STORY OF THE WEEK: Why “The Sin of Empathy” is a Toxic “Christian” Belief

The Dangerous Belief That Feeling Too Much For Others is a Sin

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My first-ever funeral was for a father who died by suicide on Father’s Day.

No note.

No warning.

Just gone.

His sons found him that morning.

I was called to the family home — an outsider to their grief, a stranger in their pain. And when I walked through that door, I stepped into something I wasn’t sure I was ready for.

The grief wasn’t neat or polite in that room. It wasn’t a hushed conversation over a cup of tea. It was raw and messy — very messy. One moment, someone was weeping. The next, they were shouting, sitting in stunned silence, or demanding answers no one could give.

They didn’t need a sermon. They didn’t need a theological lecture on suffering. They needed someone who wouldn’t look away. Someone who wouldn’t try to smooth over the pain with easy answers. Someone willing to just be there.

And so I sat with them. Listened. Said almost nothing — because, honestly, what could I say? And at some point, I realized something:

It was a privilege to be there.

Henri Nouwen once wrote, “Those who can sit with their fellow man, not knowing what to say but knowing they should be there, can bring new life into a dying heart, and witness the birth of a new fellowship — the fellowship of the broken.”

That funeral changed me. It taught me that presence matters more than words. That there’s something sacred about sitting in another person’s pain without trying to fix it. That real love isn’t afraid to feel.

That’s empathy. And it’s one of the most Christlike things we can offer. But apparently, some Christian leaders think that kind of empathy is a sin.

Yes, you read that right. Some Christians now believe that empathy is dangerous.

The Sin of Empathy

More and more, I’m starting to hear certain corners of the Christian world warning against what they call the sin of empathy. The argument goes something like this: Empathy, unlike compassion, is dangerous because it immerses us too much in another person’s pain. It blurs the line between right and wrong. It makes us vulnerable to moral compromise. It leads us to feel with people instead of correcting them.

It’s not just an abstract theological debate anymore — it’s being weaponized in real-time.

Take Bishop Mariann Budde, for example. Recently, she became the latest target of this so-called “sin” after calling on Donald Trump to extend mercy and justice to marginalized communities. Instead of engaging with her actual argument, critics accused her of untethered empathy — as if caring too deeply for the oppressed is the real problem in the world.

This isn’t new, of course.

The idea that “too much” compassion is dangerous has been around for a while. But in recent years, it has gained more traction in certain Christian circles, particularly among those who view faith as primarily about defending truth rather than embodying love.

If we show empathy to the LGBTQ community, then, according to this logic, we risk “endorsing sin.” If we grieve with refugees torn from their homes, we’re being manipulated by their suffering. If we acknowledge the pain of racial injustice, we’re compromising biblical truth in favor of a “woke” agenda.

Joe Rigney, a theologian associated with Desiring God, has been one of the loudest voices pushing this idea. He’s written entire essays framing empathy as a deception — something the devil himself might use to lure people away from God’s truth. He argues that true Christian love keeps its distance, stays tethered to “objective truth,” and doesn’t let emotions cloud judgment.

According to Rigney, compassion is good because it allows you to care while maintaining control. Empathy, however, is dangerous because it involves stepping into another person’s experience so deeply that you risk losing perspective.

But this isn’t just about perspective. It’s about purity.

Under Rigney’s logic, the real danger of empathy isn’t just that it clouds judgment — it’s that it might lead us to feel too much for the wrong people. That if we sit too long with the grieving, the suffering, the broken, we might start to understand them. And if we understand them, we might start to care about their pain in a way that disrupts our theology.

That’s the fear.

Not just that we’ll lose perspective but that we’ll lose the ability to make clean black-and-white moral distinctions. That suffering will no longer look like a consequence of sin but something we’re actually called to enter into. That the people we once saw as outsiders — sinners, rebels, the unrepentant — will start looking a lot like neighbors.

And once you see someone as a neighbor, condemnation becomes much harder.

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What Should I Have Done Instead?

By Rigney’s standards, my response at that funeral was all wrong.

I shouldn’t have simply been there in the grief. I shouldn’t have sat in silence without offering a correction. I shouldn’t have absorbed the weight of their sorrow without at least reminding them of what they were supposed to believe.

Instead, I should have kept my distance — emotionally, if not physically. I should have made sure my grief didn’t mirror theirs too closely, lest I be drawn into their despair.

Maybe I should have reminded them that suicide is a sin… supposedly (though I don’t believe that for a second). That their father had made a terrible, irreversible choice. That God’s ways are higher, that suffering is part of the fallen world, that all we can do is trust in God’s justice and move on.

Maybe, in Rigney’s world, the real tragedy that day wasn’t that a man had taken his own life. Maybe the real tragedy would have been me sitting too long with his family and allowing their grief to be real without trying to fix it. Because under this view, the greatest danger isn’t suffering.

It’s feeling too much for the wrong people in the wrong way.

Jesus and the “Wrong” Kind of People

This is why empathy has become so threatening to certain Christian leaders. It’s not just about the risk of losing the truth — it’s about the fear of endorsing sin.

Because if I could sit with that grieving family, if I could feel the weight of their pain without standing at a moral distance, then what does that mean for everything else?

If I sit in silence with a gay teenager who has been rejected by his Christian parents and truly feel his pain, am I affirming his identity? If I listen to a woman who had an abortion and grieve with her instead of immediately correcting her, am I condoning her choice? If I acknowledge the trauma of a Black man who has suffered racial injustice, am I buying into critical race theory?

For some, these are dangerous questions. Because once you allow yourself to enter another person’s suffering, judgment doesn’t come as easily. Once you truly see someone, condemnation becomes harder to justify.

And that’s what made Jesus so scandalous.

When he let a sinful woman pour expensive perfume on his feet and wipe them with her hair, the Pharisees were appalled. If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is — that she is a sinner (Luke 7:39).

When he healed a man on the Sabbath, they accused him of violating God’s law. When he dined with tax collectors, they called him a glutton and a drunkard. When he saved the life of a woman caught in adultery, they saw it as moral compromise.

At every turn, the religious leaders of Jesus’ day were terrified that his kindness looked too much like approval. In fact, these kinds of “crimes” led Jesus all the way to the cross. Jesus was too empathetic. They were afraid he was endorsing sin.

And that’s exactly what’s happening in the modern argument against empathy.

The fear is not that empathy might lead to confusion about what’s apparently right and wrong. It’s that if we feel too much for someone, we might stop seeing them as a sinner first and a person second. We might start to see their suffering as real before we see it as deserved.

And for some people, that is simply unacceptable.

The Real Sin Isn’t Empathy — It’s Hardness of Heart

Jesus never warned against the sin of empathy. But he did warn against the sin of hardness of heart.

In the Gospels, the people most resistant to his message weren’t the sinners — it was the religious leaders who couldn’t stand how much grace he extended to the undeserving. They couldn’t handle how recklessly empathetic he was.

They saw him eating with tax collectors and prostitutes and called him a friend of sinners (Luke 7:34). They saw him heal a man on the Sabbath and were furious (Luke 6:10–11). They saw him extend forgiveness to a sinful woman and grumbled among themselves (Luke 7:49).

Because to them, empathy looked like moral compromise. It looked like an endorsement of sin.

But Jesus wasn’t afraid of that accusation. He knew that love was costly. He knew that truly seeing someone in their pain often made the self-righteous uncomfortable. And he knew that a religion built on purity and certainty, instead of love and grace, would never reflect the heart of God.

So if empathy is a sin, then Jesus himself was guilty of it.

But, of course, it’s not.

Because when you strip empathy out of faith, what’s left? A religion that justifies cruelty in the name of truth. A religion that prefers certainty over kindness. A religion that sees suffering and asks, What did they do to deserve it? instead of How can I help?

And that isn’t Christianity.