Against "Toxic Empathy" in the American Church ft. Allie Beth Stuckey
Christians are all told to embrace love and compassion — but the left has learned to exploit these two impulses to create something evil. Allie Beth Stuckey joins Charlie to explain how the language of "toxic empathy" gives way to defunding police, critical race theory, BLM riots, child mutilation, and worse. If Christians can't learn to distinguish real love from mere empathy, Allie explains, they will continue to be exploited and defeated by the left. Check out Stuckey's new book at https://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Empathy-Progressives-Christian-Compassion/dp/0593541944 Become a member at members.charliekirk.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hey everybody, here on the Charlie Kirk Show, Toxic Empathy.
Wonderful conversation with Allie B. Stuckey, all about how the church needs to understand where empathy has its limits and how it can actually do a lot of damage.
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Joining us now is one of the brightest and most important thinkers in the, you could call it the Christian movement, but Christian conservative, especially from a female perspective.
Her new book perfectly addresses one of my Biggest passion issues that I haven't been able to summarize in a way that makes sense to myself yet, which is how the left and progressives are able to exploit Christian compassion.
And guess what?
That's the name of her book, literally.
I think this is so important.
This is how they're able to talk about open borders and all this.
It's corrupted empathy is what it is at its core.
But the book is actually called Toxic Empathy, How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion by Allie Beth Stuck.
You have known Allie for a long time.
She's a tremendous person.
Allie, welcome back to the program.
Thank you so much, Charlie.
Glad to be here.
Allie, tell us about your book, Toxic Empathy.
Yes, toxic empathy, how progressives exploit Christian compassion.
It's exactly what you just described.
And I see it particularly from a female perspective and really started thinking about this mostly in 2020 after the George Floyd riots.
And of course, in the midst of COVID, it's an election year.
It was a confluence of a lot of things going on.
and I was just so disheartened by the evangelicals, the Christian leaders, the pastors, the Bible study leaders, male and female, who were not only imbibing but just regurgitating this nonsense about Black Lives Matter, about riots being the voice of the unheard, systemic racism, how white people just need to listen and learn. I mean, it was all the secular progressive nonsense, but it was being said in a way that appealed to Christians
using kind of Christian language.
And I actually...
I was speaking to a woman about this, an influential Christian woman, and I was trying to get her to understand like there's a dark underbelly to this stuff.
I know you just want to be nice.
And I was told over and over again by many influential Christian women that you just need to have empathy.
That sometimes it doesn't matter what's true.
Sometimes the facts, the data, the statistics don't really matter.
You just need to have empathy for someone's story.
And then the assumption was not only that I would feel badly for them, but that I would agree with them, that I would affirm this defunding the police movement, that I would agree that systemic racism is a plague, that I would agree that I have white fragility and all this stuff.
And that's when I started to realize that this Empathy, feeling how someone feels.
While it could lead you in a good direction, and we can talk about that, it can also lead you to make really not just stupid decisions because you're trying to affirm someone's pain, but really destructive, harmful decisions.
And of course, the defunding the police, the social justice movement that we saw in 2020 did exactly that.
So that's where this got started, and that's why I wrote this book.
I have so many questions, and I just want everyone to understand one of the reasons why the American church is no longer acting like the church and instead like an Eat, Pray, Love book club is because of weaponized empathy, is because we don't understand the root of this word, and we think it's a core Christian thing.
Principle and virtue.
So let's get to the actual word here, Ali.
Where does this word come from?
Is it biblical?
Is it in the Koine Greek or Hebrew?
This word empathos or empathy, which means through feeling or emotion.
Do we find this word?
And if not, where does this word come from?
The only place that we see this word in scripture, it's in the NIV translation, which is not my preferred translation.
I'm not saying it's always bad, but it's a thought-for-thought translation rather than a word-for-word translation like the ESV. So it's a little bit less exact in its translation, but you can see this word empathy in And the Hebrews verse that says, we serve a high priest who empathizes with our weaknesses.
Jesus was as we are, yet was without sin.
And there is some beauty in that, that Jesus, that God became flesh.
He dwelt among us.
He understands much of the human struggle, even temptation against sin and yet was without sin.
But usually we see the word sympathy, which is a little bit different.
You can feel pity or feel badly for someone without putting yourself in their shoes, putting yourself in someone's shoes.
It may lead you to love.
It may lead you to kindness, but it may also lead you to affirm their delusions.
For example, if you feel the pain that someone feels who says, say it's a man who says that he's trapped in the wrong body and you feel his distress, you feel his purported confusion, he will lead you to the conclusion that you not only have to affirm his stated identity, but you have to get on board with every policy that he says makes him feel good, makes him feel better, alleviates his pain.
That's what we see in the whole emotional manipulation tactic That parents are put through when their child comes out as quote-unquote trans.
Would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter?
Which means if you don't allow your child to transition, they'll commit suicide.
That's what toxic empathy looks like.
You feel so much of what that person feels that you're actually blinded to reality and morality.
And of course, that's not what Christians are called to and we can get into that more specifically.
I want to.
And it begs also saying, Ali, and again, we have a full hour to discuss this, so we'll kind of weave and go back and forth.
This tends to be a word that is used more by the women of the church than the men of the church.
Why is that?
Yeah, you know, I heard so much in the 2020 election, people justifying voting for Joe Biden by saying, I'm being led by empathy.
And that also sounded the alarm for me.
And you're right, it was mostly women, not exclusively women.
The men that I heard it from were very feminine men, though, so that really shouldn't surprise us.
But it's because women have this natural good propensity towards feeling others better.
We have this, I think, bigger compassion muscle than most men do.
God made us like that.
I do think we tend to be more emotional, and I don't even mean that in a pejorative sense.
It's just true.
We are more emotional.
We're meant to be.
We're meant to feel the other feelings of people a little bit more strongly than men are.
That's one of the beautiful complementary characteristics that men and women have together.
We are natural nurturers.
We're natural nurturers.
Mothers.
And actually, I think that this empathy piece in guiding women's politics is misplaced mothering.
As we have seen, there is a change happening in when women get married, when women have children, and many of them insist, especially those who hate J.D. Vance and all of that, they insist that they are so happy to Being child-free, that they're completely fulfilled by their jobs and travel.
But really, that instinct that women have to mother, it doesn't go away.
It's just directed in a new direction.
So you're mothering your job, you're mothering your dog, you're mothering yourself, or you're mothering these hoisted up victims that the media tells you need your help and need your defense.
So a woman can feel really good about voting for social justice when she's told that this poor Black person, this victim of police brutality, is being helped and nurtured by your vote for voting Democrat.
This poor woman who is pregnant and needs an abortion.
You are helping indirectly mother her, mentor her, We're good to go.
I'm so defensive of my children in a very real physical way, like a mother bear kind of way, that if there was a threat toward them, I would shut down the critical thinking part of my brain and I would do whatever it takes to defend them.
Well, I think this misplaced mothering has kind of a similar way that it plays out in our politics.
So smart, Ali.
The book is Toxic Empathy.
I encourage all of you to get it, especially those of you that are in churches that have, let's just say, influences where you keep on hearing about empathy and that word.
You need to read this and you need to challenge anybody in senior leadership of your church to read it as well.
I want to be careful saying this, but I'm going to say it as precisely as I can.
Toxic empathy can be used as an unclean spirit to destabilize the church.
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So, Ali, what is this doing to the church, to the condition and the health of the Bride of Christ, this movement of empathy, as you call it, toxic empathy?
Well, toxic empathy can lead to an obsession with people-pleasing.
You put people on a pedestal and you care more about their offense and their feelings, their anger, their outrage than you care about shepherding your flock or being faithful to God.
It means if you're led by empathy, then you are going to avoid the parts of the Bible that you are afraid will make some people mad, will hurt some people's feelings.
I think that's what we see a lot in the church today.
And really, they kind of Cover up that cowardice by saying, well, I just don't want to get divisive.
I don't want to get political.
I'm just preaching the Word of God.
Well, look, I mean, politics has become theological.
So if you are preaching through the Bible, actually, if you just get to the first few verses of the Bible, Genesis 127, you're going to talk about things that are political, that God made us male and female right there.
We've got the definition of gender and the definition of marriage to culture work questions, and that we were made in God's image.
Another culture work question, meaning that we are innately valuable and shouldn't be killed inside the womb.
So we've got abortion, gender and marriage all in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible.
So if a pastor is simply being faithful to that, not even talking about what's going on in the news, not endorsing a candidate.
If you are just preaching the word of God, you're going to get to these big political questions.
You're going to make people mad.
A lot of pastors think that they are entitled to better treatment than Jesus.
A lot of pastors think that they are entitled to a nicer response than Stephen.
Stephen shared the gospel.
He was full of grace and truth.
Jesus, full of grace and power.
And yet, of course, Jesus was crucified.
They chose a thief over him.
Stephen was stoned to death simply for sharing the gospel.
Pastors sometimes judge their effectiveness by people's response to them.
Judge your effectiveness by your faithfulness to the word of God.
If you preach the word of God, you're gonna get to these big culture war political questions.
But Ali, I thought it was about bigger churches and nicer sneakers and more book sales.
That seems to be the new church.
And you're really kind of getting down to the fundamental issue here, which is the incentive structure of who we call pastors or shepherds is completely perverted.
And so let me just play devil's advocate, of which I don't believe any of this, because I think, again, it is more of a feminine type.
I don't mean this, don't be negative, it's just a more talking point.
Allie, but don't you care?
We're supposed to cry with the poor, and we're supposed to lament and weep with the widow, and we're supposed to go be alongside those who yearn for justice.
There's a verse in Romans, there's a verse in Haggai, there's a verse in Nehemiah that all kind of relate to this.
And then someone will say, but Allie, wouldn't it be a good thing if we empathize more?
What is the worst thing that could come out of somebody who is feeling the pain of the downtrodden?
Yeah, no, that's a really good question, and I'm glad you asked it like that, because there are probably listeners wondering.
And I think it comes down to a mistaken conflation of love and empathy.
We are called to mourn with those who mourn, rejoice with those who rejoice.
Taking care of the poor and the fatherless, the orphan, the widow, is one of the things that the church does best.
And I certainly don't think we should stop that.
I make the argument all the time that from the...
Pagan Roman era to today, Christians have always created a refuge for the most vulnerable, namely for children.
We changed how the world saw children by universalizing the concept of the Imago Dei by telling everyone they're equally dead and sin apart from Christ and can be made alive in Christ by grace through faith.
That radicalized how the world changed how the world saw human beings, how the world saw women and children.
That's what the church does best.
But that is love.
And love, as we read in 1 Corinthians 13, 6, never rejoices in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
So God is love, 1 John 4, 8.
That means he alone gets to say what it is.
And one of the qualifications of love, according to the God who is love, It is inextricably intertwined with the truth.
So we can empathize with someone, the poor, the downtrodden, the orphan, but empathy becomes toxic.
Empathy for anyone becomes toxic when it leads us to agreeing with sin, when it leads us to affirming a lie.
When it leads us to make decisions that are ultimately harmful, not just for that person, but for society as a whole.
So our empathy for someone, for example, a woman who feels like she's desperate and she needs an abortion, we can feel her pain and think, wow, that is so...
Hard.
But if we do what the media wants us to do, what left-wing activists want to do, we allow our empathy to lead us to affirming this choice of abortion, well, then we've forgotten about the other human being on the other side of this equation, and that's the baby.
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Toxic empathy, how progressives exploit Christian compassion.
So I want to get to a part of this in the political space, Ali.
Wouldn't this explain then how a non-disciplined, a Christian not rooted in scripture could fall for open borders, mass amnesty, the abortion lies, because they know they're supposed to be compassionate, and then progressives weaponize the compassion towards their sinister worldview.
Can you help build that out for us?
Yes, and they typically do so by taking verses out of context.
So you mentioned illegal immigration.
They might point to, well, in the Old Testament, Israel is called to love the sojourner because they were sojourners, or Jesus says to love the least of these, and therefore we have to be for Open borders.
Now, if you ask them what they mean by open borders, or if you ask them what they meant by immigration policy, they wouldn't be able to tell you.
Usually they say they're not for open borders, but when it gets down to it, they don't believe in any border enforcement.
And they do this in the name of empathy.
And there's a great example of this in my book where we tell this story and we tell it from the left-wing perspective to try to get people to see what this looks like.
The Washington Post reported about Maribel Diaz And she was a mom who fled gang violence in Mexico.
She built a life in Fairfield, Ohio.
She was there illegally and then she was deported by Donald Trump.
She was separated from her family.
And of course, the Washington Post at the end of it wants us to exclusively feel for her and then to conclude that deportation is always wrong.
That it's racist and that we shouldn't basically have any border enforcement.
But then we show the flip side of that.
Who's on the other side of the illegal immigration equation?
It's Kate Steinle.
And we tell her story from an equally heart-rending perspective.
And we show people, look, on every single topic, there are people who demand our compassion, who demand our empathy.
The question really isn't who gets...
In our feelings the most.
Our question is, what is true?
What is factually true?
Most importantly, what is biblically true?
And that's what I lay out in the book.
So I want to now get to some examples here.
So the church currently, most pastors say, oh, there's nothing wrong with this.
But this is an example of toxic empathy.
This is Kamala Harris when she was running for president bragging about giving prisoners taxpayer-funded transgender sex changes.
Because if you have empathy, then you must empathize with the murderer, the killer, and then give them what they want.
This is a perfect example of toxic empathy.
Playcut 57.
When I was Attorney General, I learned that the California Department of Corrections, which was a client of mine I didn't get to choose my clients.
A client of the Attorney General.
A client of the Attorney General, of the Office of Attorney General.
That they were standing in the way of surgery.
For prisoners.
For prisoners.
And there was a specific case.
And when I learned about the case, I worked behind the scenes to not only make sure that that transgender woman got the services she was deserving.
So it wasn't only about that case.
I made sure that they changed the policy in the state of California.
So that every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access to the medical care that they desired and need.
And I believe it was not only, I know it was historic in California, but I believe actually it may have been one of the first, if not the first in the country, where I pushed for that policy in a department of corrections.
Ali, is that not a perfect example of toxic empathy?
Yep, that's what toxic empathy does.
It makes you feel so much for one purported victim, quote-unquote, that you forget about everyone else.
Obviously, Kamala Harris, I mean, you could say she has empathy for this person, or you could say she's just cynical, but...
She has decided a policy based on this toxic empathy at the expense of the other people on the other side, which of course are the women.
These are women who are now being forced into cells with fully intact males who are raping them and impregnating them.
These are some of the most vulnerable women in the world.
They typically have a history of sexual abuse themselves.
This is the party that says they care for women.
Remember, when Democrats say they care for women, they're only talking about abortion.
They're not talking about other rights.
They're not talking about other protections.
In the same way that when Democrats talk about freedom, they're only talking about abortion and sexual immorality.
This is another great example of that.
And they use empathy, how you feel for someone's pain, in order to get you to latch on to really destructive and evil policies like this one.
That's perfectly said.
I want to now get to this tweet.
I know that you responded to it from a guy by the name of Raymond Ortland.
He is the former founding pastor of Emanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee, who issued one of the more foolish tweets I've ever seen from a pastor.
I know you're not supposed to call somebody a fool.
There's kind of a lot of ramifications to that.
It's a verse out of Matthew, but I'm sorry, this warrants it.
He tweeted, quote, never Trump, this time Harris, always Jesus.
Ali, you respond to this on your YouTube channel.
How should we think about this?
Yeah, this doesn't really surprise me from Ray Ortlund.
Unfortunately, he's got people like Russell Moore who are on staff with his church, but it is demoralizing because this is not a church in Nashville that's like waving the pride flag that everyone would look at and say, okay, that's not even a real church.
No, these are people who probably consider themselves conservative Christians, probably agree with us on 99% of theological issues, and yet, if you saw a lot of what he posted during the BLM George Floyd era, he clearly has been duped by this toxic empathy, which has made him believe that the truth doesn't matter, that facts don't matter, and has deluded people into thinking that Harris is somehow a better moral choice.
I've heard pastors say, Well-meaning, maybe, pastors say, well, yeah, some of the policies on the Democrat side, we know they're demonic, we know they're bad, but Trump's personal character is really bad, as if Kamala Harris's character isn't worse.
And policies last a lot longer than someone's personality or personal mistakes.
There are a lot more consequences to that.
And so this is the thing about toxic empathy is that it not only makes you wrong, but it can make you very, as you said, foolish.
It can make you very stupid.
And Christians aren't called to be stupid.
No, we are called to be, what is it, gentle as doves and wise as serpents, if I'm not mistaken.
Innocent as doves, yeah.
Innocent as doves, thank you.
So help me understand how I can properly communicate, because I think there's a communication barrier at times when I'm in the church.
When there is someone who is so convinced that Christianity is affirmation, not truth, how do we break through that?
It seems to be that is the tension here.
Because they say, for example, I don't want to judge.
And in judging, you must then tell somebody that you're not as good or you point out flaws.
Help me navigate that.
Yeah, you know, I have been speaking to a lot of pro-life pregnancy centers and a lot of pro-life organizations, a lot of churches, a lot of Christian women, and this is an idea they have, that even if they personally believe, for example, that marriage is between a man and a woman, that they are obligated to not say that. That actually love compels them to stay silent.
And really, when you look at the history of the church, when you look at pagan Rome, it looks a lot like what America does today. There was a lot of gender confusion. There was sexual immorality and fantasy and abortion were widespread practices.
This changed over the decades and centuries because of the persistence of Christians who, against real persecution, against martyrdom, against the tyranny of dictators like Nero, said, no, actually, the child sacrifice is going to end.
Actually, marriage is between one man and one woman.
Actually, all people, even poor people, they matter.
They spoke against these powerful, deadly ideologies of the day, even to their peril.
That is who the church has always been.
It's not about garnering our own political power.
It's about creating a refuge for the most vulnerable.
It is about the liberty to share the gospel.
We've got a woman, Beverly Williams, who was just sentenced to three and a half years in prison by the Biden administration because of unlawful assembly.
she protested outside of a pro-life or outside of an abortion clinic.
That's who the church has always been.
And we have a responsibility to stand up against the regimes that are exacerbating and enabling evil.
That's what Christians have always done.
It's not about getting political.
It's about being a Christian.
It's about taking the baton that has been passed to us by the martyrs, by the brave Christians who have stood in the stead of children and the most vulnerable for thousands of years.
I think once you realize that, that that is the history of the church, that's the call of the Christian, and you get courage from the fact that that is our calling and that Jesus wins in the end, we can kind of forget about this silly, superficial, toxic empathy stuff, our fear of man, and just have courage to go forward.
I think that's so smart.
And I want you to repeat this point, Alec, because people come in and out of these broadcasts.
At the core of empathy is trying to please man, not God.
Is that I want to affirm the human being, not what God wants?
Is that a fair summary at its core?
At the core of toxic empathy, yes, it is about pleasing man, doing what's easy.
And empathy is actually a very cheap replacement for virtue.
It's a very cheap replacement for love, which is inextricably intertwined with the truth.
With love comes actual responsibility.
Empathy just allows you to feel a certain way.
That's not necessarily what Christians are called to.
We're called to something more, something bigger, something more thoughtful, something wiser, and something a lot stronger than toxic empathy.
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The book is Toxic Empathy by Ali Beth Stuckey, one of the most important voices in Christianity today.
So Ali, I've been very disappointed by just the growing number of pastors that do not have moral clarity.
And if you were to get them privately, it comes down to, well, they don't want to say anything that might drive people away from the church, which is just a bunch of BS. They're really saying that they don't want to offend people and they don't want to tell the truth.
Can you help explain that?
Because at the core, and I know that you're saying this, you've said this all hour, which is we must submit to God's definition of love, goodness and justice.
We must submit to what we know is truth.
We should not submit to human approval.
Why is this so difficult for pastors to understand?
Yeah, you're exactly right.
And actually, I would just clarify a little bit that most of them aren't just afraid of what people think.
And I think I've even said that in this interview.
But when I really think about it, most of them care what liberals think.
It's not really that they're that afraid of offending conservatives.
They're not really that afraid of offending pro-lifers.
They're certainly not afraid of offending Trump supporters.
Most of them are really afraid of offending their friend who believes in Black Lives Matter.
Offending their friend who is nuanced on abortion.
Offending their friends at the New York Times.
Offending their friends who are on the left side of the aisle.
That's whose approval they're really going for because it feels good to be praised by the world.
It feels good to be told, oh, you're different than those dumb MAGA evangelicals.
You're above the fray.
This whole, like, after-party organization that claims to be outside of party politics that really is encouraging a lot of Christians to be dumb in their politics and to be progressive in their values is a great example of that.
They actually think their compromise, their fence-riding, is a sign of righteousness and a sign of maturity when really I think it's more just about pleasing people, as you said, and not pleasing God.
And that's so tragic.
And Ali, now also do the rank and file, those of us that go to churches, we have a role.
If your pastor is not doing the right thing, it doesn't matter if the music is good or the parking is organized or, you know, the coffee is tasty, you have to demand more out of your shepherds than just vibes and a TED talk.
Is that correct, Ali?
Yes, gosh, congregations are, they want clarity so much.
And you might lose some people because of clarity, but you are going to give more people and more congregants courage and encouragement through your clarity.
I know that you just had Pastor Johnny on from, I think it's Franklin, Tennessee, and he is amazing in his giving clarity to his congregation about the reality of the policies set before us, of the evil that is set before us.
Because look, pastors, if you are not discipling your congregants when it comes to these issues, someone else will.
The The world is happy to disciple the people in your church.
And so they will turn to TikTok.
They'll turn to podcasts.
Hopefully it's a good one.
They'll turn to their friends.
They'll turn to the media to answer the questions specifically about things like abortion or gender or marriage.
I think a lot of pastors think, well, if I just kind of preach through the Bible but avoid some of the controversial spots, then my congregation will be able to somehow deduce and piece together their worldview.
That's not what's happening.
They're turning to social media to tell them what's true.
And if that worries you as a pastor, then you need to offer them the clarity they're seeking.
Allie, thank you for spending time with us this hour.
Really important.
And I hope everyone understands the issue at hand.
Toxic empathy.
Allie, thank you so much.
Thank you so much, Charlie.
Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.
Listen carefully, everybody.
Right now, there is a surge of early voting that is happening unlike anything you've ever seen.
We are breaking records in Georgia.
We are seeing long lines in Chattanooga, long lines in Mojave County, Arizona, long lines across the country in in-person early voting.
We are seeing conservatives, Republicans, turn in mail-in ballots.
Go chase the ballots, everybody.
I want to repeat something that we have been saying.
I do not care that Donald Trump is up in the betting markets.
I don't care about the polls.
I don't care about vibes.
I care about how many ballots are in the box.
That is all I care about.
And that's all you should care about.
The time for poll watching is over.
Polls are for firefighters and strippers.
What is helpful is whether or not you get ballots in boxes.
