At the start of a class in my second year of doctoral studies, a professor broke with all standard higher education protocol. He began class by making eye contact with each student in the room for several seconds, then marking the moment of connection with a nod or a small hand gesture of greeting. After greeting each person in the class, this professor said, “It is GOOD to see you. It is good to SEE you. It is good to see YOU.”
This intentional act of seeing each of us allowed us to see him. His acknowledgement let us know that he saw the inherent and unique goodness each person brought to the room and set a tone that reverberated through our semester together. Our discussions and interactions were imbued with an awareness of our shared humanity, leading to deeper relationships, with empathy at their core. I have returned to this moment numerous times since, reflecting on the significant role empathy plays in our lives, serving as a means to help us connect, expand our understanding of ourselves and our neighbors, and transform our relationships.
And in our current world, this reminder of the power of empathy, and my efforts to employ it, often feels like an act of resistance in the face of the dehumanizing and combative socio-political landscape we occupy.
This view of empathy, which connects, transforms, and expands relationships, is not shared across the political spectrum, with some on the conservative side viewing it as a weapon. Positions such as access to reproductive healthcare, inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals and marriages, concerns about the treatment of so-called “illegal immigrants,” the role of racism in our nation’s history and current moment, and numerous other social justice concerns in our world have been weaponized to manipulate generally caring people to alter and accept varying political and social positions that violate their deeply held faith convictions. In books such as Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion, conservative Christian authors appeal to an intellectualized, rigid view of the distinctions between empathy and compassion, framing these two interpersonal powers as ethical dilemmas. Arguing from a narrow, literalist reading of Scripture, their apparent aim is to maintain hierarchical authority and political power.
Jesus, throughout the Gospels, engages in radical empathy by both seeing others and being seen by them.
The problem with empathy, viewed from this perspective, is what makes it a powerful force in our lived experience. Empathy connects, transforms relationships, and expands as it resists being reduced to a simple moralism or abstraction. Jesus, throughout the Gospels, engages in radical empathy by both seeing others and being seen by them. If we are called to embody the gospel, we must engage in empathy.
Empathy Connects
Two important theological and psychological claims need to be made up front.
- Human beings are inherently relational. Being made in the image of God, who in three persons is in a dynamic, perpetual, mutual, and reciprocal relationship, means that human beings are relational by nature. It is in the person of Jesus Christ that human beings, along with all of creation, are shown a vision of this shared life amongst all of creation with the Divine Trinity. This transforms relationships by casting a hopeful vision of all creation and the future. This enables a transformation of our relationships through deeper, mutual connections, as we recognize that we are all in a process of growth and transformation. Theologian Patricia Wilson-Kastner identifies three mutually reciprocal values – inclusivity, community, and freedom – as central to this Trinitarian claim of being relational. Without inclusivity, we are closed off from one another and unable to form a community. In the community, we become more aware of our interconnectedness and our responsibility to make choices that benefit the well-being of all, as each person develops. This is the ethical imperative of freedom. Out of these three mutually reciprocal values, our ability to connect gains a deeper theological framework.
- As Pastoral Theologian Emmanuel Lartey argues, all human beings are like all others, like some others, and like no other. In our sense of being like all others, human beings are born, grow from a state of total dependence, mature to one of interdependence with others, and then die. This shared development allows us to feel, know, and experience everything that any other human being can feel, know, and experience.
This is the root of empathy, and makes possible the bond needed to relate to one another in meaningful ways. Without empathy, a real, honest connection with another person would be impossible. As such, our social world, its institutions, language, customs, and social norms would cease to be, and we would cease to be human beings made in the image of the Triune God.
Empathy Transforms Relationships
With empathy as the central element in our ability to relate to one another, it also has the power to transform our interpersonal relationships. I have been persuaded to view the soul not as an internal aspect of immateriality that contains a person’s mind, character, and consciousness, but as a self-transcending aspect of life that holds us in relation to our self, others, and the eternal. Pastoral Theologian Bruce Rodgers-Vaughn argues that, by its very nature, the soul cannot be confined within an individual, but is more aptly understood as our experience of living within a web of connections with others and creation. Souls, and in turn, human beings, only wither or fail to thrive when the fabric of the living web that binds humanity and creation becomes torn or strained. This view of the soul rejects the neoliberal ideal of hyper-individualism, which understands the self as a singular entity responsible only for tending to its own interests, leaving others to attend to their own concerns.
The result is an eroded sense of the common good, as our feelings and attitudes towards ourselves and others are steadily altered. When we encounter others who are suffering or struggling from this eroded and individualistic perspective, the best we can likely offer is half-hearted sympathy – a distant acknowledgment of another pain, leaving no lasting mark on our lives.
By embracing the understanding that the soul is the aspect of life that holds us and all of creation in an interconnected, living web, we can hear both the theological and psychological points mentioned above and begin to see how empathy can transform our relationships. Because if we are all truly connected as relational beings, empathy becomes the vehicle for seeing those around us more deeply, taking their feelings into account, and being moved to respond in ways that draw us closer together. And in that drawing together, the deepening of connection, a fuller experience of what it means to be a human being, an image bearer of the Divine, has the potential to be experienced.
Empathy Expands
When I think about empathy and its ability to connect us and transform our relationships, I recall the story of the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7 (or in Matthew, where she is identified as a Canaanite). Jesus is in Tyre and Sidon, attempting to escape notice, when a woman whose daughter has an unclean spirit confronts him and begs his help. Jesus’ response, we would say, is not particularly empathetic to her and her daughter’s suffering. We might even read it as dismissive, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (v. 24). In response, she pleads with him. Jesus’ retort to her desperation could be read as downright mean, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (v. 26). And yet, this woman persists, demanding to be seen, saying, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table” (v. 27). And in this moment, Jesus’ empathy is expanded to include this woman and her child; healing occurring both physically and relationally.
This aspect of empathy is likely the most perilous for those who view empathy as a sin, because it extends beyond those we find easy or “right” to empathize with. This empathy that expands our being has the potential to challenge our preconceived notions, biases, limitations, and places of privilege, and thus experience the wideness of God’s created world. In reality, this should be terrifying for us, particularly those of us whose privilege insulates and protects us from the volatility of existence. Because if we allow empathy to expand our awareness to encompass the suffering of others, particularly those outside our network of relations, we might actually have to acknowledge their pain and respond by seeking justice and pursuing mercy alongside them.
When our socio-politically informed culture seeks to draw dividing lines, empathy transcends these artificial boundaries, and we are able to begin connecting with one another.
When empathy is viewed as an aspect of life that connects, transforms, and expands our ability to relate to one another, a subversive quality emerges. When our socio-politically informed culture seeks to draw dividing lines, empathy transcends these artificial boundaries, and we are able to begin connecting with one another. When the rhetoric around us diminishes the humanity of another, labeling them as illegal, wrong, or impure, empathetic connections shift how we see and relate to one another across differences. When the arguments are that compassion is an ethical dilemma, empathy expands something within us to be moved by the other’s hurt and concern, and, in turn, to seek their well-being. Throughout the gospels, Jesus acts with empathy. Seeing Zacchaeus in the tree and inviting himself to dinner, being moved by the care of a disabled man’s friends who lowered him down through the roof in the hope of healing, or seeing the hungry crowd gathered and taking simple gifts to feed the multitude are just a few examples. And so, as faithful people called to follow Jesus, might we be bold enough to allow empathy to take root in our lives, so that we may connect more deeply with our neighbors, and all these relationships may be transformed as they expand our understanding of who and whose we are.
