Batir We Go

In the beginning was love
And the love was with God
And the love was God
He was with God in the beginning
And the world was made through him
And so was I. 

⸺Jon Guerra, In The Beginning Was Love

Introduction

On May 31, 2019, an article was published on Desiring God’s website called The Enticing Sin of Empathy.[1] Joe Rigney, a guest contributor writing in the style of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, laid out his argument that empathy is sinful. Despite backlash from evangelical leaders at the time, the concept of sinful empathy has since grown into a conservative political movement. With Rigney’s The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits, A Christian Worldview Guide to Discernment and Emotional Manipulation and Allie Beth Stuckey’s Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion, empathy has become the new political buzzword and championed as “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization.”[2] The demonization of empathy has distorted traditional Christian doctrine and caused confusion for lay people. How is a Christian to practice discernment when their empathy has been turned against them? Empathy is not a fundamental weakness but a strength. It is a vital tool, enabling Christians to break out of their limited perspectives and see the world through the eyes of another which is essential to the Christian mission. As Todd Salzman explains, “With the help of the Holy Spirit it is the task of the entire People of God, especially pastors and theologians, to hear, distinguish and interpret the many voices of our age, and to judge them in light of the divine Word.”[3] The current war on empathy is quenching the work of the Holy Spirit, hindering Christians’ ability to seek the flourishing of their neighbors and encouraging political idolatry. Discernment requires empathy which we see through the need to know God’s Spirit, human spirits, and how discerning the spirits through empathy acts as spiritual formation.

Knowing God’s Spirit

According to Merriam-Webster, empathy is defined as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.”[4] Therefore, there is nothing more important to the life of a Christian than understanding God’s Spirit. In John 14:15-17 (CSB), Jesus explains to his disciples:

15 If you love me, you will keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever. 17 He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you.

The gift of the Holy Spirit allows Christians to know and understand the God of the universe which lays the foundation for discernment. As Clark Pinnock explains, “We need the Spirit to help us recognize God’s voice and to discern between spirits (1 Thess. 5.19-22). And since to know God is to know a person, there is a subjective dimension in our interrelation which requires a living relationship with God and the operation of his Spirit.”[5] By having a relationship with God through the Holy Spirit, Christians are able to know God’s heart and his will for their lives which is clearly shown in the life of Jesus Christ. As Craig Keener explains, “When we cannot only say what God is saying on some issue but actually feel what he feels about it, sharing in the fellowship of Christ’s suffering, then we have begun to know him still more deeply.” [6] When it comes to the practice of discernment, “in order to respond to matters in a way that [are] important to God, one has to be in touch with the will of God. This can only happen when one is in tune with the mind of God, when one is filled with his Spirit.”[7] We can come to know the desires of the Holy Spirit through the study of Scripture as the Spirit “continues to confront the world with the person of Jesus through the proclamation of him ([John] 15:26-27).”[8] Knowing God’s Spirit results in complete transformation, renewing the mind and transforming it into that of Christ’s:[9]

Those who have God’s Spirit and therefore the “mind of Christ” are no longer operating in accordance with their own abilities or faculties. All inspired messages are formulated, proclaimed, and understood by the work of the Spirit, filtered through “the mind of Christ.” Moreover, with “the mind of Christ” representing a standard of wise living, definitions of ethical norms and behaviors are solely the product of divine revelation and therefore can only be understood via the illumination of the Spirit.[10]

Therefore, “the people of God participate together in the Spirit baptized life in and towards conformity to Christ, his love, his faithful witness, and his ultimate glorified existence.”[11] Through the witness of Jesus Christ through Scripture and by the working of the Holy Spirit in one’s life, humans can come to know God on an intimate and relational level, ultimately beginning “a transformative experience that conforms one to the self-giving love evident in the crucified Christ.”[12] In our current political moment, knowing God’s heart provides Christians with a firm foundation. However, without empathy for others, Christians can easily confuse their own thoughts and feelings with those of God’s, idolizing partisan politics and making God in their own image. Discerning the spirits requires discernment of all the spirits: God’s Spirit and humans’ spirits.

Knowing Human Spirits

Knowing how God feels about things is the foundation of Christians’ political lives. However, Christians often “are overwhelmingly motivated by [their] loves and [their] loyalties.”[13] Ignatius of Antioch, who was known for his structured methodical discernment process, knew how human spirits could challenge, confuse, and ultimately lead astray from the heart of God. In his paper on Conscience, Spirit, and Discernment, Anthony Egan explains Ignatius’ concerns:

Ignatius sees as connected to any discerned decision the need for a further discernment – of what he calls the good spirit or the evil spirit. The good spirit leads us to make a right choice and is characterized by leading us into a state of consolation. We can easily see this as the Holy Spirit guiding our decision making. The evil spirit – whether we see it mythologically as the devil or a demon, or on a psychological level as our own innate capacity towards self-deception, confusion and self-destruction – seeks to undermine our process of decision-making, either by leading us into deeper confusion, desolation or despair, or by appearing as ‘an angel of light’ offering us false consolation that will ultimately lead us into a wrong decision.[14]

Furthermore, the “right decision” is deeply connected to one’s conscience and often not a universal choice for all Christians. As the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) explains:

Deep within their consciences men and women discover a law which they have not laid upon themselves and which they must obey. Its voice, ever calling them to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, tells them inwardly at the right moment: do this, shun that. For they have in their hearts a law inscribed by God. Their dignity rests in observing this law, and by this they will be judged. Their conscience is people’s most secret core, and their sanctuary. There they are alone with God whose voice echoes in their depths. Through loyalty to conscience, Christians are joined to others in the search for truth and for the right solution to so many moral problems which arise both in the life of individuals and from social relationships.[15]

With this understanding in mind, it is vital to know one’s own heart as well as the hearts of others when practicing discernment, especially when it comes to politics. We must understand and be sensitive to our own biases and sinful inclinations as well as how our own thoughts, feelings, and experiences cloud our judgment and threaten our conscience. As Egan continues, “to really act in conscience requires profound self-examination and self-knowledge, a willingness to confront oneself honestly.”[16] The ability to look inward, to honestly assess one’s moral failings and the limitedness of one’s own personal experience, requires more than interiority, it requires living in a diverse community. Pinnock states it well:

It is important that individual Christians exist in a network and community of committed others, because so often truth emerges not from the struggles of the individual but from the life of the whole community which participates in the Spirit (2 Cor. 13.14). By interacting with people who share our faith, we are more likely to rise above our own fragmentary perceptions and conceptions of the truth. The community of faith is the best context for understanding Scripture. We need one another. How else are we going to see our limitations and transcend them?[17]

By having empathy for other people, by seeing in their experiences a glimpse of the Holy Spirit at work, we are able to open our minds and hearts to the possibility that we may be wrong. Furthermore, living within a community with diverse perspectives and experiences strengthens one’s ability to distinguish between the Spirit of God and the spirit of the ages. Within a Christ-centered community, “members humbly live by the Spirit (aware of their limitations and failings) and cooperatively share their various gifts, abilities, feelings, insights, and experiences, unity is promoted, spirituality is tested, and communally the will of God is discerned, decided, and done.”[18] When attempting to discern the spirits, one must assess where one’s own biases, experiences, and feelings may be blinding them to the truth. This is a vital distinction when dealing with political movements, policies, and political leaders. The concept of living in a “messy group of people not like us is a politically radical idea. When we read Scripture with the needs and burdens of other people in mind, it changes our perspective.”[19] Empathy allows a person to widen their worldview, unveiling any truths that they previously were blind to or any idols they may be clinging to. Without empathy, one’s own perspective becomes truth. By demonizing diverse political views and empathy, Christians are at risk of quenching the Holy Spirit’s work in their hearts and minds and idolizing politics over faithfulness.

Empathy as Spiritual Formation

As Paul explains in 1 Corinthian 2:14-16, “only those who have the mind of the Lord and share in his Spirit can discern spiritual things […] Thus, it is when human nature and Spirit unite that true discernment takes place.”[20] Though discernment is often about making specific choices or decisions, ultimately, the act of discerning the spirits is a process of spiritual formation:

The truth of the Bible into which the Spirit would lead us does not consist only of matters of fact and bits of information. It includes truth for thought, for life, for feeling. The Spirit is concerned as much with the truth of our walk as the truth of our talk. His interests encompass all these things and to this end he makes full use of the Scriptures’ ability to be opened up.[21]

Discernment ultimately transforms. It is in the practice of discernment that the Holy Spirit works in and through God’s people, making Christians more like Christ. As one’s mind is transformed into Christ’s likeness, the Holy Spirit works to strengthen

the capacity of a person to discriminate degrees of importance among various dimensions of moral significance. [Discernment] brings together spirituality and morality to sift through various inner stirrings or “spirits”––feelings, hungers, attractions, resistances, intuitions, impulses or inclinations––to determine which course of action is most consistent with who a person is and who she or he wants to become in response to God’s call and offer of love.[22]

It is through wrestling with self-reflection, the experiences of others, and the vulnerability of the possibility of being wrong, that one grows. Whether or not someone changes their mind on a particular political issue, their soul will be changed. It will be molded, be it ever so slightly, into the divine image in which it was made. Following a specific political rubric prevents Christians from responding to the Holy Spirit’s call on their life, stifling the ability to seek the flourishing of their neighbors in their local context. Empathetic discernment empowers Christians to live missionally, recognizing where God is leading, where one’s heart is leading, where the spirit of the age is leading and, ultimately, the ability to know how to navigate all of those spirits in love. In a country dominated by political idolatry, “our approach cannot be one that understands Scripture as a set of isolated instructions or moralistic tales.”[23] Our focus should be the transformational love of Christ and what that means for the flourishing of our neighbors. Counter to the belief that empathy is ‘the greatest threat to western civilization’, discerning the means for the flourishing of our neighbors requires listening to them and understanding them. This messy process begins with the acceptance that the right choice may not be clear and requires the slow and often painful process of discernment. The experience of not knowing the right answer or the right candidate to vote for or the right policy to advocate for is in itself spiritual formation. As H.C. Van Zyl explains:

“Not knowing” that one is serving the Son of man highlights the underlying disposition of surrendering to Christ and having faith in God, as well as experiencing the empowering presence of God’s grace and Spirit at work. Only then one is operating on the same wavelength as God and one is in tune with his mind. By reaching out to the needy of the world, one demonstrates one’s life as coram Deo, that one has a relationship with the Son of man, that one is actually doing it for him, even though one is not contemplating it as such.[24]

As the Holy Spirit works within the life of a Christian and as that Christian’s mind is conformed to Christ, discernment becomes a lived-experience of love.[25] As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: 

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, 5 is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. 6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love must be the starting point for discernment and the foundation of one’s political life. A radical love for God and for others “unblock[s] our inner vision so as to see more clearly where and how [God is] working in our lives and, as a consequence, where he intends [on] leading us.”[26] Without empathy, there cannot be love. Christians, empowered by the Holy Spirit and radically transformed by empathy toward God, themselves, and their fellow humans, will: 

reflect the powers of the heavenly fullness in a way that must appear simply incomprehensible, indeed chaotically lively, to those who are wedded to the world’s homogenizing power-codes. Those who have been seized by God’s spirit and who have their orientation in Jesus Christ know that they themselves present an absence of requisite conditions and a lively diversity which, indeed, seems bizarre.[27]

This bizarre state of being, the inability to be labeled by any political party or movement, represents the unified diversity that only the Holy Spirit can inspire. The claim that empathy is toxic when it leads Christians to vote differently quenches the Holy Spirit, preventing Christians from creatively responding to the needs of their communities. With Scripture and community as both guardrails and inspiration, Christians are empowered to respond to the Holy Spirit in dynamic and creative ways, prophetically working within their own specific contexts and living in such a way that “God is glorified in every thing that [they] do.”[28] This holy spontaneity is the by-product of knowing God’s heart, one’s own heart, and the hearts of others and how to respond accordingly.

Conclusion

In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus says: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Loving God and loving one’s neighbor is the mark of the Christian life and requires empathy to achieve. When empathy is deemed sinful and toxic, the second most important commandment is compromised, making spiritual formation impossible. The Church needs the experiences of the full family of God in order to discern the spirits of this age appropriately and be transformed into Christ’s likeness. Ignoring empathy idolizes the experience of the individual and demonizes the experiences of one’s neighbors, encouraging political idolatry and spiritual stagnation. For Christians like Rigney and Stuckey, empathy is sinful when it leads Christians to make the wrong choice. Political discernment cannot be limited to a strict moral framework and determination of a series of right or wrong choices, especially if “wrong” simply means a specific political party. Empathy allows Christians to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the spontaneity the Spirit encourages. Discerning the spirits, when rooted in love for God and neighbor and in the context of community, empowers Christians to live a life of political improvisation: a life ready and willing to submit oneself to the will of God and the flourishing of their neighbor.

Footnotes

[1] Joe Rigney, “The Enticing Sin of Empathy: How Satan Corrupts Through Compassion,” Desiring God, May 31, 2019, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-enticing-sin-of-empathy.
[2]Casey Bond, “Why Some MAGA Christians Are Turning Against Empathy,” HuffPost, October 30, 2024, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/maga-christians-empathy_l_69826fc3e4b0f9ced96f23e5.
[3] Todd A. Salzman, What Are They Saying About Catholic Moral Method? Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2003, 122, as quoted in Dawn M. Nothwehr, “By the Power of the Holy Spirit: Discernment of Spirits and Moral Choice,” New Theology Review 20, no. 1 (February 2007): 22.
[4] Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “empathy,” accessed February 16, 2026, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy.
[5] Clark H. Pinnock, “The Work of the Holy Spirit in Hermeneutics,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 1, no. 2 (1993): 5.
[6] Craig S. Keener, Gift and Giver: The Holy Spirit for Today (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020), 48.
[7] H.C. Van Zyl, “Discernment as ‘Not Knowing’ and ‘Knowing’: A Perspective from Matthew 25:31-46,” Acta Theologica 17 (December 2013): 121.
[8] Keener, Gift and Giver, 40.
[9] John 10:1-5.
[10] Carl S. Sweatman, “The Spirit and the Communal Mind of Christ: Looking Again at 1 Corinthians 2:16,” Stone-Campbell Journal 18, no. 2 (2015): 235.
[11] Frank D. Macchia, “Spirit Baptism and Spiritual Formation: A Pentecostal Proposal,” Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care 1, no. 1 (May 2008): 56.
[12] Macchia, “Spirit Baptism and Spiritual Formation,” 52.
[13] Kaitlyn Schiess, The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor, foreword by Michael Wear (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020), 29.
[14] Anthony Egan, “Conscience, Spirit, Discernment: The Holy Spirit, the Spiritual Exercises and the Formation of Moral Conscience,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, no. 136 (March 2010): 69.
[15] Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes [Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World], December 7, 1965, sec. 16, quoted in Egan, “Conscience, Spirit, Discernment,” 58.
[16]  Egan, “Conscience, Spirit, Discernment,” 64.
[17] Pinnock, “The Work of the Holy Spirit in Hermeneutics,” 17.
[18] Merrie Schoenman Carson, “Stewardship, Discernment, and Congregational Decision Making,” The Covenant Quarterly 71, nos. 3–4 (2013): 83.
[19] Schiess, The Liturgy of Politics, 80.
[20] Van Zyl, “Discernment as ‘Not Knowing’ and ‘Knowing’,” 111.
[21] Pinnock, “The Work of the Holy Spirit in Hermeneutics,” 14.
[22] Nothwehr, “By the Power of the Holy Spirit,” 25.
[23] Schiess, The Liturgy of Politics, 84.
[24] Van Zyl, “Discernment as ‘Not Knowing’ and ‘Knowing’,” 124.
[25] Romans 12:2.
[26] Egan, “Conscience, Spirit, Discernment,” 66.
[27] Michael Welker, “The Holy Spirit,” trans. John Hoffmeyer, Theology Today 46, no. 1 (April 1989): 20.
[28]  Dallas Willard, “Spiritual Formation: What it is, and How it is Done,” Dallas Willard Ministries, accessed February 19, 2026, https://dwillard.org/resources/articles/spiritual-formation-what-it-is-and-how-it-is-done.

Bibliography

Bond, Casey. “Why Some MAGA Christians Are Turning Against Empathy.” HuffPost. October 30, 2024. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/maga-christians-empathy_l_69826fc3e4b0f9ced96f23e5.

Carson, Merrie Schoenman. “Stewardship, Discernment, and Congregational Decision Making.”The Covenant Quarterly 71, nos. 3–4 (2013): 73–95.

Christian Standard Bible. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020.

Egan, Anthony. “Conscience, Spirit, Discernment: The Holy Spirit, the Spiritual Exercises and the Formation of Moral Conscience.” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, no. 136 (March 2010): 61–73.

Keener, Craig S. Gift and Giver: The Holy Spirit for Today. Grand Rapids: MI: Baker Academic, 2020.

Macchia, Frank D. “Spirit Baptism and Spiritual Formation: A Pentecostal Proposal.” Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care 1, no. 1 (May 2008): 14–27.

Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. s.v. “empathy.” Accessed February 16, 2026. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy.

Nothwehr, Dawn M. “By the Power of the Holy Spirit: Discernment of Spirits and Moral Choice.” New Theology Review 20, no. 1 (February 2007): 18–27.

Pinnock, Clark H. “The Work of the Holy Spirit in Hermeneutics.” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 1, no. 2 (1993): 3–23

Rigney, Joe. “The Enticing Sin of Empathy: How Satan Corrupts Through Compassion.” Desiring God. May 31, 2019. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-enticing-sin-of-empathy.

Schiess, Kaitlyn. The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor. With Michael Wear. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2020.

Sweatman, Carl S. “The Spirit and the Communal Mind of Christ: Looking Again at 1 Corinthians 2:16.” Stone-Campbell Journal 18, no. 2 (2015): 223–39.

Van Zyl, H C. (Hermias Cornelius). “Discernment as ‘Not Knowing’ and ‘Knowing’: A Perspective from Matthew 25:31-46.” Acta Theologica 17 (December 2013): 110–31.

Welker, Michael. “The Holy Spirit.” Translated by John Hoffmeyer. Theology Today 46, no. 1 (April 1989): 5–20.

Willard, Dallas. “Spiritual Formation: What it is, and How it is Done.” Dallas Willard Ministries. Accessed February 19, 2026. https://dwillard.org/resources/articles/spiritual-formation-what-it-is-and-how-it-is-done.