The Christian Right's Attack on Empathy Enables Trump's Cruelty and Betrays Core Christian Values
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/by/david-french. "Opinion | The Year Empathy Died - The New York Times." February 19, 2026. www.nytimes.com
The Gist
The author argues that Christian leaders have wrongly labeled empathy as sinful to justify supporting Trump's cruel policies. This betrays Christianity's core values since Jesus himself showed ultimate empathy, and it's making Christians more racist and heartless.
Conclusion
The Christian right's campaign against empathy as a 'sin' or 'toxic' emotion has enabled widespread cruelty and represents a fundamental betrayal of Christian values
Premises
- Christian theologians and influencers have begun warning against the 'sin of empathy' or 'toxic empathy' to rationalize support for harsh policies
- This anti-empathy stance directly correlates with Trump winning white evangelicals by 65 points while losing all other groups
- The attack on empathy serves to rationalize support for Trump despite his gratuitous infliction of suffering on opponents
- Eliminating empathy removes the natural firewall against bigotry, racism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia
- Christ himself engaged in the ultimate act of empathy by becoming human, making empathy a core Christian virtue
- The same people attacking empathy as toxic still demand empathy for their own causes and allies
- America had abundant blessings before this movement decided 'cruelty was a virtue, decency a vice, and empathy was a sin'
Assumptions
- Empathy is inherently a virtue rather than a potential weakness
- Trump's policies and behavior constitute gratuitous cruelty rather than necessary tough decisions
- Christian theology fundamentally requires empathy as modeled by Christ
- The correlation between anti-empathy rhetoric and Trump support indicates causation
- America was in a fundamentally better state before Trump's influence on evangelicals