A growing conversation about the downside of empathy has ignited debate online and in the media.

A string of books written from a Christian perspective have focused on how empathy can be weaponized to further certain political aims.

In today's episode, we speak to author Joe Rigney about his new book, The Sin of Empathy, Compassion and Its Counterfeits.

I'm Georgia Howe, and I'm joined by Cabot Phillips.

It's Saturday, July 12th, and this is a special edition of Morning Wire.

Joining us to discuss his new book, The Sin of Empathy, is Dr. Joe Rigney.

He serves as fellow of theology at New St. Andrews College and as a pastor at Christchurch in

Moscow, Idaho. Joe, thanks so much for coming on. Hey, thanks for having me on. So you recently

wrote a book called The Sin of Empathy, and it's gotten a lot of buzz in the mainstream press.

First, give us an overview of what your book's about. Yeah, the basic overview is that the attempted upgrade of

compassion to empathy over the last 50 years or so has been a corruption of a noble virtue

by untethering it from what is true and what is good and from reality, which leads to

emotional manipulation, emotional blackmail, and various ways that

people are manipulated into supporting, endorsing, going along with affirming and celebrating,

all sorts of things that are harmful, destructive, and evil, but do so in the name of empathy or compassion or whatever word you want to

use. And so that's the basic thesis is that like all good things, when compassion is untethered

from what is true and good, it becomes destructive. Now, I noticed that you tease apart

compassion versus empathy.

What would you say is the difference between those two?

Yeah, so if someone's drowning in quicksand, compassion wants to reach in to help them,

but remain tethered to the shore, grab onto a branch so that you can actually have something

to brace on to pull them out.

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