Wimpathy, November 6th, 2024.

Introduction

A few years ago, Joe Rigney caused something of a stir when we recorded an episode of Man

Rampant together in which he made a crucial distinction between sympathy and empathy.

We might call the latter untethered and toxic empathy

for short. Sympathy is simply fellow feeling, and we have good New Testament examples of this word.

Jesus is a sympathetic high priest, Hebrews 415, and Peter tells Christians to sympathize with one another.

1. Peter 3.8. It is a good and sturdy word. By way of contrast, empathy, at least as it

is used coming out of the world of therapy goo, is radically relativistic. It means that your

feelings for the one that you're empathizing with must not have an ounce of criticism in it.

In other words, empathy is judgment-free when it comes to the victim, and if you are chump enough to have,

I do not believe that I've used the word scintilla recently, a scintilla of disapproval in your

heart, then you are not being empathetic at all. I bring all this up because there's time to

take this discussion to the next level, of decibels if nothing else. Introducing wimpathy.

Sympathy is a function of true compassion and is a virtue instilled in us by the gracious workings of the Holy Spirit. Empathy is a snare

and delusion, where the one extending the empathy believes that it is his duty to take a header

into the other person's feelings, detaching himself from any objective criteria, whatever.

The empathetic one is agreeing with the victim in his decision to make reality optional.

In this way, the empathetic friend becomes as extensively diluted as the object of his compassion is.

Sympathy is when you see a drowning swimmer float by and you throw him a rope,

but you keep your own feet firmly on the bank,

so that you can help rescue him, which you truly want to do. You want to do this because you're a good

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