'Fundamental weakness': Why evangelical Trump supporters claim 'empathy is a sin'
21 August
Allie Beth Stuckey at the 2025 Young Women's Leadership Summit in Grapevine, Texas on June 14, 2025 (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
The word "empathy" usually has a positive connotation. But during an interview with vodcast host Joe Rogan in February, Tesla/SpaceX/X.com head Elon Musk railed against "suicidal empathy" and declared, "The fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit."
Musk's critics were quick to pounce, arguing that his disdain for "empathy" underscores the lack of compassion that plagues the far right and President Donald Trump's MAGA movement.
Musk, however, isn't the only one who claims that "empathy" is a bad thing.
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In an article published on August 21, Associated Press (AP) reporter Tiffany Stanley takes a look at far-right white evangelical Christian fundamentalists who "are preaching that" empathy "has become a vice."
Allie Beth Stuckey, author of the 2024 book "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion" and host of the podcast "Relatable," told AP, "Empathy becomes toxic when it encourages you to affirm sin, validate lies or support destructive policies."
Another anti-empathy book is evangelical pastor Joe Rigney's "The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits."
According to Stanley, the "anti-empathy arguments" coming from Stuckey, Rigney and others "gained traction in the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term."
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But not all Christians are buying into the anti-empathy arguments coming from white evangelicals and MAGA Republicans.
Historian Susan Lanzoni, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told AP that empathy is "the whole message of Jesus."
The Rev. Canon Dana Colley Corsello of the Washington National Cathedral takes issue with the evangelical anti-empathy trend as well.
Corsello told AP, "Empathy is at the heart of Jesus’ life and ministry…. It’s so troubling that this is even up for debate."
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Read Tiffany Stanley'sfull Associated Press article at this link.