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Speaker 1: It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load. The

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Speaker 1: Michael Verie Show is on the air.

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Speaker 2: Before we begin, I'd like to do something important. I'd

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Speaker 2: like to acknowledge the land that were gathered on and

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Speaker 2: the first peoples who have gathered on this land, who

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Speaker 2: were and still are the stewards of this land.

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Speaker 3: This country is going straight to hell.

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Speaker 4: America is infected with a disease, and that disease is

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Speaker 4: called racism. It often is utilized to support economic benefits

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Speaker 4: of corporations, the economic benefits of those who used such

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Speaker 4: divisions in order for their personal profit. This country has

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Speaker 4: had a longstanding labor practice that is despicable at best,

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Speaker 4: and so the idea of make America great again, we

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Speaker 4: don't see a country that has gone wrong, in my opinion,

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Speaker 4: we see a country that has never been right.

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Speaker 5: When they're running down my countryman, they're walking on the

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Speaker 5: fight side, be y'll walk in on the fighting side

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Speaker 5: of running down, we're life by fighting a duskey?

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Speaker 1: Did you don't love to de leaded?

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Speaker 3: Let this song I'm.

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Speaker 5: Singing be morning? Did you running down my countryman?

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Speaker 6: You walk in on the fighting.

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Speaker 7: Side, be.

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Speaker 8: You can't can't get your fast USA.

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Speaker 3: I'm marry up you.

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Speaker 8: You try it, you can't get get you fast as USA.

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Speaker 8: I'll say one more time, I let it up you.

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Speaker 8: You can't can't get you fast as the USA.

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Speaker 5: I never running down my co host walking on this

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Speaker 5: fight inside, they.

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Speaker 3: Walking off my inside, me.

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Speaker 5: Running down were lined by fighting. The cart dot.

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Speaker 3: Today is peace of love. It Memorial Today song, which

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Speaker 3: is why I came up early to Washington, d C.

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Speaker 3: Or the honor bestowed upon my brother. Peace Officers Memorial

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Speaker 3: Day is to honor with a national wall of honor

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Speaker 3: officers who have died or were disabled in the line

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Speaker 3: of duty. My brother was so classified on January twenty fifth,

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, a day I will never forget when

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Speaker 3: his chief called me to tell me about my brother

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Speaker 3: had died, and it was an incredible honor to be

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Speaker 3: invited to be here today. There are several reasons I'm

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Speaker 3: in Washington, d C. But that was one of those

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Speaker 3: reasons that I chose today that I came up. This

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Speaker 3: is a good opportunity to thank the men and women

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Speaker 3: who wear the uniform to protect our communities. It's also

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Speaker 3: a good opportunity to thank their families who live in

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Speaker 3: fear that they'll be harmed, who pray for them, who

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Speaker 3: share them with us day in and day out. It's rough.

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Speaker 3: It's rough on the families, very rough on the family.

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Speaker 3: Harvey perhaps the greatest storyteller in radio history. So good,

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Speaker 3: so good, such a master at storytelling. He wrote his

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Speaker 3: own stuff. His delivery is execution flawless, incredible, unique, special, effective.

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Speaker 3: He would talk about the farmer, you talk about if

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Speaker 3: I were the devil. But a particularly powerful piece that

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Speaker 3: he delivered was about the police officer. And you may

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Speaker 3: not know, but Paul Harvey was only three years old

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Speaker 3: when his father, a Tulsa police officer, was murdered. A

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Speaker 3: lynch mob of over one thousand men surrounded the jail

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Speaker 3: where the murderers were being held. They were smoke willed

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Speaker 3: out to prevent the jail being burned to the ground,

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Speaker 3: so that their lives could be ended. Perhaps a little justice.

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Speaker 3: So of all of Paul Harvey's storytelling, tribute the pain

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Speaker 3: to his father, who he scarcely remembered because, as I said,

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Speaker 3: he was only three years old. The tribute to his

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Speaker 3: father as a policeman. I think there's just a little

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Speaker 3: something in his voice paying tribute to police officers is

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Speaker 3: just a little something in his voice that was special.

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Speaker 3: A policeman is a composite of what all men are.

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Speaker 6: I guess, a mingling of Satan, center, dust, and deity

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Speaker 6: called statistics waved the fan over stinkers underscore instances of

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Speaker 6: dishonesty and brutality because they are news.

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Speaker 3: What that really means is that they are exceptional.

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Speaker 6: They are unusual, They are not common place buried under

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Speaker 6: the fraud is the fact, and the fact is the

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Speaker 6: less than one half of one percent of policemen mispit

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Speaker 6: that uniform, and that is a better average than you'd

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Speaker 6: find among clergymen. What is a policeman? He, of all men,

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Speaker 6: is at once the most needed and the most wanted,

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Speaker 6: a strangely nameless creature who is served to his face

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Speaker 6: and pig or worse behind his back. He must be

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Speaker 6: such a diplomat that he can settle differences between individuals

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Speaker 6: so that each will think he won. But if a

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Speaker 6: policeman is neat, he's conceited. If he's careless, he's a bum.

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Speaker 6: If he's pleasant, he's a flirt. If he's not, he's

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Speaker 6: a grouch. He must make instant decisions which would require

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Speaker 6: months for a lawyer. But if he hurries, he's careless.

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Speaker 6: If he's delivered, he's lazy. He must be first to

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Speaker 6: an accident, infallible with a diagnosis. He must be able

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Speaker 6: to start breathing, stop bleeding, tye splints, and above all,

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Speaker 6: be sure the victim goes home without a limp or

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Speaker 6: expect to be sued. The police officer must know every

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Speaker 6: gun draw on the run and hit where it doesn't hurt.

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Speaker 6: He must be able to whip two men twice his

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Speaker 6: size and half his age without damaging his uniform and

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Speaker 6: without being brutal. If you hit him, he's a coward.

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Speaker 6: If he hits you, he's a bully. A policeman must

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Speaker 6: know everything and not tell. He must know where all

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Speaker 6: of the sin is and not partake. The policeman from

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Speaker 6: a single human hair must be able to describe the crime,

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Speaker 6: the webman, the criminal and tell you where the criminal

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Speaker 6: is hiding. But if he catches the criminal, he's lucky.

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Speaker 6: If he doesn't, he's a dunce. If he gets promoted,

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Speaker 6: he has a political poll. If he doesn't, he's a dullard.

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Speaker 6: The policeman must chase bum leads to a dead end

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Speaker 6: stake out ten nights to tag one witness who saw

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Speaker 6: it happen, but refuses to remember. He runs files and

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Speaker 6: writes reports until his eyes ache. To build a case

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Speaker 6: against some felon who will get dealed out by a shameless,

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Speaker 6: shamous or an honorable who isn't honorable. The policeman must

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Speaker 6: be a minister, a social worker, a diplomat, a tough guy,

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Speaker 6: and a gentleman. And of course he'll have to be

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Speaker 6: a genius because he'll have to feed a family on

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Speaker 6: a policeman's salary.

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Speaker 3: You have that, allow me to introduce myself.

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Speaker 6: My name is Mitta michael Berry, genius.

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Speaker 3: You have often heard me say that I think the

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Speaker 3: greatest challenge in our whether you want to call them

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Speaker 3: cultural wars, a cultural collapse, political environment, our country, or society,

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Speaker 3: whatever that may be, is a conversation I always have

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Speaker 3: with good, honest, decent, honorable people who play by the rules,

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Speaker 3: raise their kids, pay their taxes, work hard, help others,

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Speaker 3: worship at church, and some of them refuse to admit

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Speaker 3: that bad things are done by bad people. They refuse

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Speaker 3: to admit or believe that some people are like rabid

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Speaker 3: dogs and they're going to if they've raped once, they're

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Speaker 3: going to rape a hundred times, or they're a pedophig

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Speaker 3: going to do one hundred times, or if they're a murderer,

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Speaker 3: they're a wife beater, or whatever else, if they're a

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Speaker 3: financial fraud or whatever else. I don't want to go

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Speaker 3: around believing that everyone has a dark heart. You know.

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Speaker 3: I'm somewhere between Locke and Hobbs and how all that

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Speaker 3: comes down. I am a believer. I believe everyone is

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Speaker 3: a child of God. I am also a protector and

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Speaker 3: a sheep dog for my family and my flock, and

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Speaker 3: so I'm mindful that we have to understand that man

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Speaker 3: is imperfect, and he sins, and he can be evil.

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Speaker 3: I came across something I found to be very interesting

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Speaker 3: by a fellow I did not know of before, by

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Speaker 3: the name of doctor Joe Rigney. And he's a fellow

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Speaker 3: of theology at New Saint Andrew's College and a pastor

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Speaker 3: at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. He's the author of

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Speaker 3: eight books. But what caught my attention is a book

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Speaker 3: that he's published this year called The Sin of Empathy.

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Speaker 3: And I saw that and I gave it a great

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Speaker 3: deal of thought because it is you've heard my theory

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Speaker 3: on the naive neighbor that our greatest challenge is not

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Speaker 3: the people who want to destroy our society. There have

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Speaker 3: always been those people. Our challenge is the naive neighbor

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Speaker 3: who will allow the trojan horse inside their home until

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Speaker 3: it's too late to defend it. He's also a written

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Speaker 3: leadership and emotional sabotage and more, eight books I believe

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Speaker 3: in total. And it seemed like a great person to

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Speaker 3: have on our show. You know, I don't do very

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Speaker 3: many guests, but when someone is offering proffering a theory

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Speaker 3: or a position or an experience that I think is

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Speaker 3: interesting to me, I share it with you. So, Joe Rigney,

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Speaker 3: welcome to the program. Hey, thanks for having me. So

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Speaker 3: let's talk about the sin of empathy. You caught my attention.

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Speaker 3: Have a naive neighbor theory that I pause it often,

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Speaker 3: and I think they're probably at least some overlap in

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Speaker 3: that Venn diagram.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that's probably right. It is a provocative title,

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Speaker 7: So I'm glad it did catch your attention, and it's

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Speaker 7: getting it the idea that virtues when they become untethered

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Speaker 7: and unmoored from truth and reality and what is good

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Speaker 7: become highly destructive. And we see this in a whole

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Speaker 7: host of different ways. But I think that compassion, which

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Speaker 7: is a virtue, something that modeled for us by Christ,

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Speaker 7: it's core to the Christian faith, is a really glorious virtue.

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Speaker 7: But one of the things I learned from C. S.

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Speaker 7: Lewis many years ago is that when love becomes a god,

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Speaker 7: meaning when a human love, a natural love, becomes a god,

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Speaker 7: it becomes a demon and it destroys everything and it's

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Speaker 7: and Lewis of course illustrated this in a number of

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Speaker 7: ways with things like mother love. We're all familiar with.

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Speaker 7: Other love is a good thing, but mother love can

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Speaker 7: become possessive, suffocating, it can caudle, It can rather than

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Speaker 7: help people grow up, it can keep them in an

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Speaker 7: infantile state. And so mother love, when it's not governed

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Speaker 7: by what is true and good and right, becomes destructive.

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Speaker 7: Lewis illustrated this in a number of different ways. What

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Speaker 7: I began to see over the last fifteen years or so,

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Speaker 7: and I was helped to this by a number of

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Speaker 7: other authors, was that compassion was undergoing the same kind

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Speaker 7: of transformation. But the difference here was that compassion people

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Speaker 7: often presented a new word, a sort of upgraded compassion,

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Speaker 7: which they called empathy. Empathy was supposed to be an

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Speaker 7: improvement on the old Christian virtue of sympathy or compassion,

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Speaker 7: and in the process, the way that it was described

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Speaker 7: was a sort of total immersion in the feelings and

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Speaker 7: pain and suffering of others. And the danger that I

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Speaker 7: saw was if you do that, if you totally immerse

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Speaker 7: yourself with the feelings and pains and sufferings of others,

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Speaker 7: you can lose touch with reality.

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Speaker 3: You can get swept off your feet.

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Speaker 7: So I often use the illustration if you see someone

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Speaker 7: drowning in quicksand apathy, which is a bad response, would

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Speaker 7: just turn around and walk the other way, much like

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Speaker 7: the guy in the Good smiritan parable who walks along

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Speaker 7: on the other side of the road. The proper response

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Speaker 7: is to reach in with one hand and hold on

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Speaker 7: to them, and then hold on to the shore to

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Speaker 7: get a you know, grab a branch on the other

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Speaker 7: side in order to help them get out of the pit.

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Speaker 7: But what empathy demands is you need to jump in

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Speaker 7: here with me. And now you have two people drowning.

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Speaker 3: Right Joe Rigney. I am so glad you used that example,

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Speaker 3: because it is an example I don't claim, and it's

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Speaker 3: been around for a long time that I have used often,

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Speaker 3: and that I imagine of sometimes helping someone does not

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Speaker 3: include sharing their heroin addiction or sharing the little bit

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Speaker 3: of money you've saved with them so they can use

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Speaker 3: it on their heroin addiction. You're helping both of you drown.

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Speaker 3: I think that is such a perfect, perfect analogy, and

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Speaker 3: analogies can be so incredibly powerful. Let me take a

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Speaker 3: step back and ask you, as pastor at Christ Church

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Speaker 3: at Moscow, Idaho, and a fellow theology at the New

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Speaker 3: Saint Andrew's College, how did you get interested in this

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Speaker 3: particular issue because so often members of the clergy preach

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Speaker 3: that love will handle all, love will conquer all. Just love, love, love,

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Speaker 3: and this is a very I'm glad that you quoted C. S.

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Speaker 3: Lewis because I think that is a next level Christian

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Speaker 3: author and his theology which appeals a great deal to me.

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Speaker 3: It's it's a very rational theology, and obviously he was

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Speaker 3: such a proficient and wonderful writer. But talk to me

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Speaker 3: about how you got into this.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, I was teaching classes on leadership at a Christian

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Speaker 7: college and I read a book by Jewish rabbi named

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Speaker 7: Edwin Friedman, book called a Failure of Nerve, and he

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Speaker 7: talked a lot of it's the basis it's one of

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Speaker 7: the key themes in my book, Leadership and Emotional Sabotage.

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Speaker 7: I essentially plunder Freedment among others in order to put

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Speaker 7: them in a more Christian framework and describe the challenges

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Speaker 7: of leadership in our anxious, angsty, agitated world. But one

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Speaker 7: of the dangers that Freeman highlighted in particular was the

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Speaker 7: danger of empathy. And he noted this this way, that

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Speaker 7: empathy often was a disguise. They became the power tool

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Speaker 7: in the hands of the sensitive. That was his phrase,

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Speaker 7: a power tool in the hands of the sensitive, where

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Speaker 7: whole communities were expected to adapt to the most reactive, immature,

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Speaker 7: and destructive members of the community. And if anyone said,

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Speaker 7: you know, I don't think this is a good idea,

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Speaker 7: I don't think that we should be caddling this right.

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Speaker 7: I think that that's an unacceptable way to behave. The

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Speaker 7: person who was having demanding responsibility was the person who

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Speaker 7: would get policed by in your phrase, the naive neighbors.

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Speaker 7: The naive neighbors would actually exert the pressure on the

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Speaker 7: people attempting to draw a line and boundaries, rather than

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Speaker 7: call the person who's immature and reactive to take responsibility

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Speaker 7: for themselves. And he said that this was done under

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Speaker 7: the banner of empathy. And I read that, found it helpful.

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Speaker 7: And then it seemed to me that over the last

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Speaker 7: I don't know ten or fifteen years, American culture conspired

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Speaker 7: to prove.

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Speaker 3: Treatment's point hold the witness died. Now let's get into examples.

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Speaker 3: Coming up Joe Rigney, the Sin of empathy subject. I'm

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Speaker 3: quite impress. I'm not sure what your question was the

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Speaker 3: Michael Berrish I lost the plot somewhere, did you did?

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Speaker 3: And doctor Joe Gigney is I guess. He is the

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Speaker 3: pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, author of eight books.

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Speaker 3: The one that caught my attention is the Sin of Empathy.

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Speaker 3: And I think that we've seen that sin individually, and

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Speaker 3: I think we've seen it written large. I'm going to

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Speaker 3: say things that he might not agree with. I'm going

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Speaker 3: to offer my perspective. I'm not putting words in his mouth.

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Speaker 3: I think the sin of empathy dragged us down the

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Speaker 3: path of mass scale illegal immigration. I think the sin

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Speaker 3: of empathy dragged us into the sous Soros owned district

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Speaker 3: attorneys who were putting murderers back out on the street

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Speaker 3: with a recognizance bond, and they're committing more murders. We've

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Speaker 3: just seen this in Houston multiple times in the last month.

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Speaker 3: They're committing more murders while they're waiting for the trial

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Speaker 3: of their own because we don't want to believe that

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Speaker 3: people are bad. The sin of empathy a lack of consequences,

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Speaker 3: a lack of accountability. We see it in parenting, where

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Speaker 3: you see parents that cannot tell their child no, parents

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Speaker 3: that cannot say you can't do this, or there are

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Speaker 3: going to be consequences when you do this. We see

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Speaker 3: the sin of empathy in saying that nobody should be

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Speaker 3: fired even if they show up drunk or do whatever else.

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Speaker 3: I think this sin of empathy has overtaken our culture

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Speaker 3: and made us a weak people and made us a

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Speaker 3: vulnerable people, and I think that is very dangerous. Doctor

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Speaker 3: Joe Rigney, I don't know how much, if any of

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Speaker 3: my examples you agree with, but I'd be curious to.

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Speaker 7: Though, yes, I think you gave a number of very

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Speaker 7: excellent examples in which maybe I would add a few.

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Speaker 7: I think that the entire what we now call wokeness,

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Speaker 7: the entire diversity, equity inclusion complex that sort of institutionalized

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Speaker 7: in an American society basically gave us what I affectionately

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Speaker 7: call the victimhod Olympics, where people began to compete to

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Speaker 7: see who could be the greatest victim, because under an

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Speaker 7: empathetic mindset, when an untethered empathy mindset, the greatest victim

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Speaker 7: sets the agenda for the entire community, and everybody is

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Speaker 7: expected to reorganize all of society around them. Of course,

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Speaker 7: other example would be things like Obergefel and the push

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Speaker 7: for so called gay marriage. And then now we've seen

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Speaker 7: where that has led even farther into the trans movement,

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Speaker 7: which demands that people's feelings can trump biological reality and

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Speaker 7: that all of society, which they just passed the bill

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Speaker 7: in Colorado which you know, ascribes penalties for those who

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Speaker 7: would mis gender someone who not use the preferred pronouns

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Speaker 7: or the name uh that deranged individuals want to use

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Speaker 7: and that they intend to use to catechize and groom

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Speaker 7: vulnerable children into castrating themselves. So those, all of this

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Speaker 7: kind of demented mentality was enabled and empowered by this

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Speaker 7: untethered empathy, and it did so, I'll quote C. S.

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Speaker 7: Lewis once again. Lewis, and this applies on things to

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Speaker 7: a number of the examples you gave about progressive cities

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Speaker 7: in the way that they empathy for criminals, Trump's safety

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Speaker 7: for citizens and illegal immigration. Lewis once wrote that mercy,

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Speaker 7: this is a similar principle. Mercy detached from justice grows unmerciful.

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Speaker 7: It's a paradox because he says, as there are certain

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Speaker 7: plants which flourish only in mountain soil. Mercy will flower

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Speaker 7: only when it grows in the crannies of the rock

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Speaker 7: of justice. When you transplant it to the marshlands of humanitarianism,

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Speaker 7: it becomes a man eating weed. And it's all the

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Speaker 7: more dangerous because it's still called by the name of

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Speaker 7: the mountain variety.

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 7: So when mercy is detached from justice, everybody says, isn't

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Speaker 7: mercy a great thing? And you want to say, of

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Speaker 7: course it does. Of course it is. The Bible teaches

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Speaker 7: mercy everywhere. God is merciful and gracious to us, but

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Speaker 7: his mercy is tethered to his justice. His mercy and

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Speaker 7: justice meet together, in fact, in the cross of Jesus Christ.

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Speaker 3: But if I may interject from justice, yeah, if I

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Speaker 3: may interject, the great economist and philosopher, the scotsmen who

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Speaker 3: in seventeen seventy six wrote The Wealth of Nations, famously said,

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Speaker 3: mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. So

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Speaker 3: mercy without consequences is cruelty to the innocent. And I've

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Speaker 3: seen that happen so many times. I love what you're

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Speaker 3: talking about. This is fantastic. Keep going, I interrupted you.

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Speaker 7: No, that's fine. And so Lewis's notion, though, is that

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Speaker 7: mercy when it's detached from justice, grows unmerciful because it

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Speaker 7: becomes this man eating and destructive weed. And people don't

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Speaker 7: recognize that. Your naive neighbor think, oh, this.

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Speaker 6: Is just mercy.

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Speaker 7: I'm called to be merciful. The Bible tells me to

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Speaker 7: be merciful, and it does. But the biblical mercy has

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Speaker 7: hard edges. It's anchored in what is true and what

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Speaker 7: is good. It's anchored to God. This was Lewis's entire

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Speaker 7: point and saying, when when our passions, when our emotions

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Speaker 7: are in submission to God, when they obey God, they're good.

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Speaker 7: They help human beings to flourish. But when we cut

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Speaker 7: them off from God, when we cut them off from reality,

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Speaker 7: they become highly destructive. And we're swept away by our

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Speaker 7: pass And one of the ironic things I think that

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Speaker 7: people don't appreciate. You'll hear people these days say things

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Speaker 7: like we live in such a cruel age. There's cruelty everywhere,

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Speaker 7: and they say we need more empathy. And I actually

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Speaker 7: want to argue, and I think there's other social scientists

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Speaker 7: are actually bearing this out regularly, that it's actually the

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Speaker 7: most empathetic who are the most cruel. And again Lewis

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Speaker 7: was helpful for me to understand this. He went to

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Speaker 7: He again wrote that a good emotion like pity, if

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Speaker 7: not controlled by charity and the moral law, by charity

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Speaker 7: and justice, he says, leads through anger to cruelty. And

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Speaker 7: if you think about it, you can think about the

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Speaker 7: way that pity, say for the so called oppressed classes,

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Speaker 7: leads by a very natural process, to a reign of terror.

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Speaker 7: You have pity for this group, and therefore you hate

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Speaker 7: their oppressors. And their oppressors may be real oppressors, or

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Speaker 7: they may be so called alleged oppressors. But it's amazing

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Speaker 7: how much cruelty you can do in the name of pity, empathy,

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Speaker 7: and compassion, because your emotions are in the driver's seat.

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Speaker 7: They are the thing that is leading the way rather

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Speaker 7: than what is true and what is good and what

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Speaker 7: is right.

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Speaker 3: I like it. I like it a great deal. How

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Speaker 3: do you think we got into this state? Do you

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Speaker 3: think people just really wanted to do the right thing

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Speaker 3: and they lost touch that the right thing is not

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Speaker 3: always the easy thing. Because I often say of parenting,

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Speaker 3: when we have to make a tough decision with our

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Speaker 3: kids and it's silly little things. You know, we have

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Speaker 3: to give up your phone a certain hour every night.

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Speaker 3: It's a different hour for each of the kids, and

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Speaker 3: sometimes one or the other, you know, wouldn't like it.

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Speaker 3: And my wife would say, you know it, really, I

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Speaker 3: think he feels like we don't trust him, And I

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Speaker 3: would say, love, if being a good parent was easy,

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Speaker 3: everybody would do it. You're sticking to the rules. Now

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Speaker 3: he's handing over the phone, and I think that's part

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Speaker 3: of it.

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Speaker 7: To me.

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Speaker 3: I think that's a big part of it.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that's acolutely right. Well for over one,

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Speaker 7: you know, pity parties are as old as dirt. I

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Speaker 7: think that Adam and Eve coming out of that garden

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Speaker 7: immediately sought to manipulate each other by pity. And anybody

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Speaker 7: who's been on the receiving end of a guilt trip

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Speaker 7: knows the temptation of the sin of empathy, where you're

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Speaker 7: tempted because someone is putting on a sad face or

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Speaker 7: pretending to be a martyr, to indulge them and coddle

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Speaker 7: them and refuse to call them to take responsibility for themselves.

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Speaker 7: So this is a universal human phenomena. What's different is

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Speaker 7: that in a Christian society, I think that people discovered

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Speaker 7: it was a very potent weapon to get their way,

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Speaker 7: became a very palpable tool of social manipulation, and then

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Speaker 7: it was institutionalized, I think, particularly by the left, because compassion,

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Speaker 7: at least in our society is a what you might

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Speaker 7: call a left coded virtue. It's one that people associate

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Speaker 7: with us. So what they did was they were able

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Speaker 7: to define a good biblical virtue but use their own definitions.

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Speaker 7: To be empathetic or compassionate to someone means that you

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Speaker 7: must affirm everything that they think, You must agree with

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Speaker 7: everything that they say. You can't question or challenge them

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Speaker 7: based on any more world standards. So it was an

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Speaker 7: emotion that was detached from the moral framework and in doing,

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Speaker 7: and then certain groups were elevated as worthy objects of

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Speaker 7: the passion and other groups were ignored. That's one of

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Speaker 7: the other things about.

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Speaker 3: Hold right there. We're gonna we're gonna discuss that with

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Speaker 3: doctor Joe Rigney coming up The Sin of Empathy, and

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Speaker 3: we'll get to his next book after that, Leadership and

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Speaker 3: Emotional Sabotage. Michael very glad from the system Lack of

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Speaker 3: two Modern Robin Rigney is our guest. He's Fellow of

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Speaker 3: Theology at New Saint Andrew's College, pastor at Christ Church

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Speaker 3: in Moscow, Idaho, the author of eight books. We were

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Speaker 3: working our way through them. The first which caught my attention,

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Speaker 3: which just came out this year, The Sin of Empathy.

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Speaker 3: If you could start back, I'll rewind you about thirty

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Speaker 3: seconds before where I had to cut you off because

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Speaker 3: you said some of those are being left out. I

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Speaker 3: think you're about to make a very very crucial point.

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Speaker 7: Yeah. So, one of the things about untethered empathy, when

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Speaker 7: it's an excessive empathy, is it becomes highly myopic. Certain

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Speaker 7: groups are judged to be worthy of empathy. So you

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Speaker 7: can think about the way that over the last daye

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00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 7: ten or fifteen years, so called oppressed groups, whether it's

433
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 7: minorities or the LGBTQ or illegal immigrants, compassion for them

434
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 7: demands that we reorganize society around their felt needs and

435
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 7: desires and agendas, whereas others who may be equally suffering

436
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:33,040
Speaker 7: can be safely ignored. Is because empathy acts like a spotlight,

437
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 7: it highlights certain people rather than others. And I think

438
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 7: a clear example of this often shows up in our

439
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:44,760
Speaker 7: debates about abortion. So frequently the way that abortion is

440
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:50,919
Speaker 7: justified is compassion or empathy for a woman in desperate circumstances.

441
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 7: Maybe she's poor, maybe she's single and she's unmarried, or

442
00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 7: maybe in the worst case scenarios, you see political advertised

443
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 7: to this effect. Say she was raped, and therefore she's

444
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 7: put forward as an object of compassion and empathy. And

445
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 7: if she was raped, she absolutely is. But what gets

446
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 7: lost is compassion for her means that we are now

447
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:19,720
Speaker 7: free to terminate her unplanned pregnancy, or to terminate a fetus,

448
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 7: which is a dehumanizing way to refer to her unborn child.

449
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 7: And so compassion for her means indifference and even cruelty

450
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 7: to her unborn child. Because our empathy becomes myopic, we

451
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:33,360
Speaker 7: focus only on one person rather than the needs of all.

452
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:36,640
Speaker 7: In fact, we frequently will focus on the immediate feelings

453
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 7: of the person who's hurting rather than their long term good.

454
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 7: And again the trans movement provides a perfect example. I

455
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:44,919
Speaker 7: have no doubt that someone who feels that they are

456
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 7: in the wrong body undergoes a lot of psychological distress,

457
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:51,399
Speaker 7: emotional distress, and I would like to help them, but

458
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 7: it does not help them. To castrate them, or to

459
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 7: mutilate them, or to put them on puberty blockers. That's

460
00:27:57,840 --> 00:27:59,679
Speaker 7: not the way to help. But it's an attempt to

461
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:03,640
Speaker 7: rely what they say is their immediate feelings, rather than

462
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:07,640
Speaker 7: looking at their long term good and the good of society.

463
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 7: And so I think these are different ways that empathy

464
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:13,199
Speaker 7: kind of narrows our focus. It becomes myopic, and therefore

465
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 7: enables us to do things that are highly highly destructive.

466
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:20,479
Speaker 3: What's the answer to that? In short, what is the

467
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:23,160
Speaker 3: answer writ large? You know, not just for I guess

468
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 3: it's where a collection of individuals. But how do we

469
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:28,200
Speaker 3: change this? Yeah?

470
00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 7: I think one of the ways is you must all

471
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 7: of your emotions must become obedient. We know this with

472
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 7: every other emotion. Everybody knows that if you let your

473
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 7: anger guide you in every decision, that you're probably going

474
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 7: to be led into some pretty bad places. If you

475
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 7: let your desires, say, your sexual desires lead you, and

476
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 7: they lead the way, you're going to be led to

477
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 7: some pretty dark places. The same thing is true here.

478
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:54,719
Speaker 7: Our emotions must be tethered to what is true. They

479
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 7: have to be on a leash, and they need to

480
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 7: be And I think, and I'm a Christian, I think

481
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 7: they need to be tethered to I think Christ must

482
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 7: be the anchor for all of our emotions. And when

483
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 7: he is, we're actually freed to use them in the

484
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 7: way that God intended us to use them. Our compassion

485
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 7: becomes in service of people's ultimate good, and therefore we're

486
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 7: able to act wisely and to actually help relieve the problems,

487
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 7: rather than simply make them worse by emoting into them,

488
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 7: and so tethering our compassion, anchoring it to what is

489
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 7: true and what is good, having them be governed by

490
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 7: our reason and not let loose. That would be the

491
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 7: fundamental thing that all of us should do as individuals

492
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 7: and in our homes, as you're talking about with parenting,

493
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 7: but also that we should expect as we form our

494
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 7: nation's laws and seek to the good of society.

495
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 3: It's interesting because it's not all butterflies and rainbows. It's

496
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 3: tough decisions with consequences, whether that's being a pastor of

497
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 3: a church or the head of household, or a parent

498
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 3: in a household, or a teacher or a coach. It's

499
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 3: not all just you know, compliments and kindness. There has

500
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 3: to be reasoned, difficult decisions and conversations. And we want

501
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:16,959
Speaker 3: it to be so easy. We want it to I

502
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 3: see parents who I think are raising little terrors because

503
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 3: their child can never do anything wrong, their child is

504
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 3: so wonderful, and then when the child does begin acting

505
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 3: out and finding there are guardrails in society the child has,

506
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 3: it's the officer's fault, it's the teacher's fault. It's always

507
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 3: someone else's fault because their child is such an angel,

508
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 3: and I think to myself, you are setting your child

509
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 3: up for incredible failure and suffering by doing this. It's

510
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 3: so easy to do. But we talked about the sin

511
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 3: of love, and you mentioned mother love at the very

512
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:55,720
Speaker 3: beginning of the show, and I see it by people

513
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 3: with the best of intentions. I see it all the time.

514
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 3: That's that's the right.

515
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 7: And actually those examples you just gave, do you know,

516
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 7: come up quite nicely in Leadership and Emotional Sabotage, the

517
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 7: other book that you mentioned, because.

518
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 3: Don't you finished this answered, we'll pivot to that. Yeah,

519
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 3: let's let's do that.

520
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 7: So in that book, I'm talking about the sort of

521
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 7: agitation and angst that we see around us, the sense

522
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 7: that that our culture is sitting on a powder keg,

523
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 7: that there's this gas in the air and somebody's gonna

524
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 7: light a match and the whole thing is going to

525
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 7: blow up. And we know that our social media amplifies this,

526
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 7: but there seems like there's something deeply volatile in our society.

527
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:41,520
Speaker 7: And what I argue in the book, this is the

528
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 7: result of a failure of nerve, a an abdication among leaders.

529
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 7: And I actually draw this back in fact, then the

530
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 7: examples you were using just then mirror very well the

531
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 7: fundamental story in the Bible in Genesis chapter three, when

532
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 7: Adam and Eve rebel against God, because there's a sort

533
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 7: of three step process that they go through as they

534
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 7: move from a situation of paradise to being kicked out

535
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 7: of God's sanctuary, and it begins with abdication. Adam was

536
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 7: charged to guard this garden, that was the task that

537
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 7: God gave to him, and instead of guarding it from

538
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 7: this serpent who is blaspheming his God and questioning his wife,

539
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 7: Adam remains silent.

540
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 3: He's passive.

541
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 7: He abdicates, and he lets the serpent lead the way.

542
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 7: And then when he's faced with the moment of choice

543
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 7: that abdication leads him to rebel, he seizes the fruit

544
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 7: that he was told not to eat from. He listens

545
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 7: to the voice of his wife who offers it to him.

546
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 7: He chooses her over God. This Bible's term for this

547
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 7: is idolatry. So his abdication and passivity leads idolatry. But

548
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:45,600
Speaker 7: then when he's called to account, when God comes and

549
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 7: says what have you done? Adam immediately points fingers at

550
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:51,120
Speaker 7: other people. He says the woman that you gave me.

551
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:53,800
Speaker 7: And I think this is somewhat comical because there are

552
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 7: three people in existence at this point. There's God, Adam,

553
00:32:56,520 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 7: and Eve. And Adam's position is it's everybody is fault

554
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 7: but mine. But that pattern abdication to rebellion, to blame

555
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 7: shifting is one that we say we see played out

556
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 7: again and again in the scriptures, and one that we

557
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 7: see played out again and again in our homes, in

558
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 7: our institutions and our schools, in our society, and in

559
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 7: our churches. And so that pattern is one that that

560
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 7: book was written to arrest.

561
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 3: Very interesting. What is your writing process? Hold on, Hold

562
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 3: on just a moment. We're up against a break. Stay

563
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 3: tuned with me. We are talking to doctor Joe Rigney.

564
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 3: His latest book is The Sin of Empathy, and we're

565
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 3: talking now about the book of his from last year,

566
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 3: Leadership and Emotional Sabotage. We're going to go through, depending

567
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 3: on our time and schedule and how long it takes.

568
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 3: Several of these his writings came to my attention and

569
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:59,200
Speaker 3: I've been looking forward to this conversation, as you can imagine,

570
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 3: and we will continue that