So a few quick items on these two response to the empathy/sympathy discussion from @JoelMcDurmon. lambsreign.com/blog/canceling… lambsreign.com/blog/the-dange…
1) I appreciate Dr. McDurmon's attempt to substantively engage with arguments. As I've said before, after 2+ years, I couldn't point to a single public response to my work on empathy that actually engaged with my arguments and position (I have had fruitful private conversations).
Instead, online criticisms (whether on Twitter or in other forms) have misrepresented the actual claims I've made and attacked strawmen with my face on it. (There have been a few exceptions on Twitter). So it's good that someone took the time to attempt making arguments.
2) It's clear that McDurmon is mainly concerned with @DrOakley1689. I'll let Dr. White speak for himself about whether he thinks empathy is always an unqualified sin. For what it's worth, I don't. I think empathy (read: emotion-sharing) is a natural good that can be corrupted.
3) Though McDurmon mainly sets his sights on Dr. White, he repeatedly ropes in others ("White and co") and refers specifically to @douglaswils and me, as though his critique applies to us. He even links to one of my articles on empathy: desiringgod.org/articles/do-yo…
3. The irony here is that that article contains this section. So if McDurmon's main line of criticism is against those who believe emotion-sharing is always & everywhere a sin, then it doesn't apply to me, & insofar as he attributes such a position to me, he's gotten it wrong.
4) McDurmon's linguistic analysis of empathy (and its roots) belies the claim that there is a common agreed-upon understanding of the term. There are different meanings depending on era, context, academic discipline, etc.
5) McDurmon's major objection seems to be to the novel understanding of empathy as a total surrender of one's mind and emotions to the emotions of another. He thinks such an understanding is absurd, and insofar as we're talking about dictionaries, he's probably right.
But my approach to this subject is built on two principles:
1) Vices frequently hide in virtues. Sin frequently masquerades as a good thing.
2) When it does so, it's a legitimate rhetorical approach to attack the sin under its assumed name.
I suspect McDurmon would agree with the first, & perhaps challenge the second. In other words, it's the rhetorical issue that McDurmon (& others) are objecting to. So here are a few examples of similar rhetorical moves which attack sinful patterns under their assumed (good) name.
A). D.A. Carson wrote a book called "The Intolerance of Tolerance" amazon.com/Intolerance-To… I doubt that anyone accused him of contradicting himself or of disparaging all forms of tolerance.
B) C.S. Lewis repeatedly criticized "Unselfishness" because of the patterns of behavior that hid beneath it. I unpack Lewis on this in a footnote to my article.
C) Lewis actually criticizes the emotional manipulation / untethered empathy in The Great Divorce. He criticizes it under the term Pity. Now pity is (or at least was) a virtue. But Lewis distinguished the Action of Pity from the Passion of Pity:
Note that Lewis describes the passion of pity in entirely negative terms, even though (I suspect) he would acknowledge that even the passion of pity, rightly governed by reason and the will, has its value in this life.
D) Aimee Byrd has written a book called "Recovering From Biblical Manhood and Womanhood." Regardless of where you stand on the merits of her argument: Does that title demand that she view *all* forms of biblical manhood & womanhood as something to reject and recover from?
Or is the provocative title meant to draw attention to the destructive patterns that she believes hide beneath that positive phrase? Do those who object to "The Sin of Empathy" on rhetorical grounds have the same problem with Byrd's book? I suspect not.
E) To add a few hypothetical examples: I can easily imagine a sermon called "The Sin of Obedience" or "When Obedience is Sinful" on Matthew 23 in which Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for tithing from the spice rack while neglecting the weightier matters of the law.
Or a sermon called "The Sin of Peace" on Jeremiah 4:14: "They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace."
Or "The Sin of Speaking Truth" which highlighted the necessity of doing so *in love*.
In each of these cases, the provocative title would both arrest attention ("What in the world does he mean by that?") and perhaps provoke a reaction. The key would be whether the subsequent exposition & arguments clarified the title.
My point in giving these examples is that I think that most of us are able to comprehend the rhetorical strategy of attacking a sin under the good name that it hides beneath *when they both recognize the sin as sin & recognize where it likes to hide*.
But for some people, they aren't able to do this when it comes to empathy. And I think that's illuminating.
To conclude with Dr. McDurmon's articles, perhaps his arguments apply to @DrOakley1689 (again Dr. White can respond if he chooses). But they don't apply to me. I suspect there may be a semantic difference & perhaps a rhetorical difference between us.
But I agreed with the substance of both of his articles, and could point to multiple passages in my article that paralleled claims in his. So there may be further substantive disagreements between us. But as far as I can tell, he hasn't identified them yet.
An addendum: Looks like only one of the articles was by McDurmon. The other was by John Reasnor. I probably should have simply tagged @LambsReign since that's the site that hosted both.

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More from @joe_rigney

16 Mar
With a little help from @KSPrior, I’d like to try to bring a bit more clarity to the empathy/sympathy debate. I still think what I think, but finding other ways to express it has its important uses, and my thinking has been clarified through some of my interactions.
And to those who say, “Isn’t the fact that you’re still talking about this evidence that *you* were unclear?”, let me say, perhaps. It also might be that some people struggle to read carefully and charitably.
But regardless, my goal is to avoid quarrelsomeness (which isn't the same as avoiding debate), to be kind to everyone (which isn't the same as caving to pressure), to teach, to patiently endure evil (including misrepresentations), & to correct opponents with gentleness.
Read 13 tweets
12 Mar
Since it seems like people are wanting to talk "empathy" today, I had one thought based on @RevKevDeYoung's recent article about 4 Approaches to Race, Gender, and Politics. thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-de…
In it, Kevin argues for four different "teams" based on different moods, instincts, and sensibilities. He uses a positive word that each team would likely accept to describe them:
So the debate about the Man Rampant video and "the sin of empathy" provides a good test case for Kevin's taxonomy. It seems to me that it breaks down like this:

4’s (Team Courageous) loved the content and are promoting it like crazy (and in some cases may be misusing it)
Read 7 tweets
9 Feb
So, every time this sort of dustup happens in response to my interviews & writings on empathy, I find that it's a real opportunity *for me* to do a couple of things:
1) It's an opportunity to obey Jesus by rejoicing when people slander and misrepresent you.
2) It's an opportunity to obey Jesus by praying for opponents and critics who willfully misrepresent you and attack strawman versions of your arguments.
3) It's an opportunity for gratitude for critics who actually take the time to understand one's position *and represent it accurately*. I have friends who disagree with my framing in the Man Rampant video. I've been helped by their feedback & gotten clarity in my own mind.
Read 6 tweets
11 Jan
Some reflections as things become clearer in the aftermath of last week (apologies for the length). Obviously the situation is still in process and I've not looked at everything. But the following (at this point) seems to me to be the case:
At the Capital we've got different groups:
1a) normal marchers, waving American flags & wearing MAGA hats (who went back to their hotels after the rally)
1b) Selfie-taking attention-seekers: those who were there to see a show & those who were there to put on a show (Viking man)
1c) Angry protestors who wanted to put pressure on their representatives about certifying the election.
1d) Angry rioters who wanted to find their political opponents & beat them into submission (& who assaulted & killed police officers in the process).
Read 31 tweets
8 Jan
One more thread for the day. I want to talk about X. But it’s hard to talk about X these days. X is incredibly controversial, and when it is brought up, tempers quickly flare. People have very strong feelings about X. People who are concerned about X fall into a number of camps.
There are those who believe outlandish things about X despite evidence to the contrary. These people often react very strongly to attempts to point out that their beliefs about X don’t necessarily accord with reality. Even raising questions about their beliefs provokes a reaction
Other people have reasonable and legitimate questions about X. They are deeply concerned about X, and the way that X affects them or others in our society. And of course many people concerned about X fall along a spectrum between radical and reactive, and reasonable and measured.
Read 14 tweets
8 Jan
A thread in light of the present moment: We need to make a distinction between respectable nonsense (& evil) & despicable nonsense (& evil), with respectable meaning “engenders respect among mainstream society” & despicable meaning “provokes derision among mainstream society.”
I think many Bible-believing Christians want to speak truth, reject nonsense, and condemn evil wherever it occurs. But speaking truth about despicable nonsense is significantly easier, since our denunciations are cutting with the grain of mainstream, polite society.
We can let our denunciations fly, knowing that the only ones that might object are those who are despised by mainstream society. No need for nuance or distinctions, & easy to turn our condemnations up to 11. We discover words like "outrageous," "horrific," &, yes, "despicable."
Read 11 tweets

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