Empathy can be a tool of the enemy. The devil preys on human empathy and uses it to lead people to overlook, condone, and enable sin. We hear a lot about this in cases of abortion or other worldly crimes where the past or circumstance of the perpetrator is used as a way to alleviate consequences for them, but what is not often discussed is where this problem of preying on empathy really began.
Society is filled and fueled by empathetic passion for evildoers because they learned it from those who portray the standard of morality. The devil has been playing this empathy game for generations from right inside the church.
From the Christian community, we often see the push for abortion to be treated like murder and no mercy given to criminals. However, these same sentiments often don’t apply to church-goers, especially when the rule-breaker is well-liked or a popular member of the church community. In these cases, crimes deserving punishment are met with counseling or rehabilitation, confession and repentance are accepted in leau of consequences, and injustice for the victim is justified as God’s grace.
The root of toxic empathy began as soon as pride became defined as “God’s view of patriarchy,” coercive control became “Christlike headship,” and the oppression, enslavement, and silencing of God’s daughters became masked as “Godliness.”
When domestic abuse God hates is minimized as “marital conflict,” when abuse victims are subjected to counseling that guides them to feel sorry for the one hurting them, to pray harder, to take on the burden of changing them, and to sacrifice their and their children’s well-being for an unrepentant wolf in sheep’s clothing,
when women seeking divine deliverance are told God loves a false marriage more than her and God hates divorce more than the demon in her home masquerading as a spouse while destroying their own family,
when church leader’s mishandling of abuse or unChristlike behavior is exposed to the world and the responses are “we all have a sinful flesh” or “we’re all sinners,”
when tears become repentance and forgiveness becomes reconciliation, and when keeping families together and a worldly image and living out a false representation of the gospel becomes more important than the actual gospel of Jesus Christ that saves souls,
then the problem no longer becomes one for the world to solve, but one to take accountability for. Using empathy to justify sin and alleviate consequences is never acceptable, but the growing societal injustice is an outpouring of evil that has been brewing inside the heart of a broken church system.
Toxic empathy is not just something the devil is doing. It’s something Christ-professing people are doing every single day. If you don’t want empathy to be used to enable sin, stop using it to enable crimes against humanity in your own backyard.
The change begins with you.
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! – Isaiah 5:20
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. – Psalm 82:4
Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked. – Proverbs 25:26
He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord. – Proverbs 17:15
Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. – Ecclesiastes 8:11
When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. – Isaiah 1:15-17
Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. – Ephesians 5:11-12
