Toxic Empathy is not Love – and It’s Dangeous

The perpetual existence of empathy as a good in theology and wider thought is hardly novel. Christianity, however, never considered it as the one virtue to rule them all: compassion in the Bible is always linked to truth, repentance, and/or restoration, not “I feel you, sis.” (see e.g., John 8:11; Luke 19:8–9; James 5:19–20). And yet, we can identify an up-and-coming posture rooted in secularism that does indeed hold empathy as the highest virtue to which all others must bow. This is the dangerous and ugly effect: if concern for those who have been poisoned by toxic empathy veers off into disregard, or worse, hate for those people, we will not be caring for them the way they need most.

The phrase has gained the most traction in the Christian world with Allie Beth Stuckey. In light of current events, she writes that she noticed a new kind of response that stood out from obvious, wrong trite sayings and hashtags, which was weaponized, toxic empathy (Allie Beth Stuckey, commentary and podcast remarks, 2023–2024). She calls it that because that’s how these people use it; if you don’t emphatically agree with their reasoning, you don’t care; if you ask questions, you don’t care; and if you don’t publicly say how much you care in a way that they want you to, you don’t care.

In moral psychology, academics have acknowledged the danger. Jonathan Haidt repeatedly warns that moral reasoning is often post-hoc, when driven by intuition and emotion first, reason second (The Righteous Mind, 2012). While he values empathy, he argues that moral emotions—especially when unbalanced—can override proportionality and fairness. Thus, when empathy is prioritized above all else, it can work against proportionality, fairness, and truth. It can be used as evidence, and truth no longer informs compassion (see also Paul Bloom, Against Empathy, 2016).

Increasingly, in progressive thought, evil is equated with emotional injury, especially emotional injury visited upon protected groups. Only empathy that agrees and affirms is credited, and disagreement, even with utmost concern, is equated with violence—hence the phrase “Words are violence” (a slogan widely used in activist and academic discourse). But that is no example set by Christianity. Yes, Jesus wept with those who were suffering (John 11:35), but he also rebuked, confronted, and called out sin (Matthew 23; John 4:16–18). He did not coddle. There is no comfort where there is no truth.

We see this especially in the Gaza obsession in the progressive world: many participants’ intentions are good, and they do truly care about suffering, even if they are easily misled into promoting the suffering engineered by Hamas rather than honestly caring about the misfortune of those civilians. In the case of the Israel–Hamas war, Gaza as a whole is considered a victim, so it is easy to apply only the oppressor/victim analysis, presuming zero autonomy of the population of Gaza and avoiding discussion of the leadership of Hamas, which intentionally allowed the destruction of civilian life and infrastructure (as documented by Hamas’s own statements and military strategy). Any discussion of the latter is interpreted as proof of deficient empathy.

We see this again in many forms of Muslim activism. However, it is not true empathy for the horrors suffered in Gaza but rather an interpretation of the suffering as evidence of the suffering of all Muslims and/or Islam itself. Here’s where toxic empathy, interpreted through a Christian lens, is revealed. In most pro-Palestinian activism, empathy makes no room for blame to fall on the perpetrators of suffering if they are suffering themselves. Christianity affords ample opportunity for grieving of suffering without regarding leaders, populations, governments, or violence as sacred or justified (Romans 12:15; Ezekiel 18).

The most harmful effect of toxic empathy, which paints people as victims of systems, identities, and circumstance, results when responsibility is erased. Christianity sees human responsibility as evidence of our dignity (Genesis 1:26–27; Deuteronomy 30:19). To relieve humans of responsibility is to dehumanize them and to turn a suffering population into perpetual children.

So this Christian criticism of toxic empathy does not at all attack compassion, but rather holds it in the highest esteem. There is no healing where there is no truth. Jesus died on the cross because God could not simply excuse the atrocious sins of man (Romans 3:23–26). Empathy in the popular secular moral culture—and especially in the progressive movement—seeks healing without repentance, and belonging without change.