BY THE ALLIED REPORT (STAFF) • 03 FEBRUARY 2026

Counseling Session (Wix Stock Image)

In the modern marketplace of moral currency, one specific term has been granted the power to make or break a reputation. It is widely hailed as the ultimate cure for societal division and the necessary prerequisite for leadership. To possess it is to be celebrated as enlightened; to be accused of lacking it is to face immediate social exile. Most assume this concept is simply a synonym for compassion, a harmless and noble effort to understand another's heart. That term is empathy. As society elevates this concept to the status of a supreme virtue, a critical investigation must determine if it truly aligns with the objective standard of Scripture or if it serves as a Trojan horse for a new and destructive morality.

The Definitional Divide Between Sympathy and Empathy

To begin the investigation, one must first establish clear definitions. 

• Sympathy means understanding the emotions or suffering of another person from your own perspective. It allows a believer to maintain a moral anchor rooted in Scripture while extending help to others.

• In contrast, empathy as it is utilized today demands that the observer feel emotions directly from the perspective of the sufferer. This requirement forces the believer to abandon their own moral anchor and inhabit a worldview that is often, especially in the contexts into which it is infused today, in open rebellion against the Creator. When this "empathy" is applied to the reality of total depravity and sinful behavior, it reveals an unexamined and dangerous demand: the power to radically alter the innate knowledge of good and evil itself.

Empathy, as it is used in these types of contrasts today, is not a real, objective moral requirement. It is simply a substitute for real Christian morality created by those who cannot abide the thought of living under the fingerprint & authority of God that He has hardwired into mankind. Instead, they desire to flee from His influence (if that were, in fact, possible). Many reading this will feel this is an argument of semantics; that empathy is sympathy and they are two sides of the same coin. However, as distinctions must be made on an increasingly high number of terms and aspects in our lives today, we must understand that, as empathy is understood now, it is widely employed specifically to co-opt Christians into a destructive acceptance of that which God hates. Conversely, understanding, acknowledging, and feeling with someone and then taking the requisite actions driven by Christian conviction is true Christian morality; sympathy. And if a so-called empathy is distinct from sympathy, it is because it is deeply politicized and based on class arguments, forms of oppression, or other conclusions rooted in self. It focuses on people in general rather than God. It focuses on pop-psychology's response's to life's questions and problems rather than the Scripture.

The Liberal Protestant Shift and the Social Gospel

This lexical shift of the term "empathy" finds its root in the world of liberal Protestantism. This movement, which gained traction in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is known as the social gospel. It posits that the main thrust of Christianity is social transformation and that Christians have a responsibility to aim towards certain ends. 

Some of these ends are Biblical. Christians are called to clothe and feed those in need. This is a matter of common grace and obedience to the commands of Christ. But, the theologically liberal vision prioritizes cultural acceptance over the foundational truths of Scripture. These circles abandon doctrinal cores of the faith because those truths lack social traction in modern society. Original sin? Predestination? Literal 6-day creation? Final judgement & eternal punishment? Submission to the authority of Christ as Lord? Inerrant Word? No, indeed. This intentional move away from Biblical authority creates a moral vacuum. Predictably, these same denominations fill that vacuum by pushing for the endorsement of same-sex marriages and other behaviors that contradict the Word of God. They use the term empathy as a moral justification for this transition. This allows them to maintain public piety and a religious appearance (missions & soup kitchens, church hierarchy, events and social programs, city services, and even religious services) while they actively reject the commands of God and the order laid out in His inerrant Word.

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exemplifies this perspective in her essay for The Atlantic titled "The Right’s War on Empathy." Positing that empathy is not only existent but something that must be championed by every decent person, she argues for empathy based on the moral reasoning of this same mainline liberal Protestantism that has abandoned the truth of Scripture. She holds up Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, as a model. During an inaugural speech, Budde directed a plea toward the 47th US President, platforming a narrative of many, including young LGBTQ+ Americans who, as she stated, would now fear for their lives under his leadership. In her essay, Mrs. Clinton describes this as an "honest plea" suffused with the kind of "love" that she claims that Jesus Christ taught.

The Divine Blueprint on Truth

The flaw in this reasoning is a refusal to recognize that issues such as the LGBTQ+ topic are being infused into the conversation under the guise of empathy. Doing so intentionally demands that Christians abandon the Biblical definition of marriage and gender in favor of being considered empathetic, which the world presents as the only correct moral choice. Proponents of such empathy view the statement that male and female are the only two biological designations as a lack of empathy. This perspective is a fundamental departure from the creation order of God, His moral law, and the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Diving into that, Scripture establishes that the binary nature of humanity is a divine decree rather than a social preference. Genesis 1:27 states that God creates man in His own image; male and female He creates them. This foundational truth is not a suggestion but the starting point for all human anthropology. Jesus Christ explicitly reaffirms this order in Matthew 19:4, where He asks if the listeners have not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female. By citing the creation account, Jesus anchors the definition of gender in the unchanging physical and spiritual design of the Creator. To deny this binary is to contradict the very words of the Savior, something that the circles dispensing with doctrinal cores of the faith are more than comfortable doing but the Christian with a high view of Scripture and a recognition of Jesus Christ as Lord over all cannot do.

Furthermore, the Bible defines marriage exclusively as the union of one man and one woman. Genesis2:24 declares that a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. This model remains the standard throughout the Old and New Testaments. This creational ordinance is reenforced with, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" (Ephesians 5:31). When we are demanded to endorse these alternative relationship models through means of "empathy", we are being told to ignore the objective moral standards that God institutes for the flourishing of society. We are told we are unloving (another term that has been lexically changed from its Biblical definition) if we do not accept and embrace the sin of others. Romans 1:26-27 describes the abandonment of these natural relations as a rejection of God’s clear revelation in nature. "For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions; for their females exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the males abandoned the natural function of the female and burned in their desire toward one another, males with males committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error."

Our Call to War: To Love the Captive Soul, but to Rage Against the Captor

Stating the truth about gender is a fundamental act of sympathy. It is a sympathetic manifestation of understanding what leads to human flourishing and the common good. True Biblically taught love does not confirm a neighbor in a state of confusion or sin. 1 Corinthians 13:6 states that love does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth! If a believer affirms a distorted view of gender, they are not acting in love; they are participating in a lie that leads to spiritual and societal harm. Proverbs 27:6 notes, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy." The "wounds" of being told the truth is far more loving than the "kisses" of a false so-called "empathy" that affirms a path toward destruction by seeing the sin the way the unrepentant sinner sees their own sin.

The Christian mandate is to speak the truth in love, as commanded in Ephesians 4:15. This requires the courage to uphold the moral law of God even when it is labeled as "unempathetic" by the secular world. Isaiah 5:20 warns against those who call evil good and good evil, or who put darkness for light and light for darkness. By maintaining the biological and moral distinctions set forth in the Word of God, the believer adheres to creation order, not an act of hostility. It is the most profound expression of love and concern for the eternal well-being of others.

The Standard for True Love

God establishes fundamental principles before the Fall of Man in Eden that remain essential today for healthy societies. Marriage is the primary example of a creational ordinance. Any rebellion against this order invariably leads to societal chaos, as evidenced through history time and time again. Supporting others in their sin is fundamentally unloving, as it assists them on their path to destruction and misrepresents the Christ we claim to follow. Yet the world claims love looks far different. Rather than try to unpack how the term has been distorted by every cause and agenda, we can simply look at what true love is. And for that, we look to the cross. Jesus Christ is the absolute standard for Biblical love, and His sacrifice demonstrates that true love involves laying down one’s life for others. As 1 John 3:16 declares, “By this we have known love, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” This is true love. Affirming or indulging another’s self-destruction is false love. True love has the courage to speak the truth that has the power to save souls from eternal fire, regardless of the personal cost to our reputation, relationship, or even safety.

Scripture establishes the absolute intolerance of Jesus Christ toward false teachings and the desecration of truth. In Revelation 2:20-23, Christ rebukes the Thyatiran church for tolerating a false prophetess who leads His people into sexual immorality. Believers refuse to promote sin under the guise of "empathy" by accepting another's sin by forcing ourselves to see sin from the sinner's perspective, not a renewed mind (Romans 12:2) or "religious freedom" by endorsing legislature in support of sin or false gods. Championing a social construct that advances the kingdom of darkness is a betrayal of the truth. To champion a neighbor’s "right" to practice idolatry, celebrate sexual deviance, or even quietly accept it without speaking the truth is not an act of love; it is an act of spiritual betrayal that assists those souls on the path to destruction. Along this same line of understanding, we find that government is never a neutral entity. According to Romans chapter 13:4, the civil magistrate is a servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. This divine mandate requires the state to punish evil and reward good, leaving no room for the pious endorsement of institutionalized sin.

If one gives the affirmation demanded by those involved in open and unrepentant sin such as LGBTQ+ practices, abortion, or false religions, one does not demonstrate love. Instead, one furthers them in a distorted view of the world and Jesus Christ. This aids and abets a mission to hell, the exact opposite of what many ecumenical churches peddle this viewpoint as today. Countless adherents to the broader Christian faith continue to buy this lie: hook, line, and sinker. They forget Jesus' commands in Mark 1:15 to "repent and believe the Gospel." “No! How can you say we have we forgotten that?” some may ask to such a claim. Answer: Because there is no Gospel at all without the clear call to turn from the very sins that this “empathy” seeks to excuse & embrace.

When distinguished from sympathy is such a way as this, empathy is a dead end. It is a weapon of identity politics that leads only to confusion and cultural destruction. Christian morality, anchored in sympathy and Biblical truth, provides the solitary path to living in alignment with objective reality, designed by the Creator. Instead of trading the eternal Word for a temporary social posture, we lead a quiet and peaceable life (1 Timothy 2:2) while upholding the exclusive claims of Christ regardless of the political cost. Speaking the truth in love, we do what is right, we serve the Lord above all, and we rest in the absolute sovereignty of God. A truly Biblically grounded worldview does not rely on empathy. It relies on sympathy and compassion rooted in the unchanging truth of God.

I will sing of my Redeemer
and his heavenly love for me;
he from death to life has brought me,
Son of God, with him to be.

Sing, O sing of my Redeemer!
With his blood he purchased me;
on the cross he sealed my pardon,
paid the debt, and made me free.

I Will Sing of My Redeemer

(Philip P. Bliss)