A growing number of Christian thinkers are sounding the alarm about how worldly empathy is reshaping the church—and not for the better.
Among them are Joe Rigney and Allie Beth Stuckey, both of whom have recently addressed this theme in detail. In Leadership and Emotional Sabotage: Resisting the Anxiety That Will Wreck Your Family, Destroy Your Church, and Ruin the World, Rigney explores how anxiety and emotional manipulation undermine Christian leadership. His follow-up, The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits, presses deeper into the idea that empathy—defined as fully identifying with another’s emotional state, be it valid or invalid—can cloud judgment and lead to moral compromise.
Allie Beth Stuckey’s Toxic Empathy: Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion echoes many of the same concerns. She warns that progressive ideologies have hijacked biblical compassion, weaponizing feelings to manipulate believers into affirming unbiblical values. Her cause for concern isn’t true Christian love but a counterfeit compassion that elevates emotion above truth.
Biblical Compassion vs. Worldly Empathy
To understand the difference, consider a metaphor: Imagine someone trapped in a pit of emotional despair. (This is the metaphor popular thinker Brené Brown uses in a well-known talk on empathy.) Biblical compassion and sympathy allow one foot to remain grounded in truth while reaching down with the other to lift the person out into the light. Worldly empathy, however, dives in with both feet, abandoning discernment in an attempt to fully feel what the other feels. This may seem noble, but it can easily lead to compromise. Not all feelings are legitimate or righteous; we are called to mortify the passions and desires of the flesh, not always to validate them (Galatians 5:24).
This distinction is crucial as we consider how we approach missions.
What Motivates Our Mission?
Think about the last time you heard a call for global missions, evangelism, or reaching the unreached. What was the motive laid before you? Most likely, it was an appeal to compassion for the lost, sympathy for the hurting, or empathy for those who haven’t heard. These kinds of appeals are not only valid but necessary. Christ himself wept over Jerusalem, saying he longed to gather her children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings (Luke 13:34). Paul similarly longed for the salvation of his fellow Israelites, declaring, “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1). And notably, it is ultimately his lack of compassion for the lost that disqualifies the prophet Jonah.
Yet when we look at the pattern of Scripture, empathy is rarely the sufficient cause motivating believers to proclaim. More often, the motive given is the glory of God. Isaiah 52:7 declares, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news . . . who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’” The gospel is a royal announcement—the proclamation that God reigns in Christ. The good news is not first and foremost good news about us; it is good news about God: who he is, what he has done in redemption, and how his reign is being made known in the world. This is news so good, so glorious, that it demands to be told—not only because it saves sinners (though it does) but also because it magnifies the God whose glory is its very substance.
Isaiah’s Example
We see this clearly in the calling of the prophet Isaiah. In Isaiah 6, after seeing a vision of the glory of the Lord seated on his throne, high and lifted up, Isaiah responds, “Here I am! Send me.” But the mission he receives is sobering. God says to him, “Go, and say to this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes” (Isaiah 6:9–10). When Isaiah asks how long he is to continue this ministry, the Lord replies, “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste” (Isaiah 6:11).
Isaiah was not sent so that his audience would respond with repentance—he was sent with a message that, in God’s sovereign design, would harden hearts. Yet he went. Why? Because he had seen the glory of God. As John 12:41 affirms, Isaiah said these things “because he saw his glory and spoke of him”—that is, of Christ. If Isaiah’s motive had been rooted only in compassion or the hope of immediate fruit, he would not have endured. But his eyes were fixed on the glory of God in Christ, and that was enough.
Compassion is necessary. But it is not solely sufficient. Only the glory of God is a sufficient and enduring motive for mission.
The Word Goes Forth—Always
God’s Word always accomplishes its purpose (Isaiah 55:11). Sometimes it softens hearts unto salvation; other times it hardens them, bringing judgment. Paul unpacks this tension in Romans 9–11. Either way, God is glorified—because the proclamation of his Word exalts his sovereign purposes.
Compassion and sympathy, rightly understood, are essential for any gospel minister. But they must be guided by the truth. Unlike worldly empathy, which urges us to feel whatever others feel without discernment, biblical love holds fast to what is good (Romans 12:9). Voices like Rigney and Stuckey remind us that Christians are not called to ape the emotions of sinners but to love them with wisdom and truth.
Whose Feelings Should We Share?
If empathy means feeling what someone else feels, then let’s ask: Whose feelings should shape our hearts first?
Before we immerse ourselves in the emotional state of the lost, we must first understand the affections of God—what he loves, what he hates, what grieves him, and what brings him glory. Only when we align our affections with God’s own can we show true, biblical compassion. Then—and only then—will we be equipped to go, to speak, and to endure.
The lasting, God-honoring motivation for missions is not found in fluctuating emotions but in the steadfast glory of God. His reign is real. His Word must be heard. And he is worthy.
