Speaker 1: I am very excited to talk to my next guest.
Speaker 2: His name is doctor Joe Rigney.
Speaker 1: He serves as a Fellow of Theology at the New
Speaker 1: Saint Andrew's College. He's also a pastor at Christ Church
Speaker 1: in Moscow in Idaho. He is the author of eight books,
Speaker 1: including Leadership and Emotional Sabotage and the book we're talking
Speaker 1: about today, The Sin of Empathy, Compassion and Its Counterfeits,
Speaker 1: Doctor Ridney.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show. First of all, Hey, thanks for
Speaker 2: having me, Mandy.
Speaker 1: I loved this book. I just told him off the air.
Speaker 1: It took me maybe an hour and a half to read.
Speaker 1: It's not War and Peace. It's a very simple, slim book,
Speaker 1: but boy does it pack a punch. And I want
Speaker 1: to just allow you to give what you must have
Speaker 1: at this point, an elevator speech, a version of what
Speaker 1: you're talking about that is easy to understand for my
Speaker 1: listeners if.
Speaker 2: You would, Yeah, absolutely, I would say.
Speaker 3: The basic premise is that, like all good things, passion
Speaker 3: is capable of being corrupted, and when it does, it
Speaker 3: becomes highly destructive.
Speaker 2: So maybe one of the simplest.
Speaker 3: Way into it is if you have someone who's drowning
Speaker 3: in quicksand there's sort of physics analogy using the book.
Speaker 3: There's basically three ways that you could try to do
Speaker 3: something about that. The first way would be to kind
Speaker 3: of walk by on the other side of the road,
Speaker 3: sort of the parable the good Samaritan the bad guys
Speaker 3: in that story who just walk by, And we would
Speaker 3: call that apathy.
Speaker 2: So you could be apathetic.
Speaker 3: Someone's drowning, someone's suffering, and you just completely ignore it.
Speaker 3: But the other two responses are a little more interesting.
Speaker 3: So one would be I'm going to reach in and
Speaker 3: grab you as you're drowning, and I'm gonna have one
Speaker 3: hand grabbing a branch on the side, and I'm going
Speaker 3: to embrace in order to help pull you out. And
Speaker 3: the word I would use for that is sympathy or compassion.
Speaker 3: So I'm I'm joining you at some level in the pit,
Speaker 3: but I've I'm still remaining anchored to the shore. And
Speaker 3: I think that's kind of the historic Christian response to
Speaker 3: pain and suffering is to say, that's what pity, that's compassion,
Speaker 3: that sympathy tether to the shore, but reaching in joining
Speaker 3: people in their suffering and pain in order to.
Speaker 2: Help them get out of it.
Speaker 3: But in the modern world, there's kind of been this
Speaker 3: movement to upgrade that that sympathetic, that compassionate response, and
Speaker 3: they've build empathy as compassion two point zero. And the
Speaker 3: upgrade is you jump all the way in, You just
Speaker 3: dive in with them. And this is presented as a
Speaker 3: kind of improvement on the old version because it's a
Speaker 3: more total immersion in the feelings and experiences and suffering
Speaker 3: or whatever of other people.
Speaker 2: And so that's better.
Speaker 3: But the problem I have with it, the reason that
Speaker 3: I call it a corruption of compassion, is that in
Speaker 3: losing touch jumping in with both feet, you lose touch
Speaker 3: with the shore, you lose touch. And then this analogy,
Speaker 3: it's that's losing touch with reality, with what's true, with
Speaker 3: what's good, with what's good for someone in the long run,
Speaker 3: and focuses mainly on the immediate validation affirmation of what
Speaker 3: everyone is feeling in the moment.
Speaker 2: And so that's what I call the sin of empathy.
Speaker 3: It's when empathy is untethered and when it does that,
Speaker 3: it actually because the destruction comes when it's a tool
Speaker 3: of emotional blackmail, of emotional manipulation, and you can do
Speaker 3: a whole lot of destruction and.
Speaker 2: Evil in the name of empathy.
Speaker 1: Now, in the book, this is not a book about politics,
Speaker 1: I want to be clear, but I am going to
Speaker 1: take it in a political direction and you can respond
Speaker 1: in kind if you'd like. This feels very much like
Speaker 1: what we're dealing with on some of the biggest social
Speaker 1: issues that we're dealing with right now. And you know,
Speaker 1: the trans situation that we've been dealing with in the
Speaker 1: country for a long time, I think is the best
Speaker 1: example of this. And you know, I am one of
Speaker 1: those people that at my core, I'm a small l
Speaker 1: libertarian type. So when you are an adult, if you
Speaker 1: want to do whatever you want, I really don't care.
Speaker 1: As long as you bear the responsibility for those actions
Speaker 1: and have those consequences on your own, I don't care
Speaker 1: what you do. You can have all the plastic surgery
Speaker 1: that you want, you can take all the hormones that
Speaker 1: you want, and go about your business. But when we
Speaker 1: started talking about children, if you said this is not
Speaker 1: a good idea, you were not argued with on the
Speaker 1: merits of whether or not this was a good idea.
Speaker 1: You were told you were transphobic, you were hateful, you
Speaker 1: wanted these people to die, and that for me is
Speaker 1: the clearest definition of how can we help someone who
Speaker 1: is struggling and suffering, but also recognize that perhaps thrusting
Speaker 1: them into a path of medicalization is not the way
Speaker 1: to go, And that for me, compassion is how can
Speaker 1: we help them. Empathy is we're going to just go
Speaker 1: along with whatever they want to do, whether or not
Speaker 1: it's going to damage them in the long run or not.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: And I mean you're right that you know at some
Speaker 3: level the phenomenon I'm trying to unpack is as old
Speaker 3: as dirt. Right, So you know, Adam and Eve came
Speaker 3: out of the garden and we're trying to emotionally manipulate
Speaker 3: each other. So and so in anybody who's ever been
Speaker 3: on the receiving end of a pity party or a
Speaker 3: guilt trip by a family member knows the phenomenon where
Speaker 3: we're describing where they're they're taking advantage of the fact that.
Speaker 2: You care about them, right in order to steer you
Speaker 2: to get their way. So this is not a new thing.
Speaker 3: This is a human thing, deeply human way of manipulating
Speaker 3: people's pity and compassion. What is a little bit unique
Speaker 3: perhaps about the last twenty thirty forty fifty years is
Speaker 3: the institutionalization and of that phenomenon throughout all sort of
Speaker 3: sectors of society where it became it became like the
Speaker 3: entire society became hijacked in this way by appeals to compassion.
Speaker 3: And the trans said one is the law is the latest.
Speaker 3: It's in a long line of.
Speaker 2: This kind of manipulation.
Speaker 3: I think that the LGBT stuff was advanced in precisely.
Speaker 2: The same way.
Speaker 3: Here's people who just want to have the same rights
Speaker 3: as you do. They just want to get quote unquote
Speaker 3: married just like you do. And isn't it so sad
Speaker 3: that they can't get married because we're such a bigoted
Speaker 3: and hateful country. And so it was an appeal to
Speaker 3: compassion in order to mute any resistance to the redefinition
Speaker 3: of the most fundamental.
Speaker 2: Institution of society.
Speaker 3: So this radical move of redefining marriage and trying to
Speaker 3: unmoor it from its biological covenantal realities was made on
Speaker 3: the basis of compassion and appeal to compassion and empathy
Speaker 3: for same sex couples.
Speaker 2: And then but it doesn't stay in place.
Speaker 3: It was just extended out as we're seeing with the
Speaker 3: trans movement, where would you rather have a dead son
Speaker 3: or a live daughter?
Speaker 2: When the medical.
Speaker 3: Community makes that statement to parents who have children who have,
Speaker 3: somehow or other through their smartphone or internet access, have
Speaker 3: been catechized and indoctrinated into gender ideology and are now saying,
Speaker 3: I even though I was born a boy, I feel
Speaker 3: like I'm a girl, and I want to get surgery
Speaker 3: and get on puberty walkers and everything else. When parents
Speaker 3: would put up any resistance, it was an appeal to
Speaker 3: their natural human compassion for their child. Don't you love them?
Speaker 3: Don't you care for them? Do you want them to die?
Speaker 3: That was used to short circuit any resistance, And that's
Speaker 3: a great example of that manipulation of our normal, good
Speaker 3: human response to suffering and pain and hardship, which is
Speaker 3: to share and identify with people. But it can get
Speaker 3: easily get hijacked, and when it does it it does
Speaker 3: become highly destructive.
Speaker 1: A lot of the criticisms that I've read quite a
Speaker 1: few scorchers of columns that have people that really don't
Speaker 1: care for your opinion on this. How does this square
Speaker 1: because you're a pastor of a church, how does this
Speaker 1: square with Jesus's commandment to love thy neighbor. And you
Speaker 1: know we've all heard, you know, love the sin or
Speaker 1: hate the sin. Where does all this sort of fit
Speaker 1: into that overall dogma?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Absolutely so well. I mean, Christ is the model for
Speaker 3: Christian compassion. And we're told that he's a sympathetic high priest,
Speaker 3: which means he was tempted in every way that we are,
Speaker 3: yet without sin. The one thing that Jesus would not
Speaker 3: do is join us in our sin. Now, he died
Speaker 3: for our sins, but he himself would not celebrate, validate,
Speaker 3: and affirm us in our sins.
Speaker 2: He came to rescue us from it.
Speaker 3: And so Christ is a great example of what I
Speaker 3: would call tethered compassion. He's anchored to his father, he's
Speaker 3: anchored to Oh, I'm gonna love God first, and then
Speaker 3: because I love God, I'm able to love human beings
Speaker 3: in their weakness, their brokenness, their sinfulness and try to
Speaker 3: pull them out of the pit that they've put themselves in.
Speaker 2: That's tethered compassion.
Speaker 3: What he didn't do was put our emotions in the
Speaker 3: driver in his driver's seat and say take me wherever
Speaker 3: you want to go. In fact, the Bible tells us
Speaker 3: repeatedly Jesus would never entrust himself to man because he
Speaker 3: knew what was in the heart of man. He actually
Speaker 3: when people tried to hijack and steer him, like his
Speaker 3: disciples did at times, like no, you can't go to
Speaker 3: the cross, get behind me, Satan, right. So there's a
Speaker 3: number of places where Jesus absolutely refuses to do what
Speaker 3: his followers or his enemies want him to do because
Speaker 3: he's more committed to the mission that God has sent
Speaker 3: him on than he is to whatever their desires might be.
Speaker 3: And I think the larger biblical picture of compassion always
Speaker 3: anchors our love for neighbor, in love for God and
Speaker 3: what's ultimately good for them. And the challenge with this
Speaker 3: untethered empathy is it frequently prioritizes the immediate feelings of
Speaker 3: a person over their long term good. So I'll do
Speaker 3: something that I think will relieve their immediate feelings.
Speaker 2: Of distress or pain. Transisu is a great example.
Speaker 3: They feel this way, so we'll castraate or mutilate, or
Speaker 3: give them puberty blockers in order to try to alleviate
Speaker 3: these feelings that they have, rather than their long term good,
Speaker 3: which would be Let's try to bring their psychological identity
Speaker 3: in line with biological reality. Let's remain anchored to what
Speaker 3: is true and what is good, not get untethered by
Speaker 3: their emotions.
Speaker 1: So how do you prevent someone And I guess you
Speaker 1: probably can't prevent this. But my thinking is is, like
Speaker 1: I read your book, I absolutely understood what you were saying.
Speaker 1: I am of the sort that I want to solve
Speaker 1: the problems. In Denver, we have a huge issue with homelessness,
Speaker 1: and our mayor has chosen to just shove you know,
Speaker 1: people who suffered great trauma who are now addicted to
Speaker 1: drugs or alcohol or mentally ill, has just shoved them
Speaker 1: into old hotels, which doesn't solve any of the underlying problems.
Speaker 1: But to your point, this is exactly what you just
Speaker 1: talked about, which is solve this immediate need without solving
Speaker 1: any of the longer issues. So how do you prevent
Speaker 1: people from saying, well, you know, the sin of empathy says,
Speaker 1: I don't have to be concerned about that, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, this could be a double edged sword. Do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Sure, it's certainly possible for someone to see the abuse
Speaker 3: of compassion and empathy in our society and to actually
Speaker 3: fall off on the other side and become heartless and apathetic,
Speaker 3: indifferent to human suffering. And part of the reason that
Speaker 3: I wrote the book, you know, it's passion and its counterfeits,
Speaker 3: and the final chapter is commending real compassion in the
Speaker 3: face of the counterfeits, because I don't want that to happen.
Speaker 2: But the surest way to keep to, the surest way to.
Speaker 3: Get the cruelty and apathy that people are afraid of,
Speaker 3: is to continue allow to allow people to manipulate us
Speaker 3: by empathy into doing things that are destructive and harmful.
Speaker 3: So in the cases like homelessness or rampant criminality in
Speaker 3: urban centers, or legal immigration for that matter, and these
Speaker 3: kind of hot button issues, we are running the risk
Speaker 3: of a kind of callous indifference to human suffering because
Speaker 3: people are tired of being manipulated by the suffering of
Speaker 3: others by advocates. So this is like, this is how
Speaker 3: the setup often works, where you have here's real human suffering,
Speaker 3: and then you have activists who are victims, and they
Speaker 3: may be victims of real things or have real hardship
Speaker 3: not of their own doing. But then you have activists
Speaker 3: and advocates who come along as representatives, who speak on
Speaker 3: their behalf, and they view the victims as a as
Speaker 3: a tool to power and they know that they can
Speaker 3: reorganize society however they want in the name of compassion.
Speaker 3: So we will well reorganized. They'll set the agenda for
Speaker 3: what everybody else has to do. They'll be the ones
Speaker 3: in charge. And they discovered this was a very effective
Speaker 3: way to hijack institutions, colleges, churches, schools, and it was
Speaker 3: very effective.
Speaker 2: And so now we've got more of that.
Speaker 3: So then you have a backlash against it as people go, well,
Speaker 3: if that's what compassion gets me, no, thank you. And
Speaker 3: what I want to say is no, we actually need
Speaker 3: to think in terms of what's good for people in
Speaker 3: the long run, like what is actually going to get
Speaker 3: down to root issues, So whether it's homelessness or immigration,
Speaker 3: we want to actually think what's going to be good
Speaker 3: for everyone, not just myopically focused. One of the things
Speaker 3: empathy does is it acts as a spotlight and it
Speaker 3: focuses on certain suffering and not other suffering.
Speaker 2: Others, certain suffering gets totally whitewashed.
Speaker 3: It's just totally gone, but other people at certain suffering
Speaker 3: is elevated, so that we fixate on that, and I
Speaker 3: want to say, no, we need to have a broader perspective,
Speaker 3: rooted in justice, in what's true and what's good for
Speaker 3: people and long run, what's good for society in the
Speaker 3: long run, and out of that then you can make
Speaker 3: wise decisions because you're not governed by the immediate passions
Speaker 3: of the moment.
Speaker 1: I'm talking with Pastor Joe Rigney about his book The
Speaker 1: Sin of Empathy, and to that point, Pastor, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that has been irritating for me
Speaker 1: for a really long time when it comes to the
Speaker 1: immigration issue, is a perfect example of this. And you know,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of compassion for people who live
Speaker 1: in these crapholed countries and they just want to escape
Speaker 1: and have a better life for their family. I think
Speaker 1: most people can understand why you would want to leave
Speaker 1: someplace where there's no opportunity in danger to make the
Speaker 1: long trek to the United States of America. But so
Speaker 1: much of it happened and was allowed that now we
Speaker 1: see people rooting and cheering as people are dragged off
Speaker 1: the streets by ice and it's like with the pendulum
Speaker 1: swung so quickly too, I can understand why you'd want
Speaker 1: to come here to Uh yeah, we don't care if
Speaker 1: you get due process and we're going to toss you
Speaker 1: out on your ear. It's it's been it's been an
Speaker 1: interesting thing to see. But ultimately, I think we're seeing
Speaker 1: more and more of a backlash against more of these
Speaker 1: issues where empathy has been weaponized to use a better
Speaker 1: you know, for lack of a better term. Do you
Speaker 1: see a shift on some of these things, and are
Speaker 1: we going to shift too far too fast?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: I think like when it comes to the people who
Speaker 3: celebrate ice, you know, rating and deporting individuals, I think
Speaker 3: the celebration is less about is less of cruelty about
Speaker 3: those individuals who being deported, and more a gratitude that
Speaker 3: someone finally decided that enough was enough.
Speaker 2: So I think it was after you know.
Speaker 3: Decades of politicians puttsing around and not doing anything as
Speaker 3: millions and millions of people illegally enter the country and
Speaker 3: distort and it was highly destructive to many communities. Right,
Speaker 3: So this is a good example of the myopics. So
Speaker 3: in the name of compassion for people refugees, or asylum seekers,
Speaker 3: or even just migrants from other countries who wanted to
Speaker 3: come here seeking better life. Well, what about the people
Speaker 3: whose jobs they displaced? What about the wages that were depressed?
Speaker 3: What about the factories that the jobs that were taken
Speaker 3: from Americans who now had to compete with under the
Speaker 3: table untaxed labor. And it's like, no one felt compassion
Speaker 3: for that group of people. So now when that group
Speaker 3: of people see someone finally standing up for the rule
Speaker 3: of law and for a border, they rejoice. And that
Speaker 3: fact not necessarily that, you know, individuals who were brought
Speaker 3: here as children are being deported. I think that Americans
Speaker 3: would have a far greater compassion if we actually had
Speaker 3: a regulated system and a firm border. But this is
Speaker 3: an issue that cuts right to the heart of the
Speaker 3: scent of empathy question. A friend sent me a picture
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago from the Mexican side of
Speaker 3: the southern border, and written in big block letters on
Speaker 3: the Mexico side in graffiti was the word empathy. And
Speaker 3: I thought, that's actually a really good illustration of what
Speaker 3: I'm getting at, because the idea of the graffiti was
Speaker 3: this wall, this border wall is an affront to empathy
Speaker 3: to compassion. Empathy means you don't get to have borders,
Speaker 3: you don't get to have boundaries. You have to let anything,
Speaker 3: anything goes. And I think that's a really good illustration
Speaker 3: of precisely what I'm trying to avoid.
Speaker 2: No borders are good, right. Good fences make good neighbors.
Speaker 3: If you have a big border, if you have a wall,
Speaker 3: you can also put gates in that wall and allow
Speaker 3: the number of people that you think you can handle
Speaker 3: to come in.
Speaker 2: All of that is made possible when you have boundaries.
Speaker 3: When you lose boundaries, it's just one big mess, and
Speaker 3: is what we find ourselves in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: So someone has texted our Common Spirit Health text line
Speaker 1: with this question, if I understand correctly, compassion is good
Speaker 1: if it's to white, straight folks, and beyond that it's
Speaker 1: out of control and becomes a negative. How do you respond,
Speaker 1: because that's a criticism that I see.
Speaker 2: Of their book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, well, I don't know about the white part.
Speaker 3: I think the race question, the ethnic question. Yeah, we
Speaker 3: should be compassionate to all peoples of all all races,
Speaker 3: insofar as we have the ability, and insofar as it
Speaker 3: doesn't compete.
Speaker 2: With our other duties as far as the straight the
Speaker 2: straight piece.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a Christian. I think that homosexuality is wrong.
Speaker 3: It's disgusting, and it's sinful, and therefore I don't want
Speaker 3: society celebrating it endorsing it, because I think it's harmful
Speaker 3: and destructive in both the short term and in long
Speaker 3: term to people's souls. And so I want a society
Speaker 3: that rather than flying the rainbow flag and encouraging vile affections,
Speaker 3: I want a society that reinforces the basic institution of society,
Speaker 3: which is the natural family, where a husband and a
Speaker 3: wife covenant together for a lifetime for the good, for
Speaker 3: their own mutual happiness and for the bearing and rearing
Speaker 3: of children, which is the foundation of every other institution
Speaker 3: of society. And because we've abandoned that institution, like a
Speaker 3: lot of these other problems that you've mentioned here, whether
Speaker 3: it's the homelessness which is often driven by mental health
Speaker 3: and addiction, and what feeds that well, uh, single parent homes, right,
Speaker 3: rampant divorce, the decline and.
Speaker 2: Decay of the natural family.
Speaker 3: Those that that one issue sprout so many other issues,
Speaker 3: and we won't defend and preserve and maintain this fundamental
Speaker 3: institution of society, and as a result, we're reaping what.
Speaker 2: We've sown and it's justified with what maintains it.
Speaker 3: Though, is this false notion of compassion that says, validate
Speaker 3: and affirm everybody's desires. If you desire it, we affirm it.
Speaker 3: If you want it, you can have it, do what
Speaker 3: you feel.
Speaker 2: And instead we should say, no, what, how has God
Speaker 2: made us? What? What? What standards does he put in place?
Speaker 3: He knows best how we're designed and has given us
Speaker 3: a blueprint in his scriptures for how we're to live.
Speaker 3: If we live according to his word, then we'll find
Speaker 3: that we find there's life there, there's joy there, there's
Speaker 3: health and wholeness there, rather than the decay and destruction
Speaker 3: that surrounds us everywhere. Uh.
Speaker 1: Doctor Joe Rigney is my guest. The book is the
Speaker 1: sin of compassion, and it is a excuse me, the
Speaker 1: sin of empathy when we get back to the name
Speaker 1: of the But you kind of threw me there because
Speaker 1: my views and I understand the biblical perspective about homosexuality,
Speaker 1: but I don't necessarily share that because so many of
Speaker 1: my gay friends would love to be straight. They would
Speaker 1: love nothing more to be straight, but that's not how
Speaker 1: they're wired. And I happen to think that, you know,
Speaker 1: God thought they were important enough to put on the earth,
Speaker 1: and we'll disagree about that. I felt like I needed
Speaker 1: to say that. I hope you understand, but ultimately I
Speaker 1: do think that the overarching point goes well beyond white
Speaker 1: or straight or anything else, because you can apply the
Speaker 1: sin of empathy to so many different things that are
Speaker 1: the problems that are being and I'm put air quotes
Speaker 1: around solved and being solved badly because we have untethered
Speaker 1: ourselves from anything that makes sense. Doctor Joe Rigney. I
Speaker 1: put a link on the blog today so people can
Speaker 1: buy the book. I really appreciate you coming on and
Speaker 1: having this conversation, and I hope people buy the book
Speaker 1: and begin to understand that we can be compassionate and
Speaker 1: still not get sucked in to the things that don't
Speaker 1: make any sense. Thanks for your time today.
Speaker 2: Thanks Madie,