The Sin of Virtue

I’ve read Joe Rigney’s essay on the supposed conjoined evils of empathy and feminism in American Reformer, the journal that serves as Christian academia’s top source of Carl Schmitt apologia, so I’m in no rush to read his new book, The Sin of Empathy, his second in this vein. I also have a standing rule to not give a dime to Doug Wilson’s Canon Press, something that takes concerted effort when your family homeschools. I did check out the Amazon listing for the book, and the final sentence of the description struck me as a perfect encapsulation of Rigney’s argument, as I’ve seen him express it.

When you reject the sin of empathy, you reject the manipulation of the media, the manipulation of family and friends, and most importantly, the manipulation of your own heart.

Take this sentence and put any virtue you can think of in place of “empathy,” and you’ll find that it’s altogether plastic; it serves no real purpose other than to demonize a virtue.

“When you reject the sin of charity, you reject the manipulation of the media…”

“When you reject the sin of kindness, you reject the manipulation of the media…”

“When you reject the sin of mercy, you reject the manipulation of the media…”

This leads one to ask, Why empathy? Much like his mentor, Wilson, and the far fringe of Christian Nationalist dominionists he’s been known to hang out with, Rigney is obsessed with political victory for those who share his reactionary view of the faith. Take a look at his copious work for WORLD (edited by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Andrew T. Walker), and you’ll find politics and the culture war to be his overwhelming concern. He wrote of how Christians, when voting, need to break free of “the progressive gaze.” He wrote of “stewarding your vote,” in an essay that couldn’t have been more obvious in its attempt to equate voting Democrat or third party with unfaithfulness. His latest, “Fulfilling promises from the start,” is a naked puff piece on Trump’s executive orders, especially his anti-immigration policy. He even wrote on the ethics of deception and, at the very end, left the door open for Christians to potentially deceive in order to expose “false ideologies” and potentially define the people who push them as “open enemies,” a sentiment of his friends at American Reformer.

For the politically obsessed theonomic dominionist, empathy is a sin, because, by definition, it’s a conscious acknowledgement of συμπαθέω (sumpatheó, same feeling, sympathy), and nobody has ever won a Schmittian political battle by examining his common humanity with people whom he has labeled the enemy. συμπαθέω is what Christ has for us, even as we are in open rebellion against Him (Hebrews 4:15). It’s the driving force behind the second greatest commandment (Mark 12:31). We are explicitly told, by Christ Himself, that in order to be like our Father in heaven we must show empathy toward those who call themselves our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48).

“But it’s the abuse of empathy Rigney is criticizing,” I’m sure would be the response. Indeed it is, but any virtue imaginable can be abused. Again, the reason that politically-obsessed, reactionary Christians hyper-focus on empathy is because doing so serves Schmittian ends. They want you to shut off a part of your brain that works against their carnal goals. Instead of thinking, “This person is a human being who needs my compassion. How can I give them that in a way that shows I love them, but without compromising my principles?”, they want you thinking that everyone who makes left-coded demands of you is a political enemy to crush.

The history of our faith is that of the Person of Jesus Christ repeatedly revealing Himself to people while they’re “open enemies” of Him, embracing them in their weakness, and turning them into a new creation. Our ultimate goal in this life isn’t political victory to bring about ideal worldly conditions, nor is it protecting ourselves from the “manipulation of our heart.” We are here to be Jesus Christ’s physical presence in the world. We are to get up every single day and ask Him to imbue us with His συμπαθέω for all of humanity, even those who proactively hate us and try to manipulate us for their worldly ends, including a spokesman for a false church in Moscow, Idaho.