind of that difference of um how do we approach some of the stuff we're gonna talk about today, actually, is uh you know, how do we approach some of these um political and cultural issues that we that we face as Christians and as Americans um in the in the present time.

Compassion Counterfeits In Public Life

The Book’s Origins Friedman And Lewis

Scott Allen 2:50

Well, I would, you know, maybe at another time we can have you on. I I would love to hear more about that. I like you, I am a huge fan of John Piper and have been really blessed by many of his books. But uh in you know, in COVID, during the time of COVID, and as we were heading into that summer of 2020, I was writing a book called Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice, because I was very concerned about um this whole ideology, this kind of neo-Marxism that was really taking over the culture in a such a rapid, quick way, and looking for um help from some of our key leaders, people like John Piper. Um and and I didn't find the help. I found confusion, you know, from him, and it was it bothered me. I'm like, why why is there confusion here on this subject? So it'd be it'd be interesting to kind of compare our notes on some of that. You know, I don't um but nevertheless, yeah. Today we want to talk about your book, um Leadership in the Sin of Empathy, Compassion and Its Counterfeits. I I love your subtitle. Um the the subject of compassion is one that's near and dear to our heart. I often remind people that when God proclaimed his name to Moses on Mount Sinai, um, you know, that famous, you know, famous passage, so famous, the longest recorded name of God in the Bible, um, the very first word that God uses to describe himself is the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God. We have to understand this word compassion as Christians really clearly. But it has counterfeits, and I think you're right. We are living in a time, Joe, when uh the culture is dominated by uh compassion counterfeits, um what you call the sin of empathy. I want to, I really want to get into this because I think as I look at this, Joe, you the more you look at it, you see it everywhere, and it's behind so much destructive stuff in the culture right now. But but before we do that, just talk a little bit about what led you to write the book. What you know, what were you seeing? What put it on your heart to say, I've got to say something about this?

Joe Rigney 4:56

Yeah, so um I think kind of two two different little origins for it. Um sometime back in 2010 or 11, some somewhere thereabouts, um, I read a book on leadership called Um U A Failure of Nerve, Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, by uh a Jewish rabbi named Edwin Friedman. He was a family counselor and not a Christian at all. Um and he died, I think, in 2007 or 2008. Um, but this was his last book. And uh one of the things he talks about, and he and he was really addressing um the kind of cultural anxiety uh tensions that we experience and feel um uh that every you know that kind of pervades, you know, from families to churches to communities to nations. Where's that coming from and what's what's um how do what what's the problem? And um and one of the chapters he has is on the fallacy of empathy. And in it, he basically described empathy, um, the the rise of empathy in you know recent years, this is again, you know, over you know, 15 years ago, um as a um empathy had become a power tool in the hands of the sensitive. So rather than being kind of a a uh it had it had been elevated to a premier virtue and was used, it was the way that the most immature and reactive members of a community basically set the agenda for communities because everybody adapted to their immaturity rather than um leaders actually leading and expecting the immature to kind of come along or or not. Um and so that was kind of his insight. And I and as I was reading it um and and I was teaching classes on it um on leadership at Bethlehem, and then sometime, probably around 2014 or so, it just looked like the world conspired to prove his point. So, you know, it was it was clearly present, he was seeing it, but um, in kind of the wake of I think Ferguson and and the Michael Brown situation um and the kind of the rise of what eventually became known as wokeness and that kind of social justice ideology, um, as that became more prominent, it was just evident everywhere, and I was just seeing it. Um, and so that was one element. The second element that came in is about that time, you mentioned I wrote a book called Live Like an Arnian on the Chronicles. Um I would because I wrote that book, I was asked to write a book on Lewis on the Christian life, and so as I'm reading, so I I was writing that in this in this time period as well, and as I'm reading it, I'm noticing the number of places where Lewis himself kind of identifies, you know, you know, 60 years before Friedman, the same emotional dynamic. Um he he didn't call it empathy because that wasn't the word for it then, um, but he talked about the passion of pity and the way that pity can become a tool of emotional blackmail. He he displays this really clearly in books like The Great Divorce or Till We Have Faces, um describes some of the dynamics and screw tape letters. So um so I was preparing that book as I was seeing these things with kind of this Friedman, and that kind of all coalesced so that in 20 gosh, I don't know, 2018 or 2019, Pastor Wilson and I sat down and did a uh an interview on the sin of empathy, and that kind of launched that that phrase and that language into the uh in the conversation, and since then it's just picked up. It's just been um I wrote probably six or seven articles trying to clarify for people that were confused about what I meant. Uh before I and I wrote probably half of those articles before I realized that they weren't actually confused, they were just mad and uh and and manipulating. So um, but tried to clarify, um, and then that eventually led to uh the the present book, Leadership and the Sin of Empathy.

Scott Allen 8:28

Well, I want you to define the the idea here, um, the sin of empathy, this kind of unbiblical pity. But I want to I I I feel like clarity really comes when you get into the examples of it. You know, then you really start to see it. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's everywhere. Right. But but before we get into examples, just talk a little bit about the concept. What are you talking about? What are some elements of it?

Speaker 5 8:55

Yeah. So if the virtue of compassion is the disposition that we have to um help those who are hurting, um to when you when we're moved with compassion, um, we said to some degree share their uh sadness, share their emotions, or see their sadness and emotions, and we're moved to want to relieve relieve that suffering. Um that's that's kind of the that's the virtue. And part of the way I try to, and then uh the sin of empathy is a corruption of that, an untethering of that from their good and from your good, from the ultimate good, from Christ. So the way I I the the baseline illustration that really I think people immediately kind of it clicks is that if someone's drowning in quicksand um or in a river and you're on the side and you see them, um there's kind of three basic responses you could have. Uh the first is you could turn around and walk the other way. And the word for that would be apathy. I don't care. It's a callousness, it's a heartlessness. Uh we think about the parable of the Good Samaritan and the first two guys who walk by on the other side of the road, right? So everybody, most Christians are like, well, we don't want to do that. Whatever we do, we don't want to do that. But it gets a little trickier because um uh the other, you know, another possible response would be to go the other direction and you jump in with both feet with them. Okay? And that's what I mean by the set of empathy, is when you become untethered from the shore and you try to join them, share their emotions, share their suffering, share their sadness and pain and hurt to such a degree that you become uh unmoored, unanchored from the side. Whereas biblical compassion is gonna join them, it's gonna reach in, it's gonna put one foot in there, it's gonna grab them uh by you know the hand, but it's also gonna be, you know, grab the sh the uh the side and uh uh grab a branch and hand brace to be able to pull them out. Um so that's biblical compassion, scent of empathy is jumping in with both feet, which effectively means you allow their emotions to dictate your responses and reactions. Like that's they're in the driver's seat, and now you're gonna go wherever wherever they want to go.

Luke Allen 10:56

That that to me is I I behind that I hear just postmodernism. It's it's we don't know what truth is anymore, we don't know what the good is anymore, we don't know that we actually want to hold on to that branch while we're helping them. Right. And because of that, we we kind of lose direction. So it's are you right, am I right? I don't know, but I'm just gonna hop in here with you. Right. And it's so sad to see because I was just refreshing myself on um Abigail Schreier's, I think it was her last book, um, The Bad Therapy. Yeah. And how that's that's pretty much what therapy has become these days is you're going through something hard, let's just talk about it. Right, let's just be there. Yeah, and but there's no direction to it, you know.

Speaker 5 11:37

Right, and it's validation. So I think this was one of the keywords as I was watching uh, you know, as this was unfolding in my circles, um, the importance that people began to place on if someone is hurting, your main job is validation, affirmation.

Speaker 11:51

Right.

Speaker 5 11:52

Um and you and you say, well, does that mean you agree with everything they say? So if they're you know saying all sorts of falsehoods, you just have to agree with them. And most times people would say no, but effectively it was yes. Um it was that in order to love someone you have to affirm their feelings, validate their feelings. Um, and and what you can the one thing you can't do is correct them. Yeah, that's blaming the victim.

Scott Allen 12:13

That's right.

Speaker 5 12:14

Right. Or or even refuse to join them. So I think that's you know, one of the things that that happens when we're when we feel we've been wronged or when we're hurting and suffering, is we want people to uh join us to to validate. And we kind of put that demand and under the influence of that against untethered empathy, the sin of empathy, we'll do that. Um one of the and and I think um and so we'll lie. We'll say things that we believe aren't true because in that moment their feelings are more important to us than the truth is. Uh what you said about postmodernism and kind of um if one way to think about it is it's relativistic, it's the sin of empathy is a relativistic compassion. Right. It has it doesn't have standards, it's it takes as its launching point the feelings or the emotions and the suffering of the one who is the victim.

Gender Dysphoria And Affirmation Pressure

Scott Allen 13:05

I think, yeah, I think it's untethered from truth. The other thing that I think defines it, Joe, is it's untethered from a kind of a an objective and a practical, is this actually helping the person that I want to help? Um that seems to get disconnected. Let's give some examples because again, I think it becomes clear uh when we start looking at examples. Let's look at somebody who's struggling with gender dysphoria, right? That's a big issue today, right? Somebody's struggling with gender dysphoria. What would be the sin of empathy in that kind of a context, Joe?

Speaker 5 13:38

Yeah, it would be, okay, this person thinks that they're born in the wrong body. Um I'm a boy, but I think I'm a I'm I'm biologically male, but I think I'm a girl, or vice versa. And the empathy is gonna say, the modern, the modern quote-unquote virtue is gonna say, well, you need to affirm that identity, affirm those feelings, and then out of that empathy, take action to address the problem, which means um encouraging them to take the chemicals, uh, the surgery, right? Take the hormones right, yeah. Um it's to uh use the pro preferred pronouns, exactly um and things like that. So it's basically so you're gonna lie and then you're gonna harm. So you're lying and harming, and you're doing so with a clear conscience because you're doing so in the name of empathy. That's what empathy demands is.

Scott Allen 14:26

You can feel like you're very almost morally superior, right? That that's part of what drives this, right? Is that it's very selfish in that sense. It's look how good I am, right? You know, it seems to me. Yes. Yeah. And that's that's that's that manipulation part, too, isn't it, a little bit, Joe?

Speaker 5 14:42

Right. So then, and then um, and this is and it there's layers to it because you've got the person who maybe really is psychologically distressed over this I'm in the wrong body thing. Um, they've probably been catechized to some degree in that. And then say you're the parent, and um, and then the the school counselor or your doctor says, Well, um, and and you think, I don't know that this is a good idea to, you know, castrate my son or remove my daughter's breasts because she has these feelings. That seems like a little extreme. And then what are they gonna say? Um, well, for a while it was, would you rather have um a dead son or a live daughter? And so what what is that? That's an appeal to your compassion as a parent. You don't want your your child to commit suicide because of their distress and because of your resistance, and so it's a way of overcoming any hesitations you have about the wisdom and goodness of this course of action. Um, it overcomes it by an appeal to, well, do you really love your child or not?

Poverty, Handouts, And Real Help

Scott Allen 15:41

Do you really care for them? Do you have empathy for them? Right. Yeah, it's a guilt manipulation kind of tactic. So you see it there for sure. And again, I think what makes it the sin of empathy is you're actually harming these people. They they they're I mean, that's just real harm that's being caused to these people uh through these drugs and surgeries. They may never have children again, you know. Correct. Uh it it it's it's it's a definite harm. And so that that to me is what defines it. It's it's saying that you're helping and you're harming. And we see this all over the place. Let's look at some other examples. This is from the world that I come from, Joe, poverty fighting, you know, helping the poor. Um, can you give some examples of what toxic empathy would look like or the sin of empathy? I'm sorry. I used Ali Beth Stuckey's title there too, because she's got her famous book.

Speaker 5 16:33

Wrote a great book on the same basic basic idea. Um, yeah, so I think when it comes to um, you know, compassion for the poor, obviously that's a biblical requirement. But one of the things that um so one way to distinguish the sin of empathy from the virtue of compassion is compassion is oriented toward the sufferer's good ultimate good, like what is actually true, whereas empathy is oriented first and foremost to their feelings. And so where it's so compassion will look at their circumstances and say, we'll be able to recognize, oh, there's some decisions they've made, maybe there's some um you know, baggage in the background and they've been wronged. That's that can be a part of it. But also can look at the decisions they've made that have led them to this um to poverty or or to des uh destitution, and we'll say, okay, that's one of the things we have to address. We have to address their actions. Um whereas and so because of that, you're willing to say some hard things. You need to take responsibility, you need to work, you need to do do some things. If you if you um you can't use your poverty as an excuse for criminality, things like that. Whereas the sin of empathy is going to excuse all manner of bad behavior because you're the victim, you're the you're the um the hurting one, and their victimhood becomes a kind of shield, and people are humans are human and they're sinful, and if you give them an out that says um if you're a victim, you can do no wrong. If you're a victim, it's somebody else's fault. Um, they will take that.

Speaker 2 18:00

Right.

Speaker 5 18:00

If that's the incentive structure you set up, and you say, If if you're the victim, you can't do anything wrong, you're justified, you're um, then people will take that and they will they'll run with it and they'll use their victimhood as a shield against responsibility.

Scott Allen 18:17

Yeah, I I mean I think you see it like for example, um you know, a lot of good and churches do this. I mean, I was attending a church in Phoenix at uh a great church. We would often go down to across the border, down into Mexico, into a very impoverished community, you know, there's uh squatters and they were living in cardboard shacks, and and we would just be doing handouts, right? Here's some food, here's stuff. Yeah um, you know, it made us feel good, right? You know, oh look at you know, we're doing such good work, and you know but it actually wasn't getting to root causes of what was causing the poverty down there. And in it at the end of the day, after my my analysis was it didn't really matter, you know. It you know, and I hate to say it, it sounds so callous, but it didn't really matter if we were actually helping them. What mattered at the end of the day is we felt really good.

Speaker 3 19:06

Correct.

Scott Allen 19:06

And I just think you know, you see that behind so much. Like you look at homelessness right now in Oregon, Pacific Northwest, where we're from. It's being driven by that, not actually are we actually helping the homeless people to get out of that desperate situation they're in. It's it's do we feel good about ourselves? Are we doing activities that make us feel good? And even worse, you know, we can leverage for money, right? You know, so like we can there's a lot of money behind compassion, right? I'll give a lot of money, government will give a lot of money. Uh what actually are what actually is being done to help the people gets almost completely bypassed when sin, empathy becomes a sin, as you say, or toxic.

Speaker 5 19:49

And and it become, yeah, so then this is this is one of the things that Lewis taught me. Um he has a great essay called The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment, um, where he talks about this shift where um people began to view any kind of basically holding people accountable and using proportionate justice as uh as some somehow um wrong. And instead wanted uh rehabilitation or um treating crime as a disease and we're we're gonna treat you. Um and as a result, um it basically dehumanized people because it didn't allow them to actually take responsibility for their actions. Part of way part of loving people is um giving them and and expecting them to exercise human agency as opposed to um treating them as if they have none and then coddling and catering to that. That's and then and then what it demands is that everybody else is 100%.

Scott Allen 20:41

Are we treating them like animals or are we treating them like human beings? That should drive Christian compassion. What does it mean to be a human being? That that's so fundamental to this discussion. And if we're just treating people like livestock, you know, let's just throw them some food or whatever, that is not empathetic. That that's actually dehumanizing them in the name of compassion, isn't it, Joe?

Speaker 5 21:03

Right. And it's and it's cheap and easy. I think this is one of the things that we saw kind of through the social justice is um the kind of virtue signaling um that went on. You know, how do you show solidarity with uh oppressed minorities in America? Well, you put up a black slayer, Black Lives Matter, um, you know, the the rainbow flag and things like that. These were all we and they did matter, they actually do matter because they shape social opinion and they do communicate um, well, do you do you want to be with everybody or not with everybody? Um so they do they are potent, but they're cheap and easy ways of signaling I'm a good person. Oh, it's um because I support I support the right causes, as opposed to, well, but does your do your actions actually help? Oh or not?

Crime, Victimhood, And Dehumanizing Mercy

Scott Allen 21:43

Yeah, no, for sure. You especially saw this in the whole woke social justice around the the axis of of you know the race element, kind of that's the critical race theory. Um you know, we had to you there's a lot of issues, a lot. Of problems in the in the black community, you know. I mean, and if you really care, if you really want to see that community rise and and become all that God wants it to be, believe me, you don't, you know, just treating them like victims is is is the exact opposite of what's going to do that. You know, you have to get down to what's really happening in this community, right? You've got you've got to deal with hard actions and decisions and choices that are being made. But none of that was being done because that was, like you say, blaming the victim. And we just had to treat them, you know, and you especially see this is where it becomes very toxic, right? In the criminal justice system, right? If they're black, uh, you know, they're a victim just by virtue of that, okay. It doesn't matter what they've done. So consequently, you cannot incarcerate them, and if you do, you have to let them out. And we've seen this over and over again where these people that belonged, you know, in prison because of their actions got let out and went ahead and committed crimes over and over again. So right? Isn't it's this it's the same thing we're talking about here.

Speaker 5 23:08

Yeah, I wrote an article after um Irina Zarutzko was killed in North Carolina last last year that basically was this. Is that part of part of what killed her was empathy?

Scott Allen 23:18

Exactly.

Speaker 5 23:18

It that's exactly what killed her.

Speaker 23:20

Exactly.

Speaker 5 23:21

It was empathy for um De Carlos Brown or whatever his name was that that uh committed the crime because he had been in and out of jail and had been early released again and again by a criminal justice system that operated on he the the criminal is the victim. The criminal is the victim, the criminal is the victim of poverty or racism or whatever.

Speaker 23:38

Right.

Speaker 5 23:39

And as a result, you put people back out in the street, and and we see this, you know, you see this in our our normal criminal justice system, you see this in the immigration discussions, um, while you know, catch and release when it comes to illegal aliens and um who are violent and then end up, you know, there's another there was another one last week uh where a young 18-year-old girl was killed, I think, in Chicago, by an illegal alien who had been arrested by the Biden administration and then re and then released back into the country. And so these sort of things and um England's had its own share of this with um their uh rape scandals. Yes. Where they've imported mass amounts of uh Muslim immigrants from Pakistan and Afghanistan and places like that, who groomed and and abused and raped um British girls and were and with the knowledge of the police. Because the and the why didn't they why did and everybody's going, why did they do nothing about it? For decades they did nothing. Why? Well they were afraid of being called racist. Because I think this is a this is a way to do it.

Scott Allen 24:34

Well we have to be empathetic and take pity on these poor immigrants, right? I mean, that's what's behind it, right?

Speaker 5 24:40

You know, and there's a two well, there's a twofold element is I think on the one hand is that people want to the good side or the the people want to be known as empathetic or compassionate, right? And then the flip side is the threat to your reputation. Are you gonna be heartless, callous? Are you gonna be racist? Are you gonna if you disagree with the thing?

Scott Allen 24:56

That's what gets leveraged for manipulation purposes, right? We're gonna call you a racist or call you, you know, a homophobe or whatever it is exactly, right?

Speaker 2 25:04

Correct.

Speaker 5 25:05

Yeah, and so people make the calculation. So this is, I think, one of the big big things is that um with this discussion is over the last, I don't know, 20, 30 years, maybe longer, um, the virtue of compassion or empathy or whatever you want to call it, whatever you want to call that, has become left-coded in our society. Like if you were to go out on the street and you were to ask just a normal person which um which political movement is more associated with this phrase, and you were to say, which political movement is associated with law and order, I think people would say, Oh, that's conservatives. And if you said, okay, which p political movement is most uh exemplifies or associated with um compassion, I think they would say the left.

Speaker 25:45

That's right.

Speaker 5 25:46

Um they've they've co-opted that word and they've used it very effectively as a cudgel to either you know be empathetic by joining us, and if you don't, you're callous, heartless, racist, bigoted, and it etcetera. Um and in doing so, um they've uh this is why all sorts of really evil things can be done in the name of compassion and um and everybody feels good about themselves afterward.

Euthanasia And Compassion Turned Dark

Scott Allen 26:10

Well, yeah, you know, it's crazy because on this issue of poverty, I've I've really devoted a lot of my life to this whole issue of poverty fighting. And you're correct. I mean, if you're on the left, then you get to wear that banner, right? We are the people that care about the poor. But if you look at it from the standpoint of what's actually helping the poor, or are the programs or the the the the welfare handouts, is that actually helping? Are we making poverty better? Are we making it go away? Are we giving dignity to the people that are poor by giving them uh uh work and a more meaningful life? The answer is clearly no. Okay. Right. So it all has to do with, you know, to me, are we actually doing what we say we're doing? Are we actually helping people? Let you know, let's come back to just before we go on. Oh, I just wanted to give one more example, Joe, and then I want to come back to this one I just saw yesterday, and it was just one of the saddest things I've ever seen. You probably saw it too, this poor young lady in Spain. Um, right? She was euthanized by the government of Spain, young, because she was raped many times by an immigrant, illegal immigrant, into Spain, and she went into a deep dark depression and and she wanted to kill herself, and the government facilitated that yesterday. Oh, yeah, it's exactly this, isn't it, Joe?

Speaker 5 27:33

Right, exactly. And you can just see how they stack up, right? Like, uh, why do we admit all these illegal immigrants? We do it in the name of compassion. Why do we not punish them when they commit crimes in the name of compassion? Um, you're right, it's a good thing. Now you have a new victim. Now you have a real now you have a real victim, a woman who's been abused, and so what do we do for her? We're gonna show her compassion. What does that mean? We're gonna execute her. She's gonna kill her, right? Yes. This is this is the upside of the case.

Scott Allen 27:57

It's so demonic, isn't it, Joe?

Speaker 5 27:59

It is. It it absolutely is. And I and I think um, and I think, you know, at least some of the headlines I read is that she had um uh attempted suicide um or wanted to commit suicide and then was having second thoughts, and then the government kind of pushed her to finish it. Uh so it was even, you know, um there's you know, there's an old the old Bob Hope joke about California where he says um back in the 80s, I think he said, I just uh I just flew in from California where they just made homosexuality legal, but I got out before they made it mandatory. And this is this is the way that the left frequently operates, is at first the claim is we just want this to be an option. We want this to be permitted. Right. Um but pretty soon it becomes it's not just permitted, it's it's pressed. Right. It's it's actually pressure.

Scott Allen 28:41

They're advertising for it in Canada right now. Like there's advertising campaigns. It's crazy. Yeah.

Speaker 5 28:47

Well, and apparently there's another uh friend sent me um notice about an article in a in a top-tier philosophy journal that basically was arguing that in the case of um minor uh pregnancy for minors, um, that abortion should not simply be um a choice but should be mandated.

Scott Allen 29:06

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 29:07

So you just you just think about that, right? So it's it's we pro so if you have a um a minor who becomes impregnated, even if she wants to keep the baby, we should overrule her desires to keep the baby, and instead we should force um an abortion upon her. And so you again you just think like these things, like it is very dark, it's very evil. And again, this is this is part of Lewis's key insight in that humanitarian theory, is that the people who do it do it with a clear conscience because they've redefined what good means.

Scott Allen 29:38

Yes, yes, they don't feel like they're actually doing good, they're being caring, compassionate. It's so dark. Yeah.

Speaker 5 29:46

They're omnipotent, moral, busybodies who will torture people or execute people with a clear conscience because they're doing it in the name of humanitarianism or in the name of empathy. That's absolutely right.

Job And The Shape Of True Compassion

Scott Allen 29:57

C.S. Lewis was the one that had that insight. Like he was talking about regimes, governments, and it the most dangerous government of all is the one that, you know, does all this evil to its people in the name of trying to do what's good, right? And really believing that. Like we really believe that we're trying to do good. Marxism. Yeah, yeah. Uh Joe, I want to, before we move on, I just want our listeners and uh we I I want to really kind of come back to what does it look like biblically to exercise compassion? This is such a critical word. It's that again, that first word that God uses to define his own character, right? Um suffering together with. That's literally what compassion means. The the the word the the word passion is suffer, the suffering of Christ at the cross. Come is with, right? And you see it with Christ coming down to this earth to suffer with us, right? Not just remaining aloof and removed. Uh, it involves feelings, right? Feelings aren't unbiblical, right? Um but but let's just talk about that because I think uh many years ago Marvin Olaski wrote a great book, actually, The Tragedy of American Compassion. It was a very important book for me. And he defined the this redefinition of compassion as just kind of pity disconnected from any kind of involvement, personal involvement. Um but we're talking about something a little bit different now. But just talk about what is true biblical compassion, what does it look like? Because I don't want us to I don't want us to walk away thinking, oh, we we've got to be you know unempathetic, compassionate. No.

Speaker 5 31:32

Yeah, right. Um yeah, so I think um true true compassion is basically gonna is a disposition to relieve the suffering of those who are hurting that is um anchored in um ultimate reality and what's true and good and oriented toward their ultimate good. That's that's the that's the key thing. So it's it's motivated by um it's love for so true compassion is love for God, which then leads to love for neighbor, which then leads to love for my hurting neighbor, which leads to actually helping my hurting neighbor and leading them to their ultimate good. Um and so it but all of that is it's all so the feelings are there, and that's what and so if you said, well, how do you help them? Well, one way you help them is at some level by sharing their emotions. You build trust, weeping with those who weep, as the Bible commands us, is um is a is a biblical obligation, and we weep with them to communicate, I'm I'm with you in this, but I'm not, but you're not God. And I I think here's a great example, um, actually, that I've I've I've reflected on a lot. Um in the story of Job, we focus on Job a lot, because it's his book, um, but his wife had the worst possible thing imaginable happen to her, right? All ten of her children dead in a day, and in her grief and anger at this situation, she starts to say some things that are wrong. She comes to Job and and says, you know, you still hold fast your integrity, curse God and die. And so you look at that situation, and I can imagine many evangelical counselors and pastors looking at Job in that moment and saying, Hey, look, your wife is hurting, she's sad, understandably so, she's had this great terror evil thing happen to her. Um, why don't you just join her in that sorrow a little bit? Um, why don't you just affirm and validate that feeling that she has, right? Like that would be the counsel to Job. And instead, what Job says is, You're speaking foolishly. So, and it's not that he's heartless in that moment. Like he's in sackcloth, ashes, head covered, right? He's torn his clothes, he's in the grief and he and with her. Right? They're both grieving. Her grief has led her to sin by cursing God and demanding that Job do the same. And Job says, I can't go that far. I can't follow you into that lie. Shall we receive good from the Lord and not evil? Lord gives, Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. So Job's tetheredness to God means I'm not gonna follow my wife through her grief into sin. I'll go with her into grief, I'll weep with those who weep. We'll weep together over the loss of our children and wonder why did God do this? Um but what we won't do is shake our fist or give him the middle finger. And that I think is biblical compassion. Because so people could look at that and say, Job, that's pretty callous, don't you think, to say to your to a grieving mother, you're speaking foolishly? And I think the like the biblical answer is no, it's not. He's saying her only hope is the living God. Like the only hope for her in this situation is if she can find comfort in God Himself, and she's cutting herself off from that. So I'm gonna show compassion to her by calling her back to the God who made her and still rules the world even when we don't understand it.

Immigration, Power, And Moral Manipulation

Scott Allen 34:57

No, absolutely. You know, the I think a hallmark of true biblical compassion is that while feelings are a part of it, you know, it it's it's driven by, again, what is best for that person, and sometimes that's gonna be hard truths, right? This kind of tough love they need, you know, and for their own good. Um I I think of uh that book again, Tragedy of American Compassion. Walaski goes back to uh the colonial era in the United States, and there were people that were living in poverty then too, right? Destitution and they didn't have food. And he looked at how the church in that time responded to those people. And one of the things that they did is they they didn't just do handouts, right? It was very first of all, it was very local, it was very personal, so it wasn't at a distance, it wasn't bureaucratic. And they really tried to say what's going on here. Uh are they not willing to work? Are they an alcoholic? And so in order in order to get at these things, they would do things like we've got a big wood pile here, and if you spend half the day splitting the wood, we will help you. We will really help you. Again, there's dignity with work, okay, that's biblical. Uh and it's a test. Are they really willing to do the things that they need to do in order to get out of that poverty, or are they just going to try to manipulate people's feelings and remain in that destitute state? So, you know, the the they exercise what I would call biblical compassion, right? We really want to help you. We want you to be all that God wants you to be and not sitting in your, you know, your urine and your poverty there in the corner. We want to help you become what God wants you to be, but that may involve some tough love here, right? So absolutely. So Joe, I want to um I want to move on to the uh subject here, a little bit of immigration, just because that's that's uh so much in the news. And by the way, just thank you for going through a lot of the litany of examples, because I think that you when you see it in these examples that we've gone through, you see it everywhere. It's behind so much of what's wrong right now in the culture, and you can't not you can't unsee it. And I'm convinced that Christians are complicit in this, like we've gone right along with this largely, right? You know, we we uh I sometimes even think about this in the context of missions, you know. Um we've sent, you know, our short-term missions teams over to wherever, Guatemala, and they've built a building, they come back and they feel good. But I have to ask at the end of it, are you are you really trying to help these poor people in Guatemala who don't know the Lord or whatever it is or are struggling with poverty? Are you trying to just kind of do something that makes you feel good? So again, I think I think it's right in the church as well, don't you, Joe?

Speaker 5 37:43

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, missions tourism.

Scott Allen 37:45

Missions tourism, exactly, yeah. Um but let's talk about immigration because I I this is such a hot topic in the news right now, and it's it's it's something that Christians really need to think clearly about. I know you've been really good on this subject. Um, we need clarity, we need biblical clarity. How do you see the sin of empathy coming in? We talked a little bit about this, but let's talk about it a little bit more. How do we see it? Maybe go to a place like Minnesota where it's you know it's been in the news here recently. However, you want to unpack this, yeah.

Speaker 5 38:16

So I think this is a good example of that that re changing definition, the progressives co-opting, um compassion, and coding it um their way. Uh so at one level, that's the banner that flies over the left's approach to uh to immigration. There's lots of poor people in the world, um, they want a better life, they're gonna come here. Maybe there's refugees from hard places and we're gonna admit them. And in that case, I mean, I think effectively um what the left has realized is that appeals to compassion have are very effective at um muting any conservative Christian resistance. Um if you said, well, wait a minute, I think we need to have a border, or I need to think maybe we need to make sure we can handle all of this, or I think they need to do it legally, not illegally. Um they say, Well, are you compassionate or not? You would, you know, are you heartless or not? And so they use it as a way, again, Christians want to be known as compassionate people because Jesus told us to be uh compassionate, let our light shine before men, and they've used our reputations as a kind of uh steering wheel to keep us from resisting it. What we have to actually recognize is that the appeal to compassion on the behalf on behalf of the left is actually a mask for their true motives, which is this is a power play that's designed to reshape the American um people by through mass immigration, um so because it's their path to permanent political power. It's how this is what's happening in Minnesota is importing we we can't if we can't persuade um normal Americans of our vision of what is good, you know, the the transing the kids and the abortions on demand and rampant criminality, Americans get fed up with this. Well, let's just let's get some new Americans, let's get some paperwork Americans. Um and if they don't have paperwork, if they're undocumented, well, just let them stay long enough and eventually we'll give them amnesty. And so that's the actual motive, and compassion is a kind of thin veneer that's designed to mute Christian resistance to this rampant lawlessness. So at a at a base level, I actually think when you when I look at the immigration issue, I think the Trump administration currently is actually being incredibly compassionate as it pertains to immigration, and they're compassionate to immigrants. The idea that people who would come here illegally and they need to go back. They need to be deported. And so the Trump administration says, um, okay, if you self-deport, we'll buy your plane ticket and give you a thousand dollars. Like that's out of the public treasury, we'll take American tax dollars and we'll give them to you. We'll just give it away. You broke the law and we're gonna give it. Like that's that's not strict justice. Strict justice would be a thousand price cases.

Scott Allen 41:05

Uh, what is it? That's mercy. What's the word for it? Yeah, mercy is getting something that you don't deserve. You deserve the officer.

Speaker 5 41:12

You don't deserve a thousand dollars. You deserve to go to jail, or you deserve to be deported um in handcuffs, and instead we're saying, hey, we want to do this the easy way, not the hard way. And so we're gonna show mercy and compassion by incentivizing you to do the right thing. And so I think that's an incredibly compassionate way to um encourage self-deportation, which is necessary after four years of the Biden administration just throwing the border open and saying, hey, y'all come and and actively flying people from other countries and giving them temporary refugee status, temporary protected status, um, because and this is a good example, by abusing the refugee system, which I think is a fine, it's I think it's fine to have a refugee category. Absolutely. Um I I wonder about the wisdom of importing refugees from across the world to America as opposed to a country that's closer to the country. Yeah, where they can be safe and then they can go back to their homes, right? That that should be the if they're refugees, that would be the goal, is not permanent exile, but temporary displacement to then return them to their place. Um but we're gonna but but not notwithstanding having that, but then to abuse it as a way of saying, okay, we're gonna give lots of people this temporary protected status. It's called temporary, but we're doing so under the assumption that if somebody tries to enforce the temporary and send them back, remove the status and send them home, what will what will people yell? You're not being empathetic. You're not being you're being callous, you're being heartless, and that that will be an effective way to overcome the political will that American people have to deport people who shouldn't be here.

Scott Allen 43:00

Yes, no, that's right. It's actually tragic what's been done to the uh to the refugee resettlement system because there are real refugees who really whose lives really are under threat um in a very dangerous way, but it's been you said it's been dis it's been corrupted, you know, in order, like you say, to bring as many people in as possible and then they can do it under this. So it's been it's been wrecked in some our whole immigration system has been wrecked, you're right, for the for for this purpose. It bothers me a lot, Joe, and I I I just so appreciate what you've written about, especially on social media. So much of the Christian discussion on immigration gets back to what does this Bible verse mean about uh the sojourner and caring for the sojourner and this and that, you know, back in Deuteronomy, and we have these kind of theological discussions, but it seems like it's almost entirely out of the context of what's actually happening in the United States right now. I did this actually just came up with John Piper, and I I he kind of quoted one of these uh verses about care for the sojourner. With no context. What's that? Leviticus 19, isn't that?

Luke Allen 44:06

Yeah.

Scott Allen 44:06

Yes. With no context, and I I wrote back and I said, well, listen, we can have a great discussion about what these verses actually mean, but it has to be in light of the fact that, you know, in the last administration, between 10 and 25 million illegals were ushered in by government, by taxpayer expense into the country, moved around, given welfare benefits, right? I mean, that has to be a part of this discussion, right? The question is why? Why why did they do that, right? That just happened. It's the biggest influx of immigrants in the nation's history. Why? I agree with you, Joe. I think it's becoming quite clear why that's happening, you know, now.

Speaker 5 44:49

So Yeah, I think I think at one level, so my my read on the political motives is for years as the left allowed, as both parties effectively allowed a pretty steady trickle or stream of illegal immigrants into the country. There was the border wasn't closed and people were coming in. Um, as long as the possibility of comprehensive immigration reform, which always included a path to amnesty, path to citizenship for those illegals, I think the left was content to do it slowly. Um when Trump came on the scene and that was foreclosed because now there's no way that the conservatives are gonna go for an amnesty deal at all in exchange for border enforcement, and Trump said, no, we're just gonna have a wall, we're gonna put up a border, we're gonna just do it, we're gonna shut the thing down. Um I think the left realized after Trump won uh and the the Trump Trump 45 that um look, there's no reason to play games anymore. Let's just throw the floodgates open and flood the system. And uh, and like you said, it's import you know foreign peoples, hook them up to our welfare system as client classes of the Democratic Party, who will then, when they are able to vote, uh will um vote for us and we'll have these kind of permanent client classes.

Scott Allen 46:02

And they had proof of concept from California, right? They've actually seen it work, you know, and so they're this is this is what's going on in Minnesota.

Speaker 5 46:09

This is why why is Minnesota a flashpoint when the Somali fraud was exposed as essentially Democratic politicians funneling money to Somalis to send back to Somalia in exchange for the support of the Somali community in the political in American political elections, it was like this was going to just sort of expose the whole game. And so that's when they dialed up the opposition to Border Patrol and ICE enforcement uh in Minnesota, and you had these clashes that resulted in in people dying because it was it was a threat to the left's path to political power. It's also why they oppose voter ID and things like that, um, so that you because you need to have flexible elections where people can vouch for other people uh and say, no, this person's here and and lives in this district and and they can vote and cast their ballot. In Minnesota, it's it's just it's just an amazing thing to think that this is how it works. But if you live in a district, you can show up on the day of an election and say, and you can show proof of your residency. I live here, here's my utility bill, and you can bring eight people who have no proof that they live there, and you can vouch for them so that they can cast ballots in that election.

Speaker 47:20

Right.

Speaker 5 47:20

Okay? That's just it's a crazy thing that we allow that to that to be the way. And then so it's like you have that kind of lax voting laws.

Speaker 47:28

We same thing here in Oregon, it's exactly the same thing here in Oregon. Yeah.

Speaker 5 47:32

Government bloat, um, a big slush fund to pay off client classes and then import a new client class. That's what's actually going. Compassion is simply the label that gets used over it as rationalization and a way to mute Christian and conservative resistance to that great fraud and evil.

Scott Allen 47:50

Yeah, right. What's behind it, what's driving it is dead. Dead.

Final Warnings And Closing Thanks

Luke Allen 47:54

Uh go ahead. Dead, yeah. Yeah, sorry. Uh we gotta wrap it up. We're we're past the time here. So yep, okay. So just kind of final stepment.

Scott Allen 48:01

Yeah, it it's power, you know, is what's behind it. But but it's yeah, they they weaponize empathy, compassion, right, for the immigrant. And it's not, you know, I think about these poor immigrants. It's such a dangerous journey for so many of them. And you hear about how many of these, especially young women, are being raped and harmed. This is not compassionate in any way, not to mention the fact that a lot of these people that are coming across are criminals and are killing and harming Americans as well. So, uh, you know, it's it's really true, Joe. This is just it's a it's a it's a horror, it's a very dark thing when something so deeply biblical like compassion gets used as a label or as a justification for something that's very dark, isn't it?

Speaker 5 48:46

Absolutely. It's uh the devil always wants to take good things and corrupt them, and the greater something, the greater the good. This is a lesson from Lewis. Maybe it's a good way to kind of put that banner over it, but like um the greater that the good is, the more destructive it is when it goes wrong.

Speaker 49:02

When it's correct.

Speaker 5 49:04

Right? It's it's the greatest goods, and compassion, like you said, is the core attribute of God. It's a great and glorious good, and therefore, when it's twisted and corrupted, it becomes a very, very great devil.

Scott Allen 49:15

So I just want to I think the the conclusion here is for us Christians, people of God, we need to fight hard for true compassion and fight against this use of it, uh, this false use of it for ulterior motives that are very dark. We we we have to defend the truth, right? It's not just enough to call out the bad, we've got to defend what's good here. So, Joe, thank you so much for all that you're doing in that battle. You're doing a ton, and I know that those of us who follow you are so grateful for that your voice is out there. And uh just really appreciate you taking time to be with us today.

Speaker 5 49:49

My pleasure. Thanks for having me, guys.

Scott Allen 49:50

Yeah, God bless you, Joe. Take care.