Hi, I'm Douglas Wilson and this is an introduction to the sin of empathy, which is episode one of season one of man ramping. Joe Rigney and I discussed the distinction between sympathy and empathy a distinction that is recently caused some internet discussion like the internet needed some discussion, this episode is presented to you free of charge. And if you go to the cannon app, you can watch the entire first season of man rampid free of charge. Also, stay tuned to the end of this video, you will get some exciting information about season three of man rampant so please go check it out. Welcome to man ramp it out there in the talking heads business. Opening monologues are given very important sounding names like the memo or talking points or shrieking feminist nonsense.
Because we hear it man rampant are very important talking head professionals. This opening monologue will henceforth be known as the marshmallow stick. It's going to be sharp, but also flexible and bendy with flaming goop. On the end, nobody should be hurt too badly, should be friendly. So then welcome to the marshmallow stick on garden. I want to talk about tribal empathy. We live in empathetic times and no, this is not a good thing. We also live in a time of increasing fragmentation and polarization resulting in virulent forms of tribalism. Back in the day, when we were faced with old school tribalism, the tribe was an objective reality outside yourself, and it set one's baseline. This was when tribes had names like a patchy or McGregor. As a result, members of a tribe tended to grow up with a fixed loyalty to that tribe, when considered against all others, and empathy was out of the question. For others, it was doled out accordingly, what was good for the tribe defined everything, and you empathize with a fellow member of the tribe simply because less to no empathy was accorded outsiders. In other words, tribal membership determined the emphasis. In our fragmented times, we are seeing the opposite like a river reversing course, instead of tribes created by geography, ancestry and language, establishing our empathy.
Our empathy today are now establishing our tribes, shared sentiments now hardened groups into tribes, complete with tribal loyalties, I was once walking through a major city and passed the Center for the empowerment of Deaf alcoholics. That's an example of hyper specialized empathy, which will result in the long run in a fairly small and exclusive tribe. For like the White House press corps, often drunk never listening. But there are alternatives to tribalism, whether we are talking about massive tribes of white liberals, or micro tribes of city League, bowlers and Topeka. On the secular side of things, those alternatives would include massive nationalist ideologies like Nazi ism, or internationalist ideologies, communism, which is the kind of thing that happens when tribalism tries to scale and mass ideologies like petty tribalism, demand, loyalty and empathy, and to hell with outsiders. The only real alternative to an inside or outside tribal mentality is the Christian faith, because the claims of Christ are ultimate, and because he is the head of the church.
These claims originate from outside the cosmos, which means that his claims Trump every other claim, I have a tighter bond to someone who is baptized in the triune name, but who lives in Tehran, but I do with my next door neighbor, who is not baptized. The Christian faith is genuinely International. Regardless of how much superficial commonality I might share the universal point of integration, the RK is Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father, He is the One who became incarnate. He was born of a particular woman named Mary. He had a hometown Nazareth, he went to Nazareth high, he spoke a particular language. He was of the tribe of Judah, the blood of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba float in his veins. He had 10 toes, and I've been baptized into him. This means that I do not have to repudiate my particularities, and you do not have to repudiate yours. In order for loyalty to exist between us I can belong to my tribe, and I can do so with gratitude and affection. But I cannot bow down to my tribe, in my case, clan gun from Scotland, because Christ was not from that tribe. He was from his tribe, I can be from mine. And because he ascended into heaven and left all tribes behind, I can keep an appropriate emotional distance from my tribe. Something more sports fans and identity politicians need to learn. What does this do to my empathy? That is what we are here to discuss today.
So I'd like to welcome Joe Rigney to man rampant. Joe is the professor of theology and literature at Bethlehem. And his pastor at cities church, Minneapolis. And he's friend of the ministry here in Moscow has been here a number of times, and we thought we'd snag him for this inaugural episode of Man rampant and I, and I want to see if what I can do to get you in trouble. That's why I can't do it. Okay. So what better way to get into trouble than to question the validity or value of empathy? Right? Empathy is it's it appears in our day, a universally good good thing. Good time thing. Who could be against it? Right, everybody empathizes with everybody. Right? And who could possibly be against it? Except for perhaps Joe Rigby? Yeah,
well, probably others, but definitely, definitely me. I think probably you want to begin by distinguishing a couple of things so that people don't get confused. Because that would be bad.
So you're saying Christians shouldn't be loving? Yeah,
that's, that's something like that. So we want to distinguish empathy from sympathy. And the funny thing about the way those words get used nowadays is that I think people think, if you were to say which one's better to have, like, which one should Christians have? Should? Should you be empathetic? Or should you be sympathetic? I think a lot of Christians would say, empathy is better. It's the higher the more loving, the more kind higher, deeper, wider, better. It's just better in every way. It's like it's like, but it's sympathy. But it's even better. It's like an improved version.
Well, the reality is, is that the Bible commands us to be sympathetic, because the Senate's compassion, right. So sympathy and compassion are the same. It's the same word today, they one's Latin one's Greek, and it means to suffer with. And empathy is this more modern term is like invented in like the 20th century, it's not like this ancient word or this older thing. It's invented in the 20th century, and it means to suffer in. So that's kind of the key, like linguistic deal. And I think most people then would say, Well, if you if you have the choice between just suffering with someone, or suffering in them, like really, that there's a sense of, we really get into somebody, we really enter into their pain
and they're drowning, you going headlong into the river wisdom, exactly. You
you dive in there, and you're all in. And we think this is better. This is a better virtue, this is more virtuous than mere sympathy, because sympathy kind of feels like pity. And nobody likes to feel pity. We don't want people to feel bad, but it
feels like you've got your foot on the shore reaching a handout, it's exactly acting better than they
are. That's right. And, and I think that and that actually is the most relevant difference between them. Because so empathy is the sort of thing that you've got someone drowning, or they're in quicksand, and they're sinking. And what empathy wants to do is jump into the quicksand with them both feet, and, and it feels like that's going to be more loving, because they're going to feel like I'm glad that you're here with me in the quicksand. Problem is, you're both now sinking, right? Right. Whereas if you do, I'm gonna keep one foot on the shore, and I'm actually gonna grab onto this big branch, and then I'll step one foot in there with you and try to pull you out. That's sympathy. And that's, that's actually helpful. But to the person who's in there, it can feel like you're judging me.
So sympathy is clearly hierarchical.
Right? It implies and implies that one person is the hurting, and one person is the helper. Right? And, and no, and that's part of the problem is no one wants to feel like they're the hurting. We want to equalize everything and so and so empathy demands, get in here with me, otherwise, you don't love me.
What but what do you lose when you get in there with them? And you're all in, they're drowning, they're in the quicksand, they're in the trouble and you identify with them completely, right? What are you losing contact with what's the shore that you're losing your purchase on? So
you lose the ability to actually make an independent judgment about anything that they're saying or doing in other words, you lose contact with truth, the ability the ability to actually assess so so if you take a scenario where someone is actually hurting so let's they're actually in pain, they're actually grieving and and they've been wronged or something like that. And then now there's this expectation, either from them or from other people, show some empathy here, you know, get get in there with them. If you say Well, hold on a minute, I just walked up here. I want to actually think about this situation. I want to maintain some emotional distance in order to be able to evaluate You know who did what? And when is this true? Is this true? What's true here? Is the perception accurate that this person, if you want to maintain that distance, that's inevitably alienating to them that feels that feels like clearly hate victims, right? You hate victims, you're not actually loving me, because I only feel loved. If you endorse everything I say, if you validate everything I say,
and if you question, so so if someone comes in with a tragic story, right? And your pastor, I'm a pastor, right? A terrible story comes into your study, and someone pours out, you know, my brother started molesting me. Yeah, 10 years ago, awful, and awful things. And awful things that actually really do happen to people. Yeah, right. So the first thing you know, this, this story? Absolutely could be true,
right? Straight down the line, it could it could actually be as bad as all of this. That's
right. It could also be false. Right? Right. She could be trying to get even or trying to do something or it could, there could be any number of things that could motivate someone to lie about a story like that. Yeah. How can you? How can you listen sympathetically to someone like that, while reserving to yourself the possibility of coming to a later conclusion that this was a story,
right? So there is an initial move where in a situation like that, I think you want you want to lean in, in such a way that there's a giving of the benefit of the doubt to the person who's sitting in front of you, and has been, has been wronged, there's claiming to have been wronged. There's so you, there's a judgment of charity that you're giving. But you're also reserving the right to ask some more questions to investigate a little further to, to probe a little bit. And it doesn't even have to be, you know, in the in the modern world, it doesn't even have to be as you know, the grave evils. It simply it could be a small, slight. So if you think about and this happens a lot, it's a marriage counseling, right? So you get husbands and wives who are who are missing each other. Or, or a husband or a wife, who's having problems with other people outside the marriage.
Okay, so conflict with a friend. And they start describing the situation. This is what was happening. This is what they did. They gave me the stink guy, they she did this, she said that. But she looked at me this way. And if you start to say, but Did she really like if you just ask the clarifying question? Are you sure? Or was there maybe more to it than misunderstand? Was it maybe a misunderstanding, maybe it wasn't malicious. Empathy is going to say, You can't do that. Because you just need to, you need to hear them out, you need to listen, you need to identify you need to join them. Whereas sympathy says, if they actually were being rotten to you, if they were being cruel, or whatever, I want to I want to be with you in that I want to join you in that in that suffering. But I want to make sure that it was actually suffering and not a misunderstanding.
So empathy, if I could run ahead of you. Empathy is the means. The conduit by which relativism is pouring into counseling.
That's right. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a good way to put it. So it because because the question of what really happened is made secondary to the emotional state of the person in question, right. So that becomes the end all be all of everything. And any, any challenge to that is a threat. And you can't You're not allowed to, you're not allowed to do that. Which is why. So one of the ways to say it is God command just to be compassionate, He commands us to show sympathy. But people demand empathy. And they and they regarded as a kind of betrayal. If you refuse to join them in their pain in their grievance, a very personal betrayal, a very personal betrayal.
Because you and you just don't get it or you're you're not showing love to me, I'm the I'm the victim here. Why aren't you joining me in this? And it's and it's a visceral thing. It's not a I don't think you need we need to think of people who are in that as deliberately malicious. It's often instinctive, reactive, visceral, and it's how their interests how their emotions have been trained, right. They've been Yeah, they've been trained. There's they're running into ruts, which is precisely why what's needed is somebody to have their hand on the branch and only one foot in so that you can try to help pull them out so that their emotional responses get channeled in better, more healthy, more healthy directions and not get stuck
this this might be an oblique or tangental support to this, but tell me what you think of this. A number of years ago, I I started objecting to Christian counseling, biblical counseling, being run on business line as a business, okay, where the client comes in, makes an appointment with a trained professional who's also a Christian and who incorporates Christian principles but can bill your insurance company and, and get or take a check or whatever. And the difficulty is that we are that I saw is that we already had a system like that in the law. So in our legal system, we've got it all worked out where both sides both disputants have an attorney whose job it is to represent your case that best they can be your advocate to be your advocate. And, and it's ethical for an attorney to do that. Even if he thinks you're a skunk or you're, you know, even if he thinks that he can, he can do that, because the system ensures that the other guy has the same advantage. Yep. Right. So right,
everybody's got one, right. And if you and if you can't afford one, one will be appointed
for correct. So the person comes into the attorney's office, and the attorney is paid to be on that person's side. Right? Right. Yes. paid to be honest. And he's a partisan. He's a partisan. So imagine our legal system, where just the different defendants got an attorney, or just the prosecution got an attorney. Right. Okay. Well, we walked into that in the in the world of counseling, because I go in, I pay my money, right to this trained counselor. Right. And I think that he's supposed to be on my side. He's surprised. He's supposed to believe me. And the person I just accused of rape or the person I just accused him molestation. There's nobody on his there's nobody on his side in that room. Yeah. Not not in that setup. And, of course, if the story is true, then we don't we're not going to shed any tears for the guy who's actually guilty. Yeah, of that. But at a fundamental level, we don't we do not yet know who is the victim? Right.
Right. Yeah, that's right. And I think so in principle, it might be possible for a really sturdy counselor to operate in a in a system like that, where someone's coming in and paying them for their for help. But it would have to be the sort of thing where from the outset, they're, they're saying, Okay, you're coming in here and asking for help. Which means in order to help you to actually help you, I have to reserve a certain kind of emotional distance from you. And I need to be able to, to evaluate and assess the whole thing. And so if you're looking just for someone to be on your team, this isn't going to work. And then that would have to be kind of set up from the from the get go. So that when you don't pull that out halfway in, and they say, Hey, wait, that you're changing the rules of the game, right?
You can't ever commit to being automatically on their side, on their side in the dispute. And in pastoral counseling, I tried to say there are three sides involved here. There's like a marriage counseling you're describing. There's the husband's perspective, and there's the wife's wife's perspective. And then there's Christ's perspective. Yes. And rarely do I see Christ's perspective map on to, right, yeah, the husbands, or the wife's in total, right, precise Vedic strategy across. And a minister is supposed to be there as the representative of Christ, someone who's steeped in His Word who's, who understands biblical law, biblical principles, and who will bring them to bear on this situation. But he's there, not with the wife as a client or the husband is a client, but Right, Christ as Lord,
right, and when and when you have. So in a healthy church setting, I think if you have people who are in principle committed to that, you can make a lot of progress. Because even even if there's a subtle demand for empathy, in a setting like that, you can always draw him back to first principles where you're saying, want to hold on, I'm not here to pick sides, I want to I want to help, right, and picking sides actually might be more harmful. But if that's if that's an undefined, if that's not clear at all, then you get the there's escalation when the misunderstandings happen, because all of a sudden, I thought you were on my side, and then all of a sudden, you started asking me questions, or probing in certain ways that I wasn't comfortable with. And you and you reserve that emotional distance. And the accusation is going to be something like, you're not showing empathy, you're not being empathetic.
Or let's zoom in a little further. Let's say we're not it's not a terrible situation like a molestation or it's not even marriage, marriage misunderstanding such that counsel is required. Suppose it's just a little tiff, between husband and wife, where the wife has had a skirmish with the next door neighbor lady over the dog or something. Right. And, and she's telling her husband the story, and thought bubble above his head is I'm not sure, right? I'm not sure you handle that perfectly. He's got some doubts. She might have a grievance against him, right? Because, of course, a husband should be sympathetic, right? Because Christ looked at the people use compassion, idiot compassion on them, right? Sympathy, total sympathy. But he can't just say automatically, right? Everybody in my family's Right,
right that the end. And so there's a there is a genuine kind of allegiance there's a you know if in a situation like that the husband is should have an allegiance to his wife more than say the neighbor, right. So that's the that's the more fundamental bond. But what that actually means in practice is he's responsible for her and how she processes and works through the situation. She he's not responsible in the same way for what the neighbor does. So say the neighbor was was a jerk. It's still the case that his main concern should be how to help his wife sort through her response to it and get in make make it through, which may mean enduring whatever junk the guy through it through better.
But if what she's wanting in the moment is simply agree with my total perspect total perspective, right? Just be on my side, it's going to cause problems down the road if he just acquiesce is because you're setting up a pattern where, you know, if, if, if you if if whatever she says goes and the demand is for empathy, what you're asking for is a kind of fusion of, of personalities where everything is, everything is is becomes one in a total in a total you lose yourself in the other person. And there's no longer a you and me there's only this blob.
Alright, so it goes without saying and you touched on before it goes without saying that a husband should have more allegiance to his wife than the neighbor lady. Yeah. More allegiance to his wife's perspective than hers. Right. But he also should have a deeper allegiance to the truth. Yeah, than any family member. That's right. Okay. Now, how can you say that a husband should care more about the truth than his wife? Without sounding like a mean person? That without sounding like a logic machine or a theology chopper?
That's right. Well, as you have to remember that truth is a Person so Jesus is the truth of the allegiance is not to some abstract principle, as opposed to a real person. It's it's that there's it's nested allegiances, I'm I'm fundamental allegiance is to Jesus above everything. And then within that, that entails a kind of subordinate allegiance to my wife and to my family, to my friends, to my neighbors to my country, all of the other allegiances are nested under that, which is a deeply personal allegiance. Okay. And so I think and that's where and and you can actually make headway with that with with people if you say, I'm not just I'm not just being a foster. Right, I actually want to love God in love in love you from that, as opposed to being forced to turn you into God,
you can actually throw them a rope and actually get them out actually help them actually help them. And and there's another distinction I've made over the years between counsel and counseling. Okay, you know, some people don't want counsel, right? They don't want counsel at all right? Because counsel would give them what something to do from the Bible, and then they need to go do it. Yeah. Some people just simply want counseling, they want a therapeutic, right? Affirmations session, right? They want a shoulder to cry on.
Right. And, and there's a, there's a place for that at a kind of initial level, I think, I think that there's a way in which you enter in. And the first thing you need to do, you know, so Job's Job's counselors did pretty well for about seven days. Right? Right. When their mouths mouths were shut, and they were just there, what were they doing? They were suffering with him, right? They were suffering with him. And then they open their mouths and got it all wrong. But but there's a place for kind of allowing the grief to come and to just be present in the pain. But that when that season eventually needs to come to an end, what happens next, and it can't simply be ratify all of the pain, grief, anger, frustration, and just say, you're right in all of that.
Alright, so to tie off, tie off this point, sympathy is coming alongside. Sympathy is compassion. Sympathy is walking with someone. Yep. In their pain. It's identifying with them, but it's not a total identification, right? You never forget your allegiance to Christ, right? In the identification that you you're making with this person. That's whatever it is. Empathy is headlong all in whoever the victim is, or whoever the person demanding the empathy is. They they're like God, they will not share their glory with another. That's right. They demand everything from you.
So you What we're called to do is recall to grieve with others, but we cannot lose ourselves in the grief of others. That's the kind of fusion that's the, if there is no me left. So what you're doing in that situation with empathy is you're putting someone else in your emotional driver's seat, you're that you're giving them the keys to your emotional cards, and you can take this wherever you want, but they're the one who would actually hurt it. So that's, that's the problem. And instead, you have to maintain the I'm in, I'm responsible for me. And in order to help you I have to maintain responsibility for me before God, and then I actually might be able to be some help.
Alright, so that having to retain your own identity and your own allegiance to Christ, while you exhibit the compassion that a neighbor should exhibit. Love you the second greatest commandment, yeah, love your neighbors yourself. But the first commandment is love for God, above all things. So sympathy, remembers to love God, while loving the neighbor. Yes, empathy abandons God for the sake of the neighbor, right, turns the neighbor turns the neighbor into God. Okay. You mentioned something about maintaining your own identity. And that reminded me of a writer that we both appreciate Friedman. Yep. Well, we both I'd like to talk a little bit about Rene Girard and Friedman, in this because sympathy and empathy, that sympathy empathy discussion, distinction is very important.
And a lot of people miss it. But at the end of the day, it's pretty straightforward. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Love God and your neighbor, not just your neighbor. Yeah. Okay. But since we're talking about relationships, we have an oftentimes your husband, wife, oldest son, daughter, right, next door neighbor webs of relationship. co workers, you know, oftentimes, when you're talking about families, extended families, in laws, neighbors, co workers, churches, there's church churches, elder session, elder boards, Deacon boards, committee, pastoral search committees, you name it, you get these. You get a group of people in the room, and you start to certain crackles starts to develop. Competition, emotional throwing available, elbows, people positioning themselves. Yep, playing the game, working the room. Yep, etc. And you could, in many meetings, you could just set your iPhone on the table, and it will charge by itself by from all the crackle from all the people in the room. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about Friedman and triangulation and mimetic desire.
Yeah, so Friedman is Edwin Friedman was a, he's passed away now. But he was a counselor and a kind of psychologist who really focused on kind of this systems theory of Calv approach to counseling, where he recognized that you're never counseling just an individual, there's always that web that they're bringing with them, they tracked it in, they tracked it in, and that if you only try to treat the individual as an individual, you might be able to help a little. But it's the whole system is the thing that's amping everything up. And so you need to figure out how do I get at the system. And what in what he argued was, you get it the system, not by trying to change the most immature lag and self controlled person in the group. Instead, you identify the people who have the most integrity, the people who are most habit put together, and you work with them. And all you're trying to do is help them to maintain control of themselves take responsibility of themselves in the midst of all of the tangle.
And what you would find is or what he would find is, if you can do that, if people can maintain their identity, maintain their integrity, in the midst of all of that junk, differentiate, differentiate themselves, not lose themselves in the big mess and not then not be reactive. So the crackle in the room is often one person does something, and then there's the counter move, which then escalates and it's just banging around the room with nobody admitting what's nobody admitting what's going on, because everybody knows what's going on. And everybody feels wronged by what's going on. But no one can admit what's going on, because then they'd have to admit that yes, they did hit back. Yes, that yes, they that was manipulative, and I manipulated right back. And so instead of trying to, you know, let's just remove the bad person.
Well, if you remove the bad person in the system like that, they'll just re emerge that somebody else will fill that role that that the person you can't just cut it out, you have a job open, there's a job of job now you actually have to learn to the system has to change in a fundamental way and you start that by focusing on the most the healthiest individuals in the group, and helping them to maintain their integrity and then to link up with others and create Reading a different kind of air, a different kind of nucleus, which then challenges everybody else in the room, either you're going to get on board with the healthy way of doing this, or you're not. And if you're not, you're out.
And in some situations that could result in the healthiest people in that office are the healthiest people in that scenario, refusing to empathize anymore.
That's right, they're not going to because because in it when you move beyond just the so a second ago, we were talking mainly about like, in a marriage or in a small setting, when you begin to widen out and empathy is that what empathy is going to do is it's going to tap into our reactive herd instinct, where there's this desire, this togetherness idea that we everybody has to be on the same page, which means we're all going to adapt to the least mature member, right? Everybody's gonna, we just whatever they say, race to the bottom, it's a race to the bottom, whoever throws the biggest temper tantrum, whoever is the most unstable, we're just going to do everything we can to make sure they don't erupt, then as long as you're doing that, as long as you're adapting to the immaturity, you're not actually growing and challenging people to become to take responsibility for themselves, and to and to do what, what, what God wants them to do, and what's good for the for the whole group. And so what you see, but you can't, the difficulty is that when you come into a situation like that, it's easy to kind of want to say this person over here is the problem, when the fundamental thing you have to do is take responsibility for yourself.
It's always putting the onus back on what what am I as an individual actually responsible for? And the first thing is me, right, how I'm responding. And so one of the things that we you could talk about is the difference between reacting and responding. So reacting would be unthinking, visceral, you know, instinctive, it's like what happens when you know, somebody when the doctor hits your knee, and you just kick, right? If you're reacting, that's what's happening, as opposed to responding, which allows again, going back to the emotional distance allows you to kind of they did that. Now I'm going to think about what the best response is, which might be, you know, something that will cause them pain, you don't want to cause him harm, but that might be painful. So you're gonna say something might be an awkward, difficult conversation or difficult conversation, but you're responding with deliberate intentionality, you're leaning in, intentionally and not simply erupting.
Right. And so that, and so that's kind of Friedman's basic paradigm and coming into these big messes, I'm going to find the people who are already the closest to health, and I'm going to try to help get them healthier. And either they're going to pull everybody else with them, or the people who went when people begin to realize my my manipulations don't work here anymore. The pouty face that used to work isn't working here anymore. It's either going to they're being challenged to grow up and take responsibility for their own emotional responses. Or they're going to take their ball and go home,
if if they insist on remaining a parasite, right? They're gonna have to find a new home, they're gonna
have to find a nose. That's right. And that's and that's actually Friedman's preferred, you know, image of, of leadership is basically an immune system. If you're trying to be the immune system, which is not mainly about it does fight bad things, but it also regulates good things. It's just its health, its health in the body. That then prevents contagions from settling in and taking over the good cells and spreading. And so focus on your own integrity, your own differentiation, your own distinctness your own identity as a person responsible to God for you. And if you do that, that's, that's all you can do. You can't you can't change them. You don't have that ability. You're not God.
So tying this back in with our first topic, the sympathy empathy thing, the person in the family who's sitting in the corner, you know, he pouting? That is that person is proposing to destroy the family. Right? Right. That's what that's what the proposal is. And if we all think if all the strong Christians think, because they've been taught from the pulpit, they've been taught in Christian literature, they've been told over and over again, that you have to identify weep with those who are weeping don't ask questions, but just lose yourself in their, in their sorrow. And they think that's the high road. It's difficult to do. Right? Yeah. So it must be so it must be biblical, right? It's difficult so must be the Jesus way. We find ourselves setting up shop to destroy our church, right to destroy the church plant to wreck the family. Yep. Because that seven year old with the socks, yep. is going to be a 17 year old with socks.
That's exactly right. And and, you know, you mentioned the socks, it reminded me of Louis, CS Lewis so and we needed to get loose and we needed to get loose. So Lewis in the great divorce describes that the kind of person who did that, who goes upstairs and has the socks, because he knows that if I go upstairs, when if I don't get my way, and I just go get sulky, I know that my sisters and my parents are eventually going to come in and they're going to apologize, even though I was the one who was who was rotten. And because they just want to make peace, they just want everybody to be happy again. And so I've and you train yourself to get Soucie to get your way. And and that's again, that's that demand for empathy. If you don't love me, if you don't, you see, if you don't, if you see this face, and you don't move, lean in and say everything's gonna be okay. And, and we're sorry, you don't really love me?
Well, in order to actually in what you're doing is you're establishing patterns in the family, or in the group or whatever, that will, that will quite literally destroy the thing. Because Because everybody's going to that and then and then you work out from there. And this is where the cultural piece really comes in. Right? Because once everybody learns, that's how the games played, then it's a fight to be the victim, or were to be the defender of the victim. Right? If I can, so the victim wing man that Yeah, exactly. And so this is the cultural challenge where we are today, in Friedman esque kind of terms, or whatever, where we weaponize our victims.
So and sometimes the victims aren't there actually, they're real victims, they've really been harmed. And, and it's awful. But then other people come along, who realize the way that I can actually make make make something of myself, the way that I can actually have some power here is by being the defender of the victim, right? Which means the victims always right. And so I'm going to always, there's gonna be no questioning. And if you try to actually say, Well, hey, let's Can we just pause for a second, make sure we've got the facts straight, you're a hater. You don't love them, you're not loving them. And now you're now you're attacked.
So if the person is a false victim, if the victim is lying, that's bad, they're hurting themselves. Right? If their true victim, then and the whole culture around them, rallies around them, in this way that we're talking about? All we're doing is victimizing them again,
right? You're you because you're using that you're not you're not you're using them in a power play. You're not actually trying to help them become whole again. So if
we wanted to illustrate the how, how far gone, pop evangelical culture well, not just pop evangelical culture, evangelical culture, reformed evangelical culture is, I think, pretty far down the road to just to destruction on this thing. Imagine this scenario, maybe comment on it. Imagine a scenario where a young husband is going to be getting married later in the week and, and it's a Christian bachelor party. It's not a pagan bachelor party, right? It's a Christian, bachelor party, okay? And, and the guy's all gathered around to give little bits of wisdom and advice. All of his
married buddies are gonna all of his married buddies have been married for three months. That's right. I know everything.
So they're all giving them their expectations. And let's say an older Christian has been married a number of years, stands up and says, Son, I want you to promise me that you will never apologize to your wife. Unless you really did something wrong. Right. Okay. Yeah. Now, the young man might go, Oh, everybody else is gonna go. Yeah, why are they gonna do that? Right?
We cuz that I mean, that's right. And I, it's funny to think about the scenario, because you can just, you can immediately feel the cringe, of, of, Oh, no. Why? And you and then and then you have to start diagnosing, why is there the Oh, no. Why? Why would it be a bad thing to only apologize for things that you did wrong? Well, because there's some times where there's a certain kind of pressure to apologize, just to just to smooth things over. Just just to like, it's it's simpler. And it's, it's simpler to just say, I'm sorry, even though you in the back of your head, you're going I don't actually think I did anything. But but she's unhappy. And it works that way.
Maybe, you know, we were talking mainly about men to women, because we're, we're men. It could work the other way. But it doesn't often because because women tend not to get men tend to not do the mopey thing and get their wives to do it. Because most women despise that when a man tries to run the game, run that run this play. It doesn't. It doesn't work. It just looks not nearly as well. It's not not nearly as well, but a husband, who sincerely wants to love his wife and wants to make peace. MIT will be willing sometimes right to just smooth things over because it's easier. So
let's, we've gotten Friedman in here. We've got Louis in here. Let's get Gerard into this mix. Yeah. One of the one of the central takeaway, valuable things that I got from Gerard is how he pointed out all through Scripture the psalmist In Job different places the designated scapegoat in, in an ancient society was expected to go along with the accusation. Right. Okay. And job for example, just flat refused, right? No, I'm not doing. Look, the friend said, Just apologize. Just say you're sorry you clearly did something wrong or clear do something just take one for the team. Say you're sorry take responsibility. Everything okay? And Job said because his allegiance was the truth. Right right his allegiances were he was anchored outside the system he was he was anchored outside his friendships right now I take this is I don't want to go astray on this but I believe that Job was the second king of Edom. Okay. Yep.
Okay. There was the second king was named Joe battle that maybe, but But whether he was it was his nickname. Yes. Job was for Joe for sure. Yeah. So I believe that whether he was the king or not, he was one of the most powerful figures a country. Yeah, one of the great men of the east and really rich. And it means if Job's wiped out the whole stock market? I mean, okay, it's a it's a national calamity. So it's not just a couple of friends coming in looking for an apology. Right. It's his cabinet. Right? Yeah. Some of the, some of the influential people said, Look, in fact, we really, it's really time for us to move on and, and try to rebuild this economy and, and we need you to say you were wrong, right. So God will, so God will bless us.
Yeah. And, uh, sort of like in the pagan world. Oedipus does take one for the team, right? You know, anybody thinks that attipas really did kill his father and really did marry his father. Yeah, I've got some brash beachfront property in Kansas. I'd like to say he, he takes he takes it and he goes into exile and he accepts it. Job doesn't take it. Right. David. David doesn't take it. The Psalmist doesn't take it. They, right. They absolutely refuse to apologize. Unless, of course, they did something wrong. Yeah. When that Shiva happened? Yeah. When Nathan the prophet rebukes David, he, he, he really repents against the the only have I sinned? So it's not never apologize to your wife for Yeah. It's never apologize to your wife unless God thinks you need. Yeah, God thinks you wronged her. Yeah,
you should be the quickest she should be it should be there. And it should be sincere from the heart in order to put things right.
But if you are apologizing to your wife, simply as the way of kissing and making up, right? What you're doing is you're saying, I'm going to build my marriage, on the firm foundation of lying
of lying, I'm going to I'm going to lie to my wife. And it's cowardly. Right? So I mean, it's that and that's the, that's the trick like, like, psychologically or whatever is it feet in the moment, it has the appearance of love. But the reality is, it's just it's just another form of cowardice. And a man who's cowardly in that situation, that's, that's the first place where he needs to show some courage, and he needs to actually love his wife. And which may mean, let's have a conversation, you know, it looks like it's the sort of situation that this looks like work. It looks like we're going to have to go back and forth a couple of different times, because I don't feel like I did anything wrong. You clearly feel like I did something wrong. And so we're going to have to keep doing this until we figure out what is God actually expect.
And biblically speaking, a man who a man is not going to be able to stand up for his wife, unless he's able to stand up to her.
Right. Right. And, and, and it's the sort of, and she will respect him more. If he does, like if he can actually show like there's a courage in a man is is attractive and admirable, to a godly woman. She's going to look at that and say, there he's a has a backbone. He's not a pushover. And so, the if he acquiesces, she actually loses respect for him right over time, and it sends you down, and then it gets divorced.
I've seen other situations in the church, where people want you to apologize, just as a way of negotiating and compromising Right, right.
Yeah. It's like, it's like the it's like the negotiation on the, you know, that the plea bargain, you know, you know, 25 to 25 years to life, you know, it's like, well, we'll let you off with only five and probation. And so just take the deal,
right? That's right. But you have to say, Okay, I'll lie in order to keep keeps the peace in the church in the end. in the service of the one who is the truth? Yep, we are going to, we're going to build on a lie, right? So the empathetic, the empathetic culture, the therapeutic culture. Years ago, I was in a situation where I was meeting with another counselor and a woman had accused a family member of abuse and the other siblings are saying, What are you talking, you know, or what are you talking about? And I, I said something to the other counselor, like, the problem with this whole setup is that it's not true, right? It's not true.
And he said, this, I've heard plenty of times since but this I think, probably the first time I heard it was he said, Well, if this is her truth, right, this is true for her. So in her cocoon, in her vat of sentimentality and her cauldron of emotion, she needs companions in there. And since this is true for her, she needs someone in there all the way saying, it's true for me too, is that and that's where the believe the victim, you know, believe the victim, always right. And I say, okay, am I allowed to find out who it is first? Yeah, right. Which which one? If the victim if the victim that I must believe, is the first one through the door?
Right? It doesn't, yeah, you've got to be able to ask the questions. And in a culture like ours, that has so weaponized this, where people people have have learned, this is how you make your way. Like if you actually want to be somebody do so if you want to get into the point of if you want to be untouchable. This is how you get untouchable. I think that there as Christians, there ought to be like a genuine compassion for people who've been catechized in this way of operating, so that we don't sit there and look at them and go, we don't want to despise them, right? We want to be able to have compassion, which means resisting, right and not go and not going along with it and being willing to be the job being willing to go, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna lie, I'm gonna maintain my integrity.
So yes, that's right. So, let's, we've been talking about marriage and church, you know, yeah. Marriages, families on the ground stuff where you can see their facial facial expression. But this is clearly a culture wide phenomenon that goes from the Atlantic to the Pacific and, and probably elsewhere, but it certainly triumphant here, which means that it has to show up in newsrooms. It has to show up and how stories are, right told it's got to drive this. How would you talk about or advise someone? On watching the evening news, what to watch out for? Right? What what are some of the tells that would indicate this kind of thing is happening?
So first thing would be don't watch the evening news? No, but so part part of what you would want to do is, so some something comes on on the screen, and says, This is the big bad thing that just happened. If your first instinct is simply that's awful, and I need to do I need to say or do something about it. Like I need to, I need to get on Twitter, I get on Twitter right now. And I need to let everybody know. So I so there are, you know, being on Twitter, you can see people who that's how they operate is that they're looking for the latest outrage, and they're ready. It's a hair trigger, just like that.
Right? Hashtag I stand with how do you spell that? Yeah, exactly.
That's exactly right. And, and so if you find yourself with a kind of knee jerk reaction, inevitably, what you're doing is you're you're falling into the tribalism thing, right, where, you know, there are certain people who have gotten the other tribe. And so of course, you know, it's the Hatfields and McCoys. Of course, the McCoys. That's just how they are. And so I there's an immediate instinct to just react to just react to whatever the news is, and to then, you know, retweet it, spread it around before anybody's had a chance to, you know, cross examine the witnesses, or whatever.
And so, the way to know you're doing it wrong, is if you find yourself always doing that. And then, as happens, sometimes not always, but sometimes, it comes out that actually the story wasn't as it was first presented, there was it was more complicated and messier. And now you feel like now you're stuck, because you were one of the ones cheerleading, right. And now you're stuck. And at that point, what you ought to do is issue an apology, you ought to say I was response, I was reckless, and I'm going to do better next time. If you never do that, then you're the sort of you're part of the problem. You're part of the reactive chain, that that's feeding the whole thing. And so for me when I when I when I'm watching that my litmus test for myself, is something like there are a number of times where I think if that's true, I would really like to say something about it. But I but before I do, I want to give it time to know if it's really true. I want the pieces to follow. And, and then and then figuring out what actually is my obligation in this situation to give is happening across the country.
What's my first obligation? Well, my first obligation if it's that bad is probably pray not mainly to try to organize some kind of media campaign, because the irony is this, this is related to a whole a whole different cultural phenomenon. But it's the virtue signaling thing. It's how do I demonstrate that I'm a good person by retweeting the right things or liking the right thing, retweeting it first or being the first, you know, being on the cutting edge of, of doing that, and I don't actually have to do anything meaningful, because what I feel like is meaningful is the raising awareness, or the publicizing or the joining. And, and I sit there and I think when I when I'm looking at that, and I'm going, even if, even if I agree with the cause, right? What's what's what's my responsibility as a Christian, fundamentally, is not to sit there in social media blast, is, am I praying? Am I asking God to do something if it was really that bad, God, bring your judgment, if it show mercy to those who need mercy, like go to him to deal with it not simply erupt on the internet as though that's going to solve and
the virtue signaling occurs in the inflamed relations between the sexes, right, the the meat, the meat to world, and it comes up in COP? Cops shootings, or cops shooting blacks, the Black Lives Matter thing. It's almost like an instant polarization. Right? So if, if I, let's say some, let's say some respected person, not someone that rumors were floating around for years, but some highly respected person was accused by someone of molesting them, or, you know, some sexual crime. And they go to a some feminist leader to interview what do you think about the charges that were dropped today? And if suppose just imagine her saying something like, well, he denies the charges. And the investigation has just begun. I really think we need to wait and see what happens. See what happened. I would go, yeah, right.
You'd be shocked. I'd be shocked. And I would be so shocked that I would think to myself, I thought she was a feminist. Right? Because that's the tribe. Yeah, that immediately man's the barricades and there are men who man the barricades in the same way, sort of the MiG tau? Yeah, men men going their own way. Guys, the guys are right. Yeah, the men are right. The women are right. The blacks are right. The cops are right, right. Well, no, we know we have a doctrine of man's sinfulness and depravity. We know that this story that I just read about a cop shooting an unarmed civilian is quite possibly true. Yeah. Right. And this wicked and high wickedness, right.
That's high wickedness. that's possibly true. It's also possibly true that he was legitimately fearing for his life, and then the person who was shot deserve to be shot. Yeah, that's this is a fallen world. That's also possibly true. Right? The the predator who preys on Yes, staff, and yes, secretaries and stuff. Well, that happens real. That's real. That really happens. Yep. So this story that we're I'm hearing might really be that. But also it's true that women are capable of misrepresenting what happened that happens. Yep. Also, right. So I wonder what you know.
Yeah. So and that's an and this is where as a pastor, so I, I watch, I keep abreast of that kind of stuff, not because I mean, I really want to I don't, I'm not interested, necessarily, in whatever kinds of things are happening across the country. That's not my responsibility. But I know that my people are tracking with that kind of stuff. And it's shaping them. And it is forming them and hardening them into the tribes. And the irony of this is a very Gerardi and kind of kind of observation. What what happens is, there's a polarization where people think that the they're the white hats and the other guys or the or the black hats, were the good guys, bad guys, sons of light sons of darkness, at the precise moment when those two sides are becoming mirror images of each other. Right, right, that polarization is it's a mirror.
And so the the more that one side reacts and feels like we are the good guys, and they're the bad guys. And then the more the other side does the exact same thing. The whole thing is, is obvious that both of you are are whatever differences exist between you the similarities and how you're responding, reacting, escalating, is so identical, that the only way that this is going to end is with somebody getting stoned. Like at some point, this, all of this pent up back and forth is going to go somewhere and it's going to be very, very ugly. And so as a Christian, I want to be able to identify that but I don't want to participate in it. And I want to make sure that my people are able to do it to properly distance themselves. So that so that if it's going if it's going to get ugly, I don't want them in there throwing stones
right. There's a Buffalo Springfield back in this back in the 60s. For what it's worth singing songs and carrying signs, mostly saying hurray for our side, right and both sides have The same side. Yeah, the same science hurray for our site refresh. Oh, Gerard talks about, basically I forget it, this is his metaphor or not, but that what I see happening in our culture of the antipathy that's, I mean, we hate each other like, yeah, like I can never remember. Right. Okay. Yeah. And we hate each other. We hate one another on many different fronts. Right. There's a, it's a balkanization, it's this fragmentation kind of fragmentation. But there's a unity to the whole thing. That I don't know if this was his illustration, but it's my illustration of his point. And that is human cultures are built up into thunderheads. Right. Right.
Towns, churches, denominations, families, any group, any significant group of people builds up into a thunderhead, right, where there's an electrical charge in there. Yep, that's got to hit some it's got to it's got to go something's got to go somewhere. Yep. And when I see that charge, and I've seen it over the years, that charge that crackle, that problem beginning to develop in the church, or in this set of relationships as I see it. Since God's solution to that was the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross right that's the lightning rod where yeah, the wrath of all the world right? You know, goes there this goes there, right? If I see wrath starting to accumulate, yep. If I'm observing my people being shaped by what do I think about Black Lives Matter? And yeah, bad things do happen to blacks? Yeah. driving while black? Yeah, yeah. Things like rash that a store.
Yeah, there. That happens. And so I'm, I want to empathize with them. Yep. And I'm all in and then somebody else's empathizing with the Sheriff's Department. Right. You don't know what it's like to go on, you know, yes. Somebody else's empathizing with our brave men in uniform, somebody else's empathizing with right. Women, you know, you have all these people empathizing, which aggravates the charge, right? And it's building up and it's going to be catastrophic, right? Unless God raises up preachers to preach the cross. Right.
That's it. That's That's right. Because the only thing Yeah, the only thing that can take the charge and not obliterate the whole system is is the cross, because that is the foundation of forgiveness that like, if you can't forgive as Christ as you say, you have to be forgiven. And then you can forgive as Christ has forgiven you. That's the only way out of that. It's the renunciation of the blood guilt. It's the renunciation of the grievance.
That's the only way and it satisfies, right, it sounds justice,
it's not just pass it over sweep it under the rug. It didn't really happen. But but it has to start with with a fundamental forgiveness, it has to start with mercy and blood of Jesus, right? Otherwise, it's not getting anywhere. And so when I look at the present moment, at the kind of crackling and, and an escalation, there's no telling like, what who the scapegoat is eventually going to be there's no way to predict in advance because it's the sort of it's, it's gonna it's a hair trigger, and you don't know what the what's projecting where that was. Right? That's right. But the main thing is, can we as Christians, not get caught up in it? So that we're just another one of the the crackling you know, we're just another, you know, you know, if it's like a circuit, if we're just another circuit that's channeling the energy and slinging it back into the system with greater force, can we actually be a place where the charge stops, like where it hits a wall, called the gospel, and it dissipates
and the Gospels embodiment in the church, instead of the church being just another, just another monkey in the cage. So I don't know if I'm being a little dire on this. I'm interested in your thought on it as I'm looking at the escalation, the ramping up the increasing tape, hatred, and malice and rage, you know, that is just gratuitously offered today. It seems to me that we have got either to weave there are two things that are going to happen, either there's going to be a great reformation and revival. Right, or there's going to be civil war.
Yeah, so as it's interesting question about whether or not there's a can't can it climb back down short of the Reformation? Right. And, and one of the, you know, one of the factors that that's that's
what it could be a famine, I guess, famine might fix Yeah.
Or, you know, oftentimes in situations like this, you know, what's what if you've got all of the internal crackling, one of the surest ways to like defuse it is to find an external enemy, right. So a war externally helps to shore up. Now we may be so far gone from that, because the the, you know, the escalation is so much that we can't even rally around the flag overseas or something like that. And we're tired of all
of that, that used to I used to work that used to work.
And then the question is whether or not you know, all of the all of the businesses who are highly incentivized to not allow a civil war, because their profit margins depend on it, can can do anything to kind of mitigate, mitigate it. But at this point, it's, it's, it's a, I think it's so unpredictable. So the only thing you can do, in my mind is, you know, there's a verse in Isaiah, where where it says, he talks about God, he will be the stability of your times, he will be the instability of your time, or he will be the stability of your times.
So when you're living in Unstable Times, where there's this high degree of unpredictability, and everybody is on edge, like, you know, leaning forward, and everybody's ready with, you know, the pitchforks. And it's just crackling, that the only hope there for the Christian who feels that anxiety rising is to go and say, God knows. He's the stability of our times. Let's be faithful where we're planted, not not be faithful everywhere. We're not planted right? Let's be faithful where we're planted in our church in our community, loving our real neighbors not not getting involved and getting lost in the in the interweb. Let's love our real neighbors.
Well, and stop being empathetic with and stop
empathizing with them. That's right. Love them. Well preach the gospel and pray for that, that that rain, but for the for the gospel to default,
it seems to me that men are if I turn to address the men about all this that we've been talking about, I would have to break it out into I've got good news and bad news. Okay. Okay. The good news is that you don't have to be empathetic. Because they didn't want to anyway, right? Yeah. But the reason they men don't want to be empathetic is they don't want to be sympathetic either, right? They don't have compassion, right? So the Bible tells husbands to love their wives, tells wives to respect their husbands. Yep. And I believe for a long time that this is this, these differentiated commands are given to us for a reason.
Wives need to be loved. husbands need to be respected men and women run on different kinds of fuel. That's right, they run diesel and regular. And so, so wives need to be loved husbands need to be respected. But also God commands to our weaknesses. Husbands are told to love their wives because generally speaking, husbands are not that good at good at it. Wives are told to respect their husbands because generally speaking, wives are not that good
by nature. That's not given given sin, even the brokenness the fall, right, that's not our natural
bent. And since we have to get CS Lewis in here, again, I can't talk to you without getting into what we did twice. Lewis says that men tend to define love, as not giving trouble to others. And women define it as taking trouble for others, right? And the woman's definition of love is closer to the biblical model. Christ took trouble for us, right? Right. Okay, so women are better at loving men are better at respecting. And so God tells men to love, which means that they have to be all in sympathizing, alright? The men have to be tender, compassionate, loving, sympathetic, and they should think of empathy. They should hear that word, like someone's had bone cancer or
Right, right. That's right. So I would say empathy is the parasitic version of sympathy. So it's a knockoff. It's, it's, it's what sympathy looks like when it goes bad. Right? And, and so there ought to be for men, whether it's in your home, whether it's in your workplace, whether it's out as you're engaging on social media, or whatever, whatever your context is, you ought to be mindful of the subtle ways that you're being manipulated by demands for empathy. Right? And you ought to every time it happens, you ought to find some way to resist it. Right? Right. It can't Don't let Don't be steered by the demand for empathy, instead, actually show compassion, right? Actually lean in with help, don't don't get stuck, twisting in the wind as you try to conform to whatever the
latest and that last thing is, this thing you said there about actually showing compassion is what keeps you from veering into the other ditch. Because if people if you if you refuse to show empathy, then it's going to be about five minutes before people are accusing you of being the king of the jerks. Right? Heartless your heart. You're heartless. You're right, the king of the jerks. And when people start pounding you for being a jerk, you're a jerk. You're a jerk. You're a jerk. At some point, some men are going to think well if I'm going to be hanged for a thief, I might feel something right, right. That's right. And so they veer off in this okay.
Okay, I'll be a jerk. That's right. Deal with it. Yep. Deal with it. And that's that oftentimes when men go that way, again the the MiG tau movement Yeah. men going their own way. Yeah, it's just bitterness and resentment. See the boiling over, right. You're gonna call me I've been I've been trying to be masculine I've been trying to provide I've been trying to lead I've been trying to do and I've been slapped down, slapped down, slapped. And finally, right. Nevermind.
And what's interesting about both of those responses is both of them are actually very unmanly. Right, they're both driven by a kind of refusal to take up the mantle of responsibility first for yourself. So when I'm my my basic exhortation to guys, when they're in situations like this is always your first responsible for you, and not getting sucked in. Then the second thing is, you're going to try to help your wife also not get sucked in. And then from there, you're going to try to help your family not get sucked in. And from there, you're going to try to help your church and and so far so but but you can't you cannot export what you don't have. You can't help them. If you yourself are part of the problem.
If a man doesn't manage this household Well, right? How can we how can you lead in the church on the
ministry of God? And so the fundamental call in in the present moment is not mainly for guys to figure out whether or not you know, you know, so we we it's it's it's interesting to speculate about whether we're gonna end in a kind of Christ's sacrificial crisis with civil war and blood. But the fundamental thing for an individual man is are you taking responsibility for yourself? And then having done so are you taking responsibility for those who are under your immediate care? Be a man there right and and then and then trust
the rest of God. So masculinity without permission is not chewing tobacco or getting a Navy SEALs henna tattoo? No, no, taking responsibility where you
