Get Your Smart On
How evangelical Christian nationalists wage cultural warfare, create the permission structure for dehumanizing vulnerable communities, and threaten our multicultural and multi-racial democracy.
A deliberate and strategic effort to redefine and attack empathy has been underway for nearly twenty years. What might initially appear to be isolated critiques of empathy, upon closer examination reveals itself as a coordinated campaign on two fronts: right-wing evangelical and Christian nationalist sects, and libertarian, neo-Rationalist circles. This essay is about the first set of anti-empathy crusaders.
I am not so much concerned with unpacking the anti-empathy arguments and offering a counter-critique, though I do some of that. But my main goal is to reveal the playbook being used to transform empathy, from a widely valued human capacity, into something portrayed as dangerous, manipulative, and morally suspect. The hope is that once you see how this works, you will begin to recognize the tactics by which cultural warfare is being waged by these radical ideologies against our democracy.
At the heart of this campaign lies a rhetorical technique identified by philosopher Chaim Perelman as “dissociation.” This strategy involves taking a concept and splitting it into two distinct parts, then elevating one part as acceptable while discrediting the other as dangerous. This tactic is commonly used by high-control and authoritarian groups working to isolate an in-group from an out-group.
Paul Bloom’s book, Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion (2016), serves as the foundational “academic” work for the anti-empathy campaign.(1) Bloom prepares for his “war on empathy” by dissassociating “cognitive empathy” from “emotional empathy.” He defines emotional empathy as “feeling along with another,” experiencing what they experience, while cognitive empathy is an intellectual understanding without feeling alongside another. Bloom’s “cognitive empathy” is essentially sympathy, or “feeling for another,” which has a long history in Christianity. In contrast, he considers empathy to be a newfangled invention that is not to be trusted.
The term “empathy” is a relatively recent addition to the English language, introduced in 1908 by psychologist Edward B. Titchener as a translation for the German einfühlung (“a feeling into”). The term “empathy” is a transliteration of an ancient Greek term, and represents the Hellenization of the German einfühlung, as it is brought into English, a common way to distinguish a technical, scientific or philosophical term from a similar colloquial or religious one. Another example of many terms that work like this are ethics and morals — the Latinate morals being religiously tinged. With its coinage, empathy was specifically intended to set apart a scientific discussion of psychological phenomena from existing religious concepts like compassion or sympathy.
Since the distinction between sympathy (“feeling-for another”) and empathy (“feeling-with another”) already exists as Bloom is writing, he could have just said something like sympathy good, empathy bad, but I think he actually needs to re-inscribe the difference within empathy to be able to get his hooks into the concept. It does create some issues of slippage in meaning between the two, opening himself up to the claim that his account is just not very rigorous. But then, he is a psychologist, not a philosopher.
Bloom creates and reinforces the cognitive/emotional empathy distinction by mounting it on top of well established binary oppositions: reason/emotion, man/woman, control/chaos. He asserts that emotional empathy is an excessive emotion leading to irrational and sometimes immoral choices. For instance, empathy can cause individuals to favor those close to them over thousands of others, which doesn’t work where it comes to justice or policymaking. He also suggests that “empathetic distress” leads to actions not based on rational calculation for the greatest good, potentially trumping the well-being of many for the feelings associated with a single concrete individual. Bloom even counter-intuitively claims that empathy can lead to cruelty, though he blurs the lines between sympathy and emotional empathy by using Adam Smith’s discussion of sympathy to ground his argument.
These are all basic ethical problems not specific to empathy itself, but rather part of the broader tension between reason and emotion in ethics, a discussion that dates back to Plato and Aristotle in the West, and even before this to Confucian Philosophy. Bloom advocates for a stone-cold rationality and a cost-benefit analysis in moral and policy decisions, aligning with Effective Altruism a utilitarian moral calculus, which I will discuss in another piece. Let me just say here that such a stance, although currently popular in certain circles, is ethically and philosophically naive. Nonetheless, his framework provides the intellectual scaffolding for what will become increasingly politicized applications of anti-empathy rhetoric.
A critical component of the playbook involves associating emotional empathy specifically with femininity and women. Bloom appeals to the common idea that men lack empathy, but then it is women’s higher levels of empathy that he thinks are problematic. He draws on Simon Baron-Cohen’s research suggesting women tend to score higher on empathizing measures, then uses this association to further undermine emotional empathy’s credibility. (2)
The feminizing strategy is enacted through Bloom’s use of Baron-Cohen’s avatar “Hannah,” a hypothetical female psychotherapist exhibiting the highest level of empathy. Hannah is characterized by language that is notably pathologizing and sexualized. She is described as “compelled” and in a state of “hyper-arousal” regarding others’ feelings. This portrayal frames the empathetic woman not as genuinely caring but as driven by some uncontrollable, almost physical/sexual urge — a characterization that diminishes both empathy and femininity, simultaneously.
Bloom’s description of Hannah can be seen as slightly threatening, portraying her as someone who can penetrate feelings without consent, echoing a sociopath’s mimicry of human emotion. Empathy is the feminine inverse of masculine sociopathy. Hannah is labeled “selfish” for her excessive focus on others’ experiences, drawing a parallel to the sociopath man who is indifferent to others’ pain. Finally, and this is important, by feminizing and sexualizing empathy, Bloom discourages men from showing empathy, as it is acting like a woman and effeminate behavior. Empathy is linked to behaviors deemed undesirable especially for men in patriarchy, while arguably a stoic sociopathy is to be rewarded.
The playbook also involves framing empathy as a psychological ailment that leads to physical illness. Bloom uses the work of Vicki Helgeson and Heidi Fritz on “unmitigated communion,” defined as an “excessive concern with others and placing others’ needs before one’s own.” Women typically score higher on this scale. The term “unmitigated communion” describes an extreme focus on others to one’s own detriment, and while Helgeson and Fritz’s work is broadly feminist, Bloom uses it to pathologize empathy through women.
Furthermore, Bloom integrates Barbara Oakley’s concept of “pathological altruism,” quoting her observation that “many diseases and syndromes commonly seen in women seem to be related to women’s generally stronger empathy for, and focus on, others.” He uses this to assert that empathy can be harmful to the empathizer, especially when driven by a receptivity to suffering. Bloom potentially misaligns these authors’ works, and in at least one case admits to doing this intentionally— he notes how Simon Baron-Cohen would not agree with the identification of Hannah, an avatar for Baron-Cohen’s “super-empathy,” with pathological atruism. Despite this, Bloom directly integrates the concept of “pathological altruism” and other research on women, empathy, and health outcomes into his main argument against empathy, potentially poisoning the well of knowledge about empathy.
The pathologizing of empathy serves a dual purpose: it positions empathy as not just ineffective but actively harmful to the person experiencing it, creating a self-interest argument against empathetic responses. The message becomes that empathy isn’t just wrong — it’s unhealthy and self-destructive.
The “academic” critique of empathy laid down by Bloom is then rebranded with religious language by figures like Joe Rigney and Allie Beth Stuckey. Joe Rigney’s The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits (2023) positions empathy as sinful, contrasting it with godly compassion, which is anchored in biblical truths as interpreted by the patriarchal church.
He uses rage-baiting tactics, designed to generate controversy while creating a permission structure for emotional distance from certain groups. He frames cold-heartedness towards vulnerable individuals as a necessary stand for God. Rigney echoes Bloom by asserting that empathy can lead to cruelty, describing it as a “viral infection” leading to irrational lashing out.
Rigney also portrays empathy as an ungovernable passion, a feeling-with that leads to a loss of boundaries and identity. He explicitly links empathy to the “woke” movement, “emotivism,” and “subjectivism,” particularly targeting the transgender movement as the height of feelings untethered to “objective moral order.”
He also extends Bloom’s misogynist argument into religious territory, linking feminism and women’s natural empathy to “gender trouble in the church” and arguing that women’s “excessive emotions” are why they are “biblically barred from the pastoral office.”
The religious reframing is strategically timed and positioned to influence specific Christian audiences, particularly those who might have been swayed into more socially liberal stances during the Obama administration, and in light of the *#metoo *movement and George Floyd protests. By labeling empathy as sinful, the leverages religious authority to make emotional distance from certain groups seem, not just acceptable, but righteous.
Allie Beth Stuckey’s Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion (2024), takes Rigney’s evangelical anti-empathy stance and further politicizes it by applies it directly to hot-button social issues. Stuckey defines “toxic empathy” as a “manipulated empathy” used by the left to exploit Christian compassion, contrasting it with a “truth-filled-love” grounded in “objective moral truth.” She argues that toxic empathy “claims the only way to love racial minorities is to advance social justice,” which she believes leads to societal chaos. She cites the example of the George Floyd protests, using a video of an elderly Black woman lamenting the riots to represent the chaos caused by “social justice” and to illustrate how emotions running high lead to bad outcomes. This was her response to people using black squares for social media profile pics to show support for the George Floyd murder protests, which she saw as merely performative.
Stuckey gives her readers some “red flags” to look out for toxic empathy, such as using “euphemisms” like “reproductive rights” instead of “killing an unborn child,” or “gender-affirming care” for “bodily mutilation.” These are familiar talking points by now. Her explicit political agenda is to overcome “toxic empathy” on issues like abortion, transgenderism, gay marriage, illegal immigration, and social justice (read: movements for racial justice and feminism), accusing progressives of using tragedies and slogans to manipulate “well-meaning people.”
Both Joe Rigney and Allie Beth Stuckey’s books were published by conservative presses, Canon Press and Sentinel respectively, in what appears to be a deliberate “one-two punch” strategy to harden hearts and minds before the 2024 election. Interestingly, both Canon Press and Sentinel were founded by Doug Wilson, a significant figure in the Reformed Christian publishing world and founder of Christ Church, based in Moscow, Idaho. Wilson’s sect can be characterized as the warrior class of the Christian right, charged with fighting cultural and theological “wars.” Despite being a small, tight-knit group, its influence is considerable due to Wilson’s successful inroads into the publishing industry.
The timing and staggered release of these books, with Rigney’s more niche Canon Press title preceding Stuckey’s widely available Sentinel publication, suggest the intent to create an echo chamber for their anti-empathy ideology, aiming to have it ripple out to increasingly general audiences. This strategy is designed to negatively politicize empathy, likely with the objective of bringing Christians who may have been swayed by broadly Christian messages of hope, empathy, and social justice for marginalized groups back into the radical fold. By labeling empathy as sinful, this approach leverages religious authority to reinforce the critique and make emotional distance from certain groups seem not just acceptable but righteous. Ultimately, this is a calculated move against our multicultural, multiracial democracy, with the underlying goal for Christian Nationalists being the creation of a white, Christian ethno-state.
This anti-empathy rhetoric follows a clear deployment pattern: it starts with an “academic” foundation (Bloom), moves to religious reframing (Rigney), then to political application (Stuckey), and finally becomes weaponized against individuals. We see the weaponization with the “Budde incident” that brought the anti-empathy ideology to the national stage.
You might remember Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde’s sermon urging Trump, following his inaguration in 2024, to have mercy and compassion for vulnerable communities, and the firestorm it touched off among evangelical supporters. Despite Budde using terms like “mercy” and “compassion” rather than “empathy,” figures like Ben Garrett, Allie Beth Stuckey, and Joe Rigney attacked her, associating her message with “the sin of empathy” and “toxic empathy,” linking it to feminism, empathetic manipulation, and victimhood. Budde became a perfect lightning rod because she was a woman in a leadership position in her church, and carrying the more mainstream Christian message that these figures sought to displace.
When deployed, the anti-empathy playbook employs several consistent rhetorical techniques:
These techniques work together to create a self-reinforcing system for the in-group, where empathetic appeals are preemptively discredited before they can be considered on their merits. Ultimately, it teaches followers to be suspicious of their feelings towards others, especially oppressed groups, creating inner conflict, guilt, and shame. This process emotionally numbs individuals, corrodes independent thinking, and weakens a person’s moral sense, making them more susceptible to manipulation and dependent on external authority — a real moral harm.
Expanding these views into mainstream culture is also about broadening the reach of authoritarianism. By creating a permission structure that enables followers to dismiss the concerns of certain groups and to dehumanize those perceived as “others,” such as LGBT individuals, immigrants, people of color, and women, this playbook lays the groundwork for and ethno-fascist state.
Unlike the anti-”woke” rhetoric that has taken over the meaning of being “woke,” the anti-empathy playbook is easier to see in part because it hasn’t been completely successful. I believe empathy is irreducible — that we are hardwired to care for others — and so try as they might it will always make a come-back. But there are other similar campaigns underway — I am working on following the rise of “choice feminism,” for example. I hope that you will start to recognize the moves in this playbook and that awareness makes you less susceptible to it’s appeal.
This piece is based on a six part series published over on my Philosophy Publics Substack. Read the series for a more detailed treatment of the war on empathy on this page: On Empathy and Care.
2007: Edwin H. Friedman publishes A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. Church Publishing, Inc., 2007.
2016: The book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion by Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom is published, arguing against allowing empathy to guide actions in areas like philanthropy and politics due to potential for manipulation and bias.
2018: Rod Dreher’s *The Benedict Option *argues that the broader culture’s “empathetic” or “therapeutic” turn was eroding Christian moral and social principles, helping to popularize this line of thinking among some conservative Christians.
2018: Pastor Joe Rigney begins evangelizing against what he calls the “sin of empathy,” linking it to feminism and the “politics of empathetic manipulation and victimhood.” Rigney’s “article “The Enticing Sin of Empathy: How Satan Corrupts Through Compassion” published on Desiring God’s website was widely shared on social media, and became a flashpoint for debates within Christian circles about whether empathy is Christian or not.
February 2023: Joe Rigney’s book The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits is published, offering a critical examination of empathy and distinguishing genuine compassion from its misleading or superficial forms.
2024: Allie Beth Stuckey publishes Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion.
December 13, 2024: Gurwinder publishes “How Empathy Makes Us Cruel and Irrational” on his Substack, and I publish my response “Who’s Afraid of Empathy?”on Dec 23, 2024. This piece is where I am first alerted to this anti-empathy rhetoric. In it, I write that, in the end, Gurwinder seems to be smearing “attorney General for Los Angeles county George Gascón with his shit-empathy.” Seeing what is going on in L.A. right now, this becomes even more interesting.
January 21, 2025: The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde delivers a sermon at the Washington National Cathedral’s inaugural prayer service following President Trump’s second inauguration. She pleads with Trump to show mercy toward immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and others fearing for their lives, urging compassion for vulnerable communities in a moment of national uncertainty.
Within days of January 21, 2025: Bishop Budde’s sermon “touched off a firestorm among some of Trump’s evangelical supporters.” Christian podcasters Ben Garrett tweets “Do not commit the sin of empathy.” Allie Beth Stuckey tweets about “toxic empathy that is in complete opposition to God’s Word.” Pastor Joe Rigney describes Budde’s message as a “clear example of the man-eating weed of Humanistic Mercy” and links it to feminism and the “politics of empathetic manipulation and victimhood.”
January 30, 2025: Vice President J.D. Vance publicly advocated for a hierarchical interpretation of Christian love, known as ordo amoris, suggesting that love should be prioritized starting with one’s family, then neighbors, followed by community, country, and finally the broader world. This perspective was articulated during an interview with Sean Hannity and further emphasized in subsequent public statements.
February 3, 2025: Cardinal Robert Prevost, who would later become Pope Leo XIV, responded to Vance’s interpretation by posting on X (formerly Twitter), “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” linking to an article from the National Catholic Reporter that criticized Vance’s remarks.
February 10, 2025: In a letter addressed to the U.S. bishops, Pope Francis responded to Vice President J.D. Vance’s invocation of the theological concept ordo amoris to justify the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Vance had argued for a hierarchical ordering of love, prioritizing family, community, and nation over others. Pope Francis countered this interpretation by emphasizing that Christian love should be universal and inclusive, drawing upon the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate the boundless nature of compassion. He warned against policies that criminalize migrants and stressed the importance of recognizing the dignity of every human being, regardless of their legal status. The Pope’s letter served as a direct challenge to nationalist interpretations of Christian doctrine that exclude or marginalize vulnerable populations.
February 19, 2025: Joe Rigney promotes his book The Sin of Empathy on Albert Mohler’s podcast, Thinking In Public, where Mohler offers his own critiques of empathy, calling it a “synthetic word,” too tied to “constant emoting,” Marxism, and identity politics.
1 Despite holding an academic position as a psychology professor at Yale, he published his book with Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins. As a trade publisher, Ecco does not peer-review books in the same way scholarly journals or academic publishers do. Their primary focus is on writing, structure, and whether a book will engage readers, rather than vetting if the work cited is used in good faith or if arguments are methodologically sound. It seems to me that he was positioning his work, in advance of its publication, in the context of the effective altruism movement. Nonetheless, on the strength of his academic standing, Bloom’s book seems to serve as an intellectual foundation for the Christian Right’s anti-empathy campaign.
2 This parallels Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, which found girls and women deficient when measured against a scale based on studies of primarily white, middle-class boys. I write about this in Empathy and Its Discontents.
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