Apostolic Truth vs. Modern Inclusion: The Christian Call to Transformation

[Bootstrap]

I think this thread highlights the wisdom of Two Kingdom theology.

The kingdom of God forms people in holiness and obedience to Christ — it does not compromise apostolic teaching to fit cultural tides. The civil realm should provide justice, order, and tolerance so that diverse “weirdos” (including Christians, gays, Muslims, materialists) can live without coercion.

This gives space for the church to be uncompromisingly transformative while society maintains broad tolerance.

[Bootstrap]

"Empathy" is the ability to understand the share the feelings of another person and what they're going through.

In John 4, Jesus enters the Samaritan Woman's world, engages honestly, calls her into truth, and she becomes a witness. There is real empathy in that exchange. And she does become transformed.

In John 8, Jesus shields a woman caught in adultery from unjust condemnation, then calls her to new life. That's real mercy. Without condemnation. We do not know what becomes of her, but we do see how Jesus related to sinners.

[Szdfan]

The very first time I heard of the word "empathy" was from the Star Trek TOS episode "The Empath" with its theme of self-sacrifice for others.

Al Mohler also likes to raise uncomfortable questions. But at least he's getting people to think and talk more deeply than the shallow headlines of today's media.

If empathy is self-sacrifice then when does it become self-destructive? How can the Christian church continue the Gospel message if it no longer exists because it has lost its vision of God and his teachings? Maybe the call to "empathy" is the wrong call. Maybe it should be the call to compassion and its mission of bring the Gospel message to the lost who need its message of healing the soul from sin?

"Empathy" and "empath" are not exactly the same thing.

"Empathy" is the ability to understand the share the feelings of another person and what they're going through.

An "empath" is someone who is highly sensitive to the emotions and energy of others and absorbs them into one's own feelings and experiences. It's a pop psychological concept and in contexts like the Star Trek episode, the individual has a paranormal ability to sense other people's feelings. BTW, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Counselor Troi's empath abilities are more positively depicted and empower's her role as the Enterprise's counselor.

I think the entire "sin of empathy" thing is a toxic, profoundly unbiblical concept advocated for in certain conservative Christian circles to justify poor treatment of people they don't like. It's a polemic to justify exclusion. However, there's nothing in the Bible that suggests empathy is a sin. The Scriptures call for empathy towards those who are on the margins. As Romans 12:15 puts it, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." That suggests something more than just compassion and something more like empathy.

There’s no need to be condescending - I’m well aware of the difference between empathy and empath. So how about an answer to the question re compassion vs empathy?

I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be condescending. I thought your post had blurred the distinctions between "empathy" and "empath" and I was untangling them.

I don't think Scripture positions empathy and compassion against each other. Empathy is the ability to feel and understand someone else's feelings -- i.e. putting yourself in one some else's shoes. Compassion is action -- doing things to alleviate someone else's suffering. They are intertwined. Compassion often requires empathy.

Again, I think the attempt to redefine empathy as a sin is a distortion of Scripture and unhelpful.

[Szdfan]

"Empathy" is the ability to understand the share the feelings of another person and what they're going through.

In John 4, Jesus enters the Samaritan Woman's world, engages honestly, calls her into truth, and she becomes a witness. There is real empathy in that exchange. And she does become transformed.

In John 8, Jesus shields a woman caught in adultery from unjust condemnation, then calls her to new life. That's real mercy. Without condemnation. We do not know what becomes of her, but we do see how Jesus related to sinners.

I think this highlights an important aspect of empathy. Empathy is not agreement. It’s entering into someone’s experience enough to build trust and connection, which then makes transformation possible. Jesus had empathy for these two women and built enough of relationship with them that the interaction transformed them.

[JohnL]

I don't think Scripture positions empathy and compassion against each other. Empathy is the ability to feel and understand someone else's feelings -- i.e. putting yourself in one some else's shoes. Compassion is action -- doing things to alleviate someone else's suffering. They are intertwined. Compassion often requires empathy.

Again, I think the attempt to redefine empathy as a sin is a distortion of Scripture and unhelpful.

In my dialect, compassion is recognizing the suffering of another and seeking to alleviate that suffering. Someone doesn’t have to experience the suffering personally to be motivated to help another. When Helene’s floods destroyed lives in our mountains many people who never experienced that devastation came to help. It can be said that they were more effective because get they didn’t suffer PTSD from their own experiences.
Compassion which I believe to be a better Christian motivation offers more than just feelings which so many like to say they have then do nothing. Christian compassion is offers real helpful actions that alleviate suffering. Jesus highlights that meaning in the parable of the Good Samaritan. He didn’t say the Samaritan was empathetic. He said the Samaritan picked up the man and took him where he can be helped and paid for it from his own money.

[HondurasKeiser]

I just listened to Al Mohler's Thinking in Public interview with Joe Rigney where they discuss for an hour how the sin of empathy has destroyed the church. The destruction they have in mind is primarily sex and gender related. I see shades of this same reasoning in this thread as well.

From my perspective sin is sinful primarily because it misrepresents or distorts God, often not because of the attitude or emotional content of the agent. Churches that have lost their way around gender and sexuality are wrong because they have lost their vision of God, not because they are to inclusive or empathetic. If the latter were the case the situation could be resolved by denouncing empathy and embracing exclusion as a goal. I think it is possible many churches and church leaders will do exactly that and never address the deeper issues of where the vision for God and his creation was flawed.

The "Apostolic Truth" (I'm a little uncomfortable with that terminology...) is that God creates for a purpose and our highest calling is to discover that purpose and receive it as a gift. As the scripture says:
"Ye are not your own, therefore glorify God in your body..."
Unless we are ready to start on this foundation and demonstrate consistency in our own lives, I don't think we have "Apostolic Truth" to share with anyone.

I don’t think that matches my experience, Barnhart. This is perhaps where we conservative- leaning folk from the mainline side of the Mennonite world can lend some insight. I’ve been a part of 2 churches that have fallen into error around gender and sexuality and as a member in Lancaster Conference I’ve had a front seat to other churches and individuals doing the same e.g. Chester Wenger. The driving force behind Chester’s error is empathy over and against the teaching of scripture. This was exactly my experience in the two congregations I was apart of that went the same way; they began questioning the church’s teaching and their own heretofore orthodox understanding of sexuality because of feelings of empathy for struggling homosexuals in our congregation. Instead of helping them to renounce sin, they chose to affirm them in their sin because they felt sorrow for them and, putting themselves in the other’s shoes, decided to abandon scripture and church teaching to make them feel welcome and affirmed. I disagree with you heartily. As someone that’s watched it happen, apostasy in the Mennonite world, in the areas of sexuality and gender and women-in-leadership, is about empathy all the way down.

[barnhart]

I just listened to Al Mohler's Thinking in Public interview with Joe Rigney where they discuss for an hour how the sin of empathy has destroyed the church. The destruction they have in mind is primarily sex and gender related. I see shades of this same reasoning in this thread as well.

From my perspective sin is sinful primarily because it misrepresents or distorts God, often not because of the attitude or emotional content of the agent. Churches that have lost their way around gender and sexuality are wrong because they have lost their vision of God, not because they are to inclusive or empathetic. If the latter were the case the situation could be resolved by denouncing empathy and embracing exclusion as a goal. I think it is possible many churches and church leaders will do exactly that and never address the deeper issues of where the vision for God and his creation was flawed.

The "Apostolic Truth" (I'm a little uncomfortable with that terminology...) is that God creates for a purpose and our highest calling is to discover that purpose and receive it as a gift. As the scripture says:
"Ye are not your own, therefore glorify God in your body..."
Unless we are ready to start on this foundation and demonstrate consistency in our own lives, I don't think we have "Apostolic Truth" to share with anyone.

I don’t think that matches my experience, Barnhart. This is perhaps where we conservative- leaning folk from the mainline side of the Mennonite world can lend some insight. I’ve been a part of 2 churches that have fallen into error around gender and sexuality and as a member in Lancaster Conference I’ve had a front seat to other churches and individuals doing the same e.g. Chester Wenger. The driving force behind Chester’s error is empathy over and against the teaching of scripture. This was exactly my experience in the two congregations I was apart of that went the same way; they began questioning the church’s teaching and their own heretofore orthodox understanding of sexuality because of feelings of empathy for struggling homosexuals in our congregation. Instead of helping them to renounce sin, they chose to affirm them in their sin because they felt sorrow for them and, putting themselves in the other’s shoes, decided to abandon scripture and church teaching to make them feel welcome and affirmed. I disagree with you heartily. As someone that’s watched it happen, apostasy in the Mennonite world, in the areas of sexuality and gender and women-in-leadership, is about empathy all the way down.

I don't contest your experience and I'm sure it represents a repeated phenomenon, but I still suggest the error is the actual error, not the feelings or emotional content of the people who fell into error.

[Silentreader]

I just listened to Al Mohler's Thinking in Public interview with Joe Rigney where they discuss for an hour how the sin of empathy has destroyed the church. The destruction they have in mind is primarily sex and gender related. I see shades of this same reasoning in this thread as well.

From my perspective sin is sinful primarily because it misrepresents or distorts God, often not because of the attitude or emotional content of the agent. Churches that have lost their way around gender and sexuality are wrong because they have lost their vision of God, not because they are to inclusive or empathetic. If the latter were the case the situation could be resolved by denouncing empathy and embracing exclusion as a goal. I think it is possible many churches and church leaders will do exactly that and never address the deeper issues of where the vision for God and his creation was flawed.

The "Apostolic Truth" (I'm a little uncomfortable with that terminology...) is that God creates for a purpose and our highest calling is to discover that purpose and receive it as a gift. As the scripture says:
"Ye are not your own, therefore glorify God in your body..."
Unless we are ready to start on this foundation and demonstrate consistency in our own lives, I don't think we have "Apostolic Truth" to share with anyone.

I don’t think that matches my experience, Barnhart. This is perhaps where we conservative- leaning folk from the mainline side of the Mennonite world can lend some insight. I’ve been a part of 2 churches that have fallen into error around gender and sexuality and as a member in Lancaster Conference I’ve had a front seat to other churches and individuals doing the same e.g. Chester Wenger. The driving force behind Chester’s error is empathy over and against the teaching of scripture. This was exactly my experience in the two congregations I was apart of that went the same way; they began questioning the church’s teaching and their own heretofore orthodox understanding of sexuality because of feelings of empathy for struggling homosexuals in our congregation. Instead of helping them to renounce sin, they chose to affirm them in their sin because they felt sorrow for them and, putting themselves in the other’s shoes, decided to abandon scripture and church teaching to make them feel welcome and affirmed. I disagree with you heartily. As someone that’s watched it happen, apostasy in the Mennonite world, in the areas of sexuality and gender and women-in-leadership, is about empathy all the way down.

I don't contest your experience and I'm sure it represents a repeated phenomenon, but I still suggest the error is the actual error, not the feelings or emotional content of the people who fell into error.

I would suggest that you are both right. Empathy is an important part of the Christian witness, but empathy must never over-rule Truth.

[JohnH]

I think the entire "sin of empathy" thing is a toxic, profoundly unbiblical concept advocated for in certain conservative Christian circles to justify poor treatment of people they don't like. It's a polemic to justify exclusion. However, there's nothing in the Bible that suggests empathy is a sin. The Scriptures call for empathy towards those who are on the margins. As Romans 12:15 puts it, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." That suggests something more than just compassion and something more like empathy.

The Bible does not teach we are to have “empathy” for people who choose to engage in sin like murder, beating their wife, and so on, but rather we are to offer a gospel of repentance that makes it possible to run away from these sins. The fact a murderer on the run is “on the margins” is not a reason to be “empathetic” I see in the scripture at all.

[Szdfan]

I think the entire "sin of empathy" thing is a toxic, profoundly unbiblical concept advocated for in certain conservative Christian circles to justify poor treatment of people they don't like. It's a polemic to justify exclusion. However, there's nothing in the Bible that suggests empathy is a sin. The Scriptures call for empathy towards those who are on the margins. As Romans 12:15 puts it, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." That suggests something more than just compassion and something more like empathy.

The Bible does not teach we are to have “empathy” for people who choose to engage in sin like murder, beating their wife, and so on, but rather we are to offer a gospel of repentance that makes it possible to run away from these sins. The fact a murderer on the run is “on the margins” is not a reason to be “empathetic” I see in the scripture at all.

This parable of Jesus comes to mind --

To some who trusted in their own righteousness and viewed others with contempt, He also told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, "God, I thank You that I am not like other men—swindlers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and pay tithes of all that I acquire."

But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner!" I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”