Thread by @BenjLesLantz

In case we’re tempted to think that the “empathy is sin” mindset is a fringe thing for evangelicals, let me connect some dots based on my experience.

I’ve got the names of an individual and an institution for us. John Piper, and Bethlehem College & Seminary. 1/

Let’s start with the institution. I attended @BCS_MN’s M.Div program from 2016-2020. In 2019, yes, I heard BCS’s president-elect Joe Rigney say that “empathy is sin.” But I also heard the same thing from at least one other BCS prof on several occasions, with *no* qualifiers. 2/

Some profs like Rigney were willing to die on that hill. But too, when I raised concerns about this “empathy as sin” doctrine to other BCS profs, they shrugged it off. They neither confirmed, nor denied the sin. But...they were clearly afraid to say that empathy *wasn’t* sin. 3/

The upshot of this is that essentially every male M.Div student at BCS will go through the program with a side eye at empathy. If they didn’t take the hard position (and I watched as many cohort mates did), they often succumbed to silence and bought the teaching implicitly. 4/

Side note: I can’t imagine who needs empathy more than a bunch of white, type-A, high-achieving, Reformed, complementarian males training to be pastors all over the world.

But of course the sickness of the system is that those who need empathy most have no room for it. 5/

But, what does this all have to do with Piper, you ask? Besides Piper’s obvious ties to Doug Wilson—ties which Rigney shares big time—there’s this full-throated endorsement of Rigney and his ability to “see through cultural smoke.” Sounds like code words, eh? 6/

Piper’s aware of Rigney’s 2019 video and the positions of the profs at his school. There’s no way he can’t be! And he’s offering his hearty thankfulness and welcome to Rigney—no qualifiers. 7/

The playbook will be that these men are being “misunderstood,” or “slandered” re: their positions on empathy. They’ll offer “clarifications,” b/c that’s what they do. But they won’t offer apologies or retractions. Again this is part of the pathology of their environment. 8/

And speaking of the environment, what about those seminarians and their wives and families who are looking to Piper, Rigney, and others to lead the way and “see through the cultural smoke”? What about the churches, both domestic and foreign, that these seminarians will plant? 9/

What about the hundreds of families and thousands of people that will sit under the ministries of men who sat under BCS’s influence?

This “empathy as sin” crap is a huge problem. And no, it’s not fringe. 10/

@kkdumez, do you concur? 😉

And @bethallisonbarr, I know you’d have something to say to this as well. 🙏🏼