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Speaker 1: Comedian Greg Warren I had never heard of before, and

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Speaker 1: I came across a bit that he did and it

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Speaker 1: appealed to me. And I have to give you a

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Speaker 1: little context. First, we had a girl on the show

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Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. She had one state in

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Speaker 1: bass fishing in Texas. I am a fan of this.

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Speaker 1: They are now making life skill competitions for high school kids. Look,

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Speaker 1: I like to watch high school football as much as

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Speaker 1: the next guy. But what about all the kids that

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Speaker 1: don't do that? What about shop? What about shooting? What

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Speaker 1: about fishing? What about all sorts of other things that

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Speaker 1: young people can do and compete in? Competition is healthy?

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Speaker 1: So we had this girl and she was a state

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Speaker 1: champion and she's a fisherman, and comedian Greg Warren asked

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Speaker 1: a very funny question that made me think back to

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Speaker 1: that interview with her. It's pretty funny.

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Speaker 2: Do you know the state of Illinois has high school fishing?

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Speaker 2: There's gotta be fishing coaches. I'm gonna guess they're similar

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Speaker 2: to the coaches I had. You boys embarrass yourselves out

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Speaker 2: there on that lake today.

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Speaker 3: Hey, he's got his hook caught in the train. Jansen

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Speaker 3: pulled a shoe out of the lake and Martin. You

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Speaker 3: couldn't catch a fish in the secret department at.

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Speaker 2: The grocery store.

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Speaker 3: If I was a fish, I feel safe out every lord.

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Speaker 2: If there's a high school fishing coach somewhere out there,

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Speaker 2: there is an assistant high school fishing coach. And I

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Speaker 2: never wanted to meet somebody so bad in my life.

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Speaker 3: Gods, we're going to have a tackle box inspecting at

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Speaker 3: nine a m. And you better have all your hoops

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Speaker 3: and you better have all your lords or you're not

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Speaker 3: going to get all that fool bus.

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Speaker 4: I can tell you that Roden Island.

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Speaker 2: That's all I got. Coach back to you. You think

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Speaker 2: they have fishing cheerleaders.

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Speaker 3: Be be patient, be be be patient.

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Speaker 2: So when you're scaring the.

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Speaker 3: Fish cat this crappie, swum out gass, you're outboard motors, hold.

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Speaker 4: No gas, bang bane.

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Speaker 3: Shoot you train, come mon, angles, do that.

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Speaker 5: Time puffy wheeling?

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Speaker 2: Wait not blow it back? Bane, Shoot you tracks?

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Speaker 3: Do that pad.

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Speaker 1: Since we're on the subject of sports, ESPN's Kate Fagin says,

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Speaker 1: trans kids deserve to play sports too, And I agree

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Speaker 1: they deserve to play sports. I'm all for competition. No

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Speaker 1: one is trying to stop them. They should align with

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Speaker 1: the sport that aligns with their I'm sorry, they should

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Speaker 1: play the sport that aligns with their biological sex. What

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Speaker 1: shouldn't happen is that men who are bigger, stronger, faster

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Speaker 1: be allowed to play against women who are biologically smaller, weaker, slower.

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Speaker 1: You ever notice you never see a girl who thinks

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Speaker 1: she's a man trying to compete in men's sports. Wonder

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Speaker 1: why that is? Wonder why that is?

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Speaker 3: Well?

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Speaker 6: Listen, being on this show has been a privilege in

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Speaker 6: a platform, and I know it's my last time on it,

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Speaker 6: and I want to say something worthy of that privilege

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Speaker 6: and platform, and that is this that trans kids deserve

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Speaker 6: to play sports. Think about what you remember from your

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Speaker 6: time playing sports, Like ninety nine percent of it is

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Speaker 6: finding that jersey for the first time and your favorite number, community,

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Speaker 6: joy those high fives. It's that moment when you have

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Speaker 6: a great play with a teammate. It's the feeling of belonging,

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Speaker 6: and it does not no gender and trans kids deserve

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Speaker 6: that the same as everybody else does. And Tony, this

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Speaker 6: space has on around the horn. It's been about diversity

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Speaker 6: and inclusion, lifting up new voices because sports is joy

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Speaker 6: and sports is humanity, and the more people who have that,

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Speaker 6: the better.

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Speaker 1: The college basketball coach who defeated the University of Virginia

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two, ranked number one at the time,

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Speaker 1: is not a household name. In fact, I bet you

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Speaker 1: most folks don't remember his name. They probably don't remember

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Speaker 1: the university, but basketball fans will remember the university because

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Speaker 1: it's considered it. It's been called, quote, the greatest upset

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Speaker 1: never seen, and the reason was it didn't get primetime

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Speaker 1: billing because UVA was supposed to just plow through right

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Speaker 1: but they didn't. The team, you can say it out

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Speaker 1: loud and impress everybody around you, was the Shamanad Silver Swords,

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Speaker 1: and they beat number one UVA. Ralph Sampson was a

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Speaker 1: seven to four big man. The tallest player for Shamanad

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Speaker 1: was sixty six. The Silver Swords athletic complex was called

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Speaker 1: the Shack. The athletic director at the time secured towels

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Speaker 1: for the team from yki Key Hotels. He started at

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Speaker 1: two thousand dollars a season. That was his pay. The

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Speaker 1: local car dealership helped out with the pay for the

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Speaker 1: coach so that they could have a coach who wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have to work other jobs and could focus on being

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Speaker 1: a basketball coach and the little engine that could. The

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Speaker 1: Shamanad Silver Swords won seventy seven seventy two. Do you

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Speaker 1: remember his name? Well, he passed away this past weekend.

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Speaker 1: This was an NBC nineteen NBC News nineteen eighty two

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Speaker 1: report about one of the most famous games in all

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Speaker 1: of sports history, Shamanad beating UVA. See if you can

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Speaker 1: remember it.

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Speaker 5: Shamanad is not among the big time college ranks. The

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Speaker 5: athletic facility here a shack built more than forty years ago,

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Speaker 5: but coach MERV Lolts knows his team is now etched

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Speaker 5: in basketball history.

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Speaker 4: The strategy was for us to go out there and

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Speaker 4: give the people who came to watch the number one

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Speaker 4: the team in the nation, you know, some good basketball

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Speaker 4: known lose. It wasn't so much our plan. Our plan

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Speaker 4: was put to go out there and uh and play

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Speaker 4: the best basketball we can. That's about it.

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Speaker 2: It's the day after the game.

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Speaker 4: How you feel you have you come back from the

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Speaker 4: cloud yet? Oh yeah, I feel fine. I'm happy for

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Speaker 4: the guys and happy for the program, and I'm okay.

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Speaker 5: Shamanas Tony Randolph took a tall assignment in College Player

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Speaker 5: of the Year Ralph Samson. But two are old friends

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Speaker 5: from back home in Virginia. In fact, Randolph dated Samson's sister.

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Speaker 4: We just play streetball the time, and you know, it

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Speaker 4: was just choking him guarding me.

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Speaker 5: And so I think he didn't really take it seriously

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Speaker 5: in the game that I could shoot. You know, he

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Speaker 5: was sagging back.

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Speaker 4: He was you know, let me take the nineteen foot jumper.

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Speaker 4: You know I was taking it.

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Speaker 1: Was just falling so happy.

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Speaker 2: It was hot.

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Speaker 5: These boosters felt confident from the start.

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Speaker 7: I thought they had a.

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Speaker 4: Chance of being him.

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Speaker 6: If it was going to be a UVA victory, would

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Speaker 6: be a close game.

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Speaker 1: But I think they didn't have a chance.

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Speaker 3: To be UVA.

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Speaker 7: And those chances you look at a books admit them.

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Speaker 5: Michael Berry almost god motile.

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Speaker 1: You have often heard me say that I think the

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Speaker 1: greatest challenge in our whether you want to call them

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Speaker 1: cultural wars, cultural collapse, political environment, our country, our society,

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Speaker 1: whatever that may be, is a conversation I always have

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Speaker 1: with good, honest, decent, honorable people who play by the rules,

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Speaker 1: raise their kids, pay their taxes, work hard, help others,

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Speaker 1: worship at church, and some of them refuse to admit

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Speaker 1: that bad things are done by bad people. They refuse

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Speaker 1: to admit or believe that some people are like rabid

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Speaker 1: dogs and they're going to If they've raped once, they're

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Speaker 1: going to rape a hundred times, or they're pedophig going

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Speaker 1: to a hundred times. Or if they're a murderer, they're

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Speaker 1: a wife beater, or whatever else, if they're a financial

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Speaker 1: fraud or whatever else. I don't want to go around

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Speaker 1: believing that everyone has a dark heart. You know. I'm

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Speaker 1: somewhere between Locke and Hobbes and how all that comes down.

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Speaker 1: I am a believer. I believe everyone is a child

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Speaker 1: of God. I am also a protector and a sheep

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Speaker 1: dog for my family and my flock, and so I'm

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Speaker 1: mindful that we have to understand that man is imperfect,

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Speaker 1: and he sins, and he can be evil. I came

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Speaker 1: across something I found to be very interesting by a

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Speaker 1: fellow I did not know of before, by the name

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Speaker 1: of doctor Joe Rigney, and he's a fellow of theology

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Speaker 1: at New Saint Andrew's College and a pastor at Christ

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Speaker 1: Church in Moscow, Idaho. He's the author of eight books.

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Speaker 1: But what caught my attention is a book that he's

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Speaker 1: published this year called The Sin of Empathy. And I

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Speaker 1: saw that and I gave it a great deal of

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Speaker 1: thought because it is you've heard my theory on the

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Speaker 1: naive neighbor that our greatest challenge is not the people

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Speaker 1: who want to destroy our society. There have always been

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Speaker 1: those people. Our challenge is the naive neighbor who will

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Speaker 1: allow the trojan horse inside their home until it's too

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Speaker 1: late to defend it. He's also a written leadership and

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Speaker 1: emotional sabotage and more, eight books I believe in total,

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Speaker 1: and it seemed like a great person to have on

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Speaker 1: our show. You know, I don't do very many guests,

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Speaker 1: but when someone is offering proffering a theory or a

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Speaker 1: position or an experience that I think is interesting to me,

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Speaker 1: I share it with you. So, Joe Rigney, welcome to

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Speaker 1: the program.

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Speaker 7: Hey, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about the sin of empathy. You caught

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Speaker 1: my attention. I have a naive neighbor theory that I

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Speaker 1: posit often, and I think they're probably at least some

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Speaker 1: overlap in 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 at the idea that virtue, when they become untethered

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Speaker 7: and unbored 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 in its path.

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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 are all familiar with.

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Speaker 7: Mother love is a good thing. But mother love can

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Speaker 7: become possessive, suffocating, It can coddle. 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 in 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 in the feelings and pains and sufferings of others,

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Speaker 7: you can lose touch with reality. You can get swept

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Speaker 7: off your feet. So I often use the illustration if

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Speaker 7: you see someone drowning in quicksand apathy, which is a

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Speaker 7: bad response, would just turn around and walk the other way,

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Speaker 7: much like the guy in the Good smiritan parable who

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Speaker 7: walks along on the other side of the road. The

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Speaker 7: proper response is to reach in with one hand and

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

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Speaker 7: shore to get a 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, right.

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Speaker 1: Joe Rigney. I am so glad you used that example

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Speaker 1: because it is an example I don't claim, and it's

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Speaker 1: been around for a long time that I have used often,

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Speaker 1: and that I imagine of sometimes helping someone does not include

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Speaker 1: sharing their heroin addiction or sharing the little bit of

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Speaker 1: money you've saved with them so they can use it

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Speaker 1: on their heroin addiction. You're helping both of you drown.

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Speaker 1: I think that is such a perfect, perfect analogy, and

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Speaker 1: analogies can be so incredibly powerful. Let me take a

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Speaker 1: step back and ask you, as pastor at Christ Church

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Speaker 1: in Moscow, Idaho, and a fellow theology at the New

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Speaker 1: Saint Andrew's College, how did you get interested in this

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Speaker 1: particular issue because so often members of the clergy preach

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Speaker 1: that love will will handle all, love will conquer all.

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Speaker 1: Just love, love, love, and this is a very I'm

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Speaker 1: glad that you quoted C. S. Lewis, because I think

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Speaker 1: that is a next level Christian author and his theology

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Speaker 1: which appeals a great deal to me. It's a very

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Speaker 1: it's a very rational theology. And obviously he was such

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Speaker 1: a proficient and wonderful writer. But talk to me about

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Speaker 1: 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 a Jewish Rabbi

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Speaker 7: named Edwin Friedman, a book called A Failure of Nerve,

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Speaker 7: and he talked a lot of it's the basis. It's

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Speaker 7: one of the key themes in my book, Leadership and

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Speaker 7: Emotional Sabotage. I essentially plunder Freedman among others in order

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Speaker 7: to put them in a more Christian framework and describe

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Speaker 7: the challenges of leadership in our anxious, angsty, agitated world.

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Speaker 7: But one of the dangers that Freeman highlighted in PORTI

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

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Speaker 7: that empathy often was a disguise. It became a power

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Speaker 7: tool 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 lines and boundaries, rather than call

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Speaker 7: the person who's immature and reactive to take responsibility for themselves.

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Speaker 7: And he said that this was done under the banner

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

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

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

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Speaker 7: prove Freedman's point. Hold that.

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Speaker 1: Let's get into examples. Coming up, Doctor Joe Rigney, the

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Speaker 1: sin of empathy subject, I'm quite interested.

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Speaker 7: I'm not sure what your question was, Michael Berry.

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Speaker 1: I lost the plot somewhere, did you did. Doctor Joe

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Speaker 1: Brisney is our guest. He is the pastor at Christ

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Speaker 1: Church in Moscow, Idaho, author of eight books. The one

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Speaker 1: that caught my attention is the sin of empathy. And

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Speaker 1: I think that we've seen that sin individually, and I

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Speaker 1: think we've seen it written large the idea I'm going

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Speaker 1: to say things that he might not agree with. I'm

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Speaker 1: going to offer my perspective. I'm not putting words in

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Speaker 1: his mouth. I think the sin of empathy dragged us

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Speaker 1: down the path of mass scale illegal immigration. I think

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Speaker 1: the sin of empathy dragged us into the sous sorows

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Speaker 1: owned district atorneys who were putting murderers back out on

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Speaker 1: the street with a recognizance bond, and they're committing more murders.

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Speaker 1: We've just seen this in Houston multiple times in the

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Speaker 1: last month. They're committing more murders while they're waiting for

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Speaker 1: the trial of their own because we don't want to

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Speaker 1: believe that people are bad. The sin of empathy a

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Speaker 1: lack of consequences, a lack of accountability. We see it

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Speaker 1: in parenting, where you see parents that cannot tell their

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Speaker 1: child no, parents that cannot say you can't do this,

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Speaker 1: or there are going to be consequences when you do this.

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Speaker 1: We see the sin of empathy in saying that nobody

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Speaker 1: should be fired even if they show up drunk or

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Speaker 1: do whatever else. I think this sin of empathy has

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Speaker 1: overtaken our culture and made us a weak people and

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Speaker 1: made us a vulnerable people, and I think that is

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Speaker 1: very dangerous. Doctor Joe Rigney, I don't know how much,

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Speaker 1: if any of my examples you agree with, but I'd

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Speaker 1: be curious to know.

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Speaker 7: I think you gave a number of very excellent examples

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

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

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Speaker 7: equity inclusion complex that sort of institutionalized an American society,

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Speaker 7: basically gave us what I affectionately call the victimhood Olympics,

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Speaker 7: where people began to compete to see who could be

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Speaker 7: the greatest victim, because under an empathetic mindset, when an

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Speaker 7: untethered empathy mindset, the greatest victim sets the agenda for

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Speaker 7: the entire community, and everybody is expected to reorganize all

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Speaker 7: of society around them. Of course, other examples would be

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Speaker 7: things like Obergefel and the push for so called gay marriage.

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Speaker 7: And then now we've seen where that has led even

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Speaker 7: farther into the trans movement, which demands that people's feelings

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Speaker 7: in trump biological reality and that all of society would

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Speaker 7: They just passed a bill in Colorado which you know,

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Speaker 7: ascribes penalties for those who would misgender someone who would

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Speaker 7: not use the preferred pronouns or the name that deranged

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Speaker 7: individuals want to use and that they intend to use

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Speaker 7: to catechize and groom vulnerable children into castrating themselves. So those,

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Speaker 7: all of this kind of demented mentality was enabled and

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Speaker 7: empowered by this untethered empathy, and it did so, I'll

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Speaker 7: quote C. S. Lewis once again, Lewis, and this applies

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Speaker 7: on things to a number of the examples you gave

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Speaker 7: about progressive cities in the way that they empathy for criminals,

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Speaker 7: Trump's safety for citizens and illegal immigration. Lewis once wrote

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Speaker 7: that mercy is a similar principle. Mercy detached from justice

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Speaker 7: grows unmerciful. That it's a paradox because he says, as

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Speaker 7: there are certain plants which flourish only in mountain soil.

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Speaker 7: Mercy will flower only when it grows in the crane

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Speaker 7: of the rock of justice. When you transplant it to

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Speaker 7: the marsh lands of humanitarianism, it becomes a man eating weed.

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Speaker 7: And it's all the more dangerous because it's still called

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Speaker 7: by the name of the mountain variety.

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Speaker 1: 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 1: But if I may interject from justice, if I may interject,

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Speaker 1: the great economist and philosopher, the Scotsmen who in seventeen

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Speaker 1: seventy six wrote The Wealth of Nations, famously said, mercy

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Speaker 1: to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. So mercy

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Speaker 1: without consequences is cruelty to the innocent. And I've seen

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Speaker 1: that happen so many times. I love what you're talking about.

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Speaker 1: This is fantastic. When I interrupted.

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

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

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Speaker 7: it becomes this man eating and destructive weed, and people

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Speaker 7: don't recognize it. Your naive neighbor thinks, oh, this is

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

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Speaker 7: me to be merciful and it does, but the biblical

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

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Speaker 7: and what is good. It's anchored to God. This was

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Speaker 7: Lewis's entire point and saying, when when our passions, when

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Speaker 7: our emotions are in submission to God, when they obey God,

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Speaker 7: they're good. They help human beings to flourish. But when

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

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Speaker 7: off from reality, they become highly destructive, and we're swept

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Speaker 7: away by our passions. And one of the ironic things

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Speaker 7: I think that people don't appreciate. You'll hear people these

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Speaker 7: days say things like we live in such a cruel age.

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Speaker 7: There's cruelty everywhere, and they say we need more empathy,

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Speaker 7: and I actually want to argue, and I think there's

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

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Speaker 7: actually the most empathetic who are the most cruel. And

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 7: 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: they're 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 1: I like it. I like it a great deal. How

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Speaker 1: do you think we got into this state? Do you

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Speaker 1: think people just really wanted to do the right thing

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Speaker 1: and they lost touch that the right thing is not

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Speaker 1: always the easy thing. Because I often say of parenting,

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Speaker 1: when we have to make a tough decision with our

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Speaker 1: kids and it's silly little things. You know, we have

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Speaker 1: to give up your phone a certain hour every night.

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Speaker 1: It's a different hour for each of the kids, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes one or the other, you know, wouldn't like it,

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Speaker 1: And my wife would say, you know it, really, I

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Speaker 1: think he feels like we don't trust him, and I

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Speaker 1: would say love. If being a good parent was easy,

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Speaker 1: everybody would do it. You're sticking to the rules. Now

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Speaker 1: he's handing over the phone, and I think that's part

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Speaker 1: of it. To me, I think that's a big part

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Speaker 1: of it.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that's absolutely 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 moral standards. So it was an emotion

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Speaker 7: that was detached from a 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: compassion and other groups were ignored. That's one of the

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Speaker 7: other things about.

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Speaker 1: We're going to discuss that with doctor Joe Rigney coming up,

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Speaker 1: The Sin of Empathy. We'll get to his next book

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Speaker 1: after that, Leadership and Emotional seventh.

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Speaker 5: Michael Berryn't Change Black in the System.

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Speaker 4: Back two Modern d.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Joe Rickney as our guest. He's Fellow of Theology

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Speaker 1: at Saint Andrew's College, pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho,

436
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: the author of eight books. We're working our way through them.

437
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:27,760
Speaker 1: The first which caught my attention, which just came out

438
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:31,640
Speaker 1: this year, The Sin of Empathy. If you could start back,

439
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: I'll rewind you about thirty seconds before where I had

440
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:36,199
Speaker 1: to cut you off because you said some of those

441
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:37,840
Speaker 1: are being left out. I think you're about to make

442
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:39,920
Speaker 1: a very, very crucial point.

443
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 7: Yeah. So, one of the things about untethered empathy, an

444
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:48,160
Speaker 7: excessive empathy, is it becomes highly myopic. Certain groups are

445
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:50,639
Speaker 7: judged to be worthy of empathy. So you can think

446
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 7: about the way that over the last day, ten or

447
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 7: fifteen years, so called apressed groups, whether it's minorities or

448
00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:02,959
Speaker 7: the LGBTQ or illegal immigrant, the compassion for them demands

449
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 7: that we reorganize society around their felt needs and desires

450
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 7: and agendas, whereas others who may be equally suffering can

451
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 7: be safely ignored. This is because empathy acts like a spotlight.

452
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 7: It highlights certain people rather than others, and I think

453
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:22,159
Speaker 7: a clear example of this often shows up in our

454
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 7: debates about abortion. So frequently the way that abortion is

455
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 7: justified is compassion or empathy for a woman in desperate circumstances.

456
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 7: Maybe she's poor, uh, maybe she she's single and she's unmarried,

457
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:41,640
Speaker 7: or maybe in the worst case scenarios, you see political

458
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 7: advertisements to this effect, say she was raped and therefore

459
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 7: she's put forward as an object of compassion and empathy.

460
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 7: And if she was raped, she absolutely is. But what

461
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 7: gets lost is compassion for her means that we are

462
00:26:56,680 --> 00:27:01,200
Speaker 7: now free to terminate her unplanned pregnancy, or to terminate

463
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:04,440
Speaker 7: a fetus, which is a dehumanizing way to refer to

464
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 7: her unborn child. And so compassion for her means indifference

465
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 7: and even cruelty to her unborn child. Because our empathy

466
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 7: becomes myopic, we focus only on one person rather than

467
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 7: the needs of all. In fact, we frequently will focus

468
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:20,399
Speaker 7: on the immediate feelings of the person who's hurting rather

469
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 7: than their long term good. And again the trans movement

470
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 7: provides a perfect example. I have no doubt that someone

471
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 7: who feels that they are in the wrong body undergoes

472
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 7: a lot of psychological distress, emotional distress, and I would

473
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 7: like to help them, but it does not help them.

474
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 7: To castrate them, or to mutilate them, or to put

475
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:40,920
Speaker 7: them on puberty blockers. That's not the way to help.

476
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:43,359
Speaker 7: But it's an attempt to relieve what they say is

477
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:47,440
Speaker 7: their immediate feelings, rather than looking at their long term

478
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 7: good and the good of society. And so I think

479
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,360
Speaker 7: these are different ways that empathy kind of narrows our focus,

480
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,440
Speaker 7: it becomes myopic and therefore enables us to do things

481
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 7: that are highly highly destructive.

482
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 1: So what's the answer to that? In short, what is

483
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 1: the answer writ large? You know, not just for I

484
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 1: guess it's where a collection of individuals. But how do

485
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: we change this?

486
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 7: Yeah? I think one of the ways is you must

487
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 7: all of your emotions must become obedient. We know this

488
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:18,199
Speaker 7: with every other emotion. Everybody knows that if you let

489
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:22,720
Speaker 7: your anger guide you in every decision, that you're probably

490
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:26,359
Speaker 7: going to be led into some pretty bad places. If

491
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 7: you let your desires, say, your sexual desires lead you,

492
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 7: and they lead the way, you're going to be led

493
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:34,880
Speaker 7: to some pretty dark places. The same thing is true here.

494
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 7: Our emotions must be tethered to what is true. They

495
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 7: have to be on a leash, and they need to

496
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 7: be and I think, and I'm a Christian, I think

497
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 7: they need to be tethered to Christ. I think Christ

498
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 7: must be the anchor for all of our emotions. And

499
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 7: when he is, we're actually freed to use them in

500
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 7: the way that God intended us to use them. Our

501
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 7: compassion becomes in service of people's ultimate good, and therefore

502
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 7: we're able to act wisely, and to actually help relieve

503
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 7: the problems rather than simply make them worse by emoting

504
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 7: into them and so tethering our compassion, anchoring it to

505
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 7: what is true and what is good, having them be

506
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 7: governed by our reason and not let loose. That would

507
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 7: be the fundamental thing that all of us should do

508
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 7: as individuals and in our homes, as you're talking about

509
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 7: with parenting, but also that we should expect as we

510
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 7: form our nation's laws and seek to the good of society.

511
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: It's interesting because it's not all butterflies and rainbows. It's

512
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 1: tough decisions with consequences, whether that's being a pastor of

513
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 1: a church or the head of household, or a parent

514
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 1: in the household, or a teacher or a coach. It's

515
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: not all just you know, compliments and kindness.

516
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 7: There.

517
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: There has to be reasoned, difficult decisions and conversations. And

518
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: we want it to be so easy. We want it

519
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 1: to I see p Rents who I think are raising

520
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 1: little terrors because their child can never do anything wrong,

521
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: their child is so wonderful. And then when the child

522
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 1: does begin acting out and finding there are guardrails in

523
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 1: society the child has. It's it's the officer's fault, it's

524
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 1: the teacher's fault. It's always someone else's fault because their

525
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 1: child is such an angel. And I think to myself,

526
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: you are setting your child up for incredible failure and

527
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 1: suffering by doing this. It's so easy to do. But

528
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 1: we talked about the sin of love, and you mentioned

529
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: mother love at the very beginning of the show, and

530
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 1: I see it by people with the best of intentions.

531
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 1: I see it all the time.

532
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 7: That's that's absolutely right. And actually those examples you just gave,

533
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 7: do you know, come up quite nicely in Leadership and

534
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 7: Emotional Sabotage, the other book that you mentioned, Because.

535
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 1: Then why don't we Why don't you finish this answer

536
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: and we'll pivot to that.

537
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 7: Yeah, let's let's do that. So in that book, I'm

538
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 7: talking about the sort of agitation and angst that we

539
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 7: see around us, the sense that our culture is sitting

540
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 7: on a powder keg, that there's this gas in the

541
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 7: air and somebody's gonna light a match and the whole

542
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 7: thing is going to blow up. And we know that

543
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 7: our social media amplifies this, but there seems like there's

544
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 7: something deeply volatile in our society, and what I argue

545
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 7: in the book is this is the result of a

546
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 7: failure of nerve a an abdication among leaders. And I

547
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 7: actually draw this back. In fact, the examples you were

548
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 7: using just then mirror very well the fundamental story in

549
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 7: the Bible in Genesis chapter three, when Adam and Eve

550
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 7: rebel against God. Because there's a sort of three step

551
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 7: process that they go through as they move from a

552
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 7: situation of paradise to being kicked out of God's sanctuary,

553
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 7: and it begins with abdication. Adam was charged to guard

554
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 7: this garden, that was the task that God gave to him,

555
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 7: and instead of guarding it from this serpent who is

556
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 7: blast his God and questioning his wife, Adam remains silent.

557
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 7: He's passive. He abdicates, and he lets the serpent lead

558
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 7: the way. And then when he's faced with the moment

559
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 7: of choice that abdication leads him to rebel, he seizes

560
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 7: the fruit that he was told not to eat from.

561
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 7: He listens to the voice of his wife who offers

562
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 7: it to him. He chooses her over God. This is

563
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 7: the Bible's term for this is idolatry. So his abdication

564
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 7: and passivity leads idolatry. But then when he's called to account,

565
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 7: when God comes and says, what have you done? Adam

566
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:32,920
Speaker 7: immediately points fingers at other people. He says, the woman

567
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 7: that you gave me. And I think this is somewhat

568
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 7: comical because there are three people in existence at this point,

569
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 7: There's God, Adam, and Eve. And Adam's position is it's

570
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 7: everybody's fault but mine. But that pattern abdication to rebellion

571
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 7: to blame shifting is one that we say he played

572
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 7: out again and again in the scriptures, and one that

573
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 7: we see played out again and again in our homes,

574
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 7: in our institutions and our schools, in our society, and

575
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 7: in our churches. And so that pattern is one that

576
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 7: that book was written to arrest.

577
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: Very interesting. What is your writing process? Hold on, Hold

578
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 1: on just a moment world begins to break. Stay tuned

579
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 1: with me. We are talking to doctor Joe Rigney. His

580
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 1: latest book is The Sin of Empathy, and we're talking

581
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 1: now about the book of his from last year, Leadership

582
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 1: and Emotional Sabotage. We're going to go through, depending on

583
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 1: our time and schedule and how long it takes. Several

584
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 1: of these his writings came to my attention, and I've

585
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 1: been looking forward to this conversation, as you can imagine,

586
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 1: and we will continue that