September 11, 2025 The Sun Bay Paper Page 10 The Media Explore ‘Toxic Empathy’ in Christianity PBS News tweeted out something unexpected from conservative Christian author Allie Beth Stuckey, author of the book “Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion.” This was the Stuckey quote they shared: “Empathy becomes toxic when it encourages you to affirm sin, validate lies, or support destructive policies.” At first, I hoped “PBS News Hour” interviewed Stuckey, as they did a few months ago with Michael Knowles. But it turns out their website posted an article by Associated Press religion reporter Tiffany Stanley. The story noted the trend against empathy in pro-Trump circles, and balanced it with passionate rebuttal from the “progressive” Christians. The other conservative in the piece was Joe Rigney, a professor and pastor who wrote “The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits.” He acknowledged: “Could someone use my arguments to justify callous indifference to human suffering? Of course,” but the Left uses Christian themes for secular ends. “Jesus was an asylum seeker” is one of their manipulative lines. Or “Jesus was a Palestinian,” which aggressively forgets he was a Jew. It’s been particularly jarring to watch Christians oppose empathy, claimed historian Susan Lanzoni, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School who wrote a book on the history of empathy. “That’s the whole message of Jesus, right?” No. Jesus did not show empathy when he turned over the tables of the money changers outside the synagogue, and he displayed some anger when people questioned healing a man’s withered hand on the Sabbath. There are times for Christians to be indignant on behalf of God’s church. As Stanley pointed out, Stuckey made it clear empathy can be good, but it’s been coopted “to convince people that the progressive position is exclusively the one of kindness and morality,” as in: “If you really care about women, you’ll support their right to choose” abortion. Or “If you really respect people, you’ll use preferred pronouns” Or another: “If you’re really compassionate, you’ll welcome the immigrant.” God-fearing people can feel empathy for the stranger -- the immigrant -- but that doesn’t have to overflow into an open-borders policy that allows untrammeled illegal immigration. Conservative Christians feel that the unborn child is a human being who cannot be sacrificed for a woman’s convenience. Couldn’t it be argued that it’s “toxic empathy” to encourage a frightened woman to destroy an innocent baby? The AP reporter also brought in Episcopal preacher Dana Colley Corsello for the typical liberal-media spin. “The arguments about toxic empathy are finding open ears because farright-wing, white evangelicals are looking for a moral framework around which they can justify President Trump’s executive orders and policies,” she preached. Jesus is painted as exactly the opposite of Trump. The liberal media are much more in tune with far-left-wing, black evangelicals like Obama’s former preacher Jeremiah Wright, who didn’t display empathy for his fellow Americans when he described 9/11 as the “chickens coming home to roost.” That “liberation theology” neatly matches the radical left. In the days after the article, Stuckey found toxic empathy in the people who felt sorry for the vicious killer of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte. The killer was a minority. She tweeted: “This animal was arrested and released a dozen times in the name of social justice and racial equity. Social justice and racial equity policies are borne out of ‘empathy’ for the ‘marginalized.’” Empathy should flow plentifully to the victim and her family, and not the killer. If the killer showed remorse and asked for forgiveness, that could change. But it’s toxic in the aftermath of a senseless attack to ignore the murder victim and bemoan a “system.” Tim Graham Director of Media Analysis, Media Research Center & Executive Editor NewsBusters.org blog Evil on the Prowl Everything has a political angle now. The left gets worked up by a jeans ad. The right gets worked up by Cracker Barrel removing both the cracker and the barrel from their logo. Red and blue, colors on the light spectrum and in nature, are now political. A 23-year-old transgender gunman killing children is political. The prayers offered are maligned as useless. It is all political. My radio show is, when aired live, midday. I intended to talk about the Democrats and crime and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik convincing President Donald Trump we need 600,000 Chinese students in our universities. I had a humorous soundbite from Secretary of State Rubio begging Trump to issue an executive order banning Saturday weddings during college football season. Instead of all that, I had to narrate over an evil act. While that was happening, my daughter, in college, was texting. She was barricaded in a classroom with an active shooter on her college campus. The students had moved a chair to the door handle to make it difficult to open, and were contemplating moving the bookcases. Unlike the events in Minnesota, the events on her college campus were inspired by a phone call that turned out to be fake. A series of such calls has plagued college campuses around the nation in the past week. Through it all, news of the shooter came out. He had transitioned to female. He had used a picture of Jesus as target practice. He had written "where is your God now" on the gun magazine and "kill Donald Trump" on the barrel. He was depraved. He became another transgender shooter at a Christian school, having barricaded the children into a church at mass and begun firing through the windows. I gave the Mayor of Minneapolis a pass for scoffing at people offering prayers. Children in his city just died. He was under stress, and his emotions were raw. People online excoriated him. He needed some grace to grieve and be angry. I gave him no such pass when, in the evening, he went on CNN to condemn those who might attack the transgender community. Were the shooter a Trump supporter, you and I both know he would be blasting the president and his supporters. The Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota, just a year ago, wore a trans-rights t-shirt with a knife on it that implied using violence against those who oppose the trans-community. The transgender murderer had a sticker on his manifesto implying the use of violence to defend the trans community. Online, Democrats yelled that Republicans have blood on their hands for not passing gun control. Republicans yelled that Democrats had normalized violent mentally ill people. I have my own political opinions on the matter, which I hold to strongly, but should we not first pray? Should we not first cry? Should we not first grieve? I actually blame former President Barack Obama for our turn to political screaming matches. As president, when Sandy Hook happened, he used his time addressing a nation in mourning to assail Republicans and demand gun control. He gave license to others to immediately drag politics over the still-warm bodies of dead kids. Democrats claim to offer solutions, but they are unworkable. Republicans, instead of talking about gun control, talk about mental health. In truth, neither side has a real solution. Politics has no solution for evil. No legislation solves spiritual problems. Guns will not be confiscated. Parents and states that support the transition of children will never admit they were wrong. Jesus weeps, and the tribes argue over who has more blood on their hands and which laws should be enacted or not. The church has the only real answer. But Americans have moved beyond the church and worship at the altar of politics now. Even many self-professed Christians prefer social media tirades to quiet prayer and commitment to seeking the welfare of their community. The people of God, in the moment of crisis, have the gospel to confront evil. It is the only solution, and it is far better deployed in grace and love and truth than in political harangues as children lie dying, fallen in the path of evil. ERICK ERICKSON
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