Should Christians Be Concerned about 'Toxic Empathy'?

Audio By Carbonatix

How Could Empathy Be Toxic?

Godwin’s Law is the rather comical idea that, eventually, someone is going to bring up Hitler in an online discussion. You can be talking about politics, sports, or pineapple on pizza—eventually, someone will bring Hitler into it. When that happens, the conversation is over. No one is listening anymore or debating in good faith. The word just shuts everything down.

There are quite a few words these days that can do just that. The words “woke” or “privilege,” to name a couple. I think toxic empathy does the same thing. It is either dismissed as an abusive concept or heralded as an uncomfortable truth that bleeding hearts want to deny. It’s become a lightning rod, which means it’s not a phrase you use to signal that you want a conversation.

And I think that’s unfortunate. It’s unfortunate because I think there is actually a good point being made here—but it’s slightly misplaced. If we can defang the concept for a moment, I think there is a decent argument being made; namely, that excessive or misplaced empathy can undermine both the person offering it and the person receiving it. It does this by distorting reality, preventing growth, and enabling dysfunction.

We might say that empathy is toxic if it absorbs emotions to the point of burnout or that it cripples you from calling out the self-destructive behavior in another person. Imagine a young woman in emotional distress. She feels lost, confused about her identity, and struggles with self-worth. She abuses alcohol and drugs to numb her emotions, seeks unhealthy relationships for validation, and adopts an identity entirely based on her emotions.

A “toxic empathy” would tell her something like, “You have to do what feels right for you, and if people don’t affirm your choices, they don’t really love you.” Instead of encouraging her to seek help or trying to anchor her in God’s truth, toxic empathy validates every destructive decision she makes. It prioritizes feelings over truth, and as we can see, it reinforces victimhood instead of calling to action. The biggest issue is that in the name of “empathy,” we are excusing or enabling sin.

If that is all that is meant by toxic empathy, I think there are some valid points of critique there. But the phrase has plenty of baggage connected to it. It’s often used as a lazy way to reject emotional engagement, and I’ve seen it used to shame people who care. It can easily become a weapon against kindness. In some spaces, it is used to dismiss real mental health concerns and has become a buzzword for culture war rhetoric (on either side of the aisle).

One of the biggest problems is that it’s lost any kind of meaningful definition. Some use “toxic empathy” to mean enabling bad behavior, others use it to mean absorbing too much emotional pain, and still others use it as a catch-all for being “too soft.” Without a clear definition, it’s easy to weaponize, making it difficult to discuss its concepts constructively. For that reason, I don’t think it’s a helpful phrase. It misses the mark, in my opinion.

Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/Anchiy 

How Toxic Empathy Misses the Mark

The problem isn’t empathy, but misapplied empathy. Most of the problems we identify with toxic empathy—like enabling sin, reinforcing victimhood, or excusing dysfunction—aren’t caused by feeling too much for others. They’re caused by lacking wisdom in how to act upon those feelings.

Consider the person who avoids hard truths because they don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings, that’s not empathy’s fault. It is, instead, a lack of courage to combine truth and love. It is good and right to be concerned with how the truth you need to share will be received and how it might impact the other person. Bearing one another’s burdens means that we don’t have the license to throw a truth bomb and then walk away and let the other person pick up the shrapnel. But there are some “grenades” that need to be lobbed—we just don’t have the right to walk away afterward.

The solution isn’t to have less empathy, it is to have wiser empathy. It’s not less engagement but more engagement. The Bible never warns against having too much compassion. But it does warn against compassion divorced from truth. In the same passage where Paul called believers to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), he also says to carry their own load (Galatians 6:5). There is a biblical balance here.

Real empathy doesn’t avoid discomfort. It is willing to walk with people in their pain and not leave them there. Real empathy is meant to be transformative.

We can be tempted to disengage on both ends of the equation. Some might settle for faux-empathy (and empathy that doesn’t call for transformation) because walking with someone through life change is too messy. It’s much easier to sit with someone for a while, affirm their feelings, never call them to change, and “be there for them.” Pursuing change with them is far more difficult.

Likewise, some might throw out the phrase toxic empathy because they don’t want to sit with uncomfortable feelings. They are fine with calling people out and throwing those truth grenades, but they don’t want to stick around to clean up their mess. And when someone is hurting and struggling and not getting it like we think they ought, it’s easier to play the tough guy role and disengage from them.

Neither of these are biblical empathy.

Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/AsiaVision 

What Does Biblical Empathy Look Like?

Biblical empathy does more than speak true things. It incarnates. It rightly assesses where a person is at in their journey and applies the right medicine. Consider 1 Thessalonians 5:14. "And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all."

“Admonish the idle” means that some people need correction and not just comfort. Admonish is a stronger word. It’s a kick-in-the-rear type of word. If someone is stubbornly refusing to engage in life, that is what Paul says they need. But if you try to admonish the fainthearted, they’ll crack. That is why he says to “encourage” them. That’s a word that means to come alongside someone. And lastly, those who are weak need help. That means hands-on support. It means to be their legs for them.

Biblical empathy will enter another person's world so you can rightly assess where they are. Do they need to be admonished, encouraged, or helped? You won’t be able to answer that right unless you have entered into their world. And whatever you find and apply is supposed to be done with patience and wisdom as the guide.

For those using the phrase “toxic empathy,” I think, at best, what they are trying to say is that we aren’t being faithful in our charge to “the idle” if we “help” them instead of admonish them. That’s a valid critique if it stays there. But it usually doesn’t.

Photo Credit: © Sparrowstock 

Conclusion

I really should drink milk again. Milk itself isn’t toxic. That one carton back in 1986 was toxic. Yes, there are others that could still be toxic today, and that requires wisdom and engagement to know. But I’ve rejected milk altogether, and that isn’t healthy. I fear that for some empathy itself is becoming a bad word or something to be rejected. That’s not good. It’s a core part of the call of Christ on our lives. You can’t get away from “weep with those who weep” or “rejoice with those who rejoice” (Romans 12:15).

There is a word for the Mrs. Bs in the room, too. There really is such a thing as milk that has gone bad. The real Mrs. B was jaded towards kids who had complaints. And that worldview caused her to think an innocent little boy was trying to pull a fast one on her. She didn’t listen to a valid argument. Likewise, I think we shouldn’t entirely dismiss the perspective of those who are saying there is a “toxic empathy.” I don’t think that’s really the right phrase—but there is a valid critique there—and we should listen to the concerns.

Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/PeopleImages