Dissidents behind the Iron Curtain such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn frequently recited this mantra: “Live not by lies.” Indeed, said Solzhenitsyn: “Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule hold not through me!” These dissidents simply updated the declaration of Jesus, who said Satan is the “father of lies” who inspires a vast panoply of misinformation leading multitudes astray. In Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion (New York: Penguin Random House, c. 2024; Kindle Edition) Allie Beth Stuckey examines areas wherein well-intentioned believers embrace harmful positions. In the name of “love” they support unloving acts. They do so by thinking empathetically—putting themselves in other persons’ situations—is compassion or kindness or love. “But empathy alone is a terrible guide,” she says. “It may be part of what inspires us to do good, but it’s just an emotion and, like all emotions, is highly susceptible to manipulation. That’s exactly what’s happening today. Empathy has been hijacked for the purpose of conforming well-intentioned people to particular political agendas. Specifically, it’s been co-opted by the progressive wing of American society to convince people that the progressive position is exclusively the one of kindness and morality. I call it toxic empathy” (p. xii).
Rightly defined, love is a commitment to another person’s well-being. It certainly involves feelings but is primarily an act, doing what’s right and good. Love and truth are laminated together—both are needed to establish Christian character. Love cannot be entangled in lies. Love cannot endorse evil behaviors. Such things as “kindness and compassion are necessary components of love. But empathy literally means to be in the feelings of another person. Empathy by itself is neither loving nor kind; it’s just an emotion.” Unfortunately: “The erroneous conflation of love and empathy has convinced the masses that to be loving, we must feel the same way they do. Toxic empathy says we must not only share their feelings, but affirm their feelings and choices as valid, justified, and good. This confusion has not only made us a morally lost people but it’s also harmed the very people empathy-mongers claim they’re trying to help: the truly marginalized and vulnerable” (p. xiii).
A few years ago Stuckey awakened to the fact that many pastors and spokesmen for evangelicalism had begun supporting immoral behaviors, saying they identified with groups suffering various forms of oppression. Though claiming to be Christians they openly supported non-Christian behaviors. Following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, Black Lives Matter became a lodestone for progressives who declared America to be a deeply racist country. “Of course I believe black lives matter,” Stuckey says. “But I knew from previous research that the organization Black Lives Matter, for which many black-square posters were soliciting donations, did not have goals I could get behind. They are open about their radical left-wing ideals. Now erased from BLM’s website was this: ‘We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another’” (p. xxi). She then began to study, seeking to understand why Christians would support BLM and other progressive political causes, including abortion, transgenderism, same-sex marriage, illegal immigration, and social justice.
Progressives such as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris support abortion as a necessary component of “health care.” Sad stories of women suffering difficulties as a result of an “unplanned pregnancies” seek to elicit feelings supporting their decisions to abort their babies. We’re instructed to “feel the pain” of the mothers rather than defend their babies. Nor are we allowed to feel the pain of women who often regret having aborted their children. Euphemisms abound whenever abortion is endorsed, and it’s not allowed to even suggest an actual person is being killed in the procedure. Ending the life of the developing baby, progressives say, is not murder—it’s “reproductive freedom,” validating a “woman’s rights,” upholding her “autonomy.” Professing Christians supporting abortion do so because they feel sorry for pregnant women. They’re empathetic! However: “Empathy tells us only to care about how the pregnant mother is in that moment. Truth and love demand that we recognize without qualification these babies’ right to live” (p. 29).
Today’s most a vogue progressive cause is transgenderism, which holds that we’re not given a specific “gender” at conception but are free to “identify” with our inner feelings. No less an authority than The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) differentiates between “gender” and “sex,” so you can be born a male (sexually) but identify as a woman (gender-wise)! These pediatricians further support giving children treatments to make them more fully feel their chosen identity. Joining the chorus, educators in the public schools have generally endorsed transgenderism, as is evident in books added to libraries and units prescribed in curricula. To Stuckey, however: “When it comes to gender, we know what the biological and biblical reality is. There is no scientific nor scriptural category for a ‘gender identity’ that is independent from sex” (p. 56). Despite considerable public (and even governmental) pressure, Christians must uphold the truth regarding biology and scripture. To do so means we should be “exceedingly precise in our language, dropping terms like ‘biological female’ to describe a woman masquerading as a man, since that gives credence to the idea that it’s possible to be a nonbiological female . . . . In other words, we refuse to lie” (p. 61).
We must also refuse to lie about “same-sex” marriage! For centuries virtually everyone understood “marriage” united a man and a women in a relationship that is in principle procreative. Stuckey has coined an “alliteration to help me remember why God’s definition of marriage as between a man and a woman is so important: Biblical marriage is Rooted in creation; it’s Reiterated throughout Scripture; it’s Repeated by Jesus; it’s Representative of Christ and the church; and therefore it’s Reflective of the Gospel” (p. 82). But in 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court surfed with the shifting waves of public opinion and somehow (in Obergefell v. Hodges) found same-sex marriage protected by the Constitution! Attuned to the culture prominent Christians such as the late Tim Keller began to endorse it as well. It’s the law of the land, he seemed to think, and we must accept it. Stuckey, however, disagrees: ‘The law can permit sin, but Christians should not accept laws that approve of or are designed to make it easier to sin. Put another way, it’s one thing for the law to allow same-sex attracted people to live with each other and even form lives together. . . . But it’s another thing for the state to call “marriage” that which God declares is not marriage. Then the state isn’t just allowing error, it is promoting and defending it—and making it easier for people to turn their backs on God” (p. 90).
Since justice is one of the cardinal virtues and Christians have always sought to establish it in their world, “social justice” has easily been endorsed by churches and schools, pastors and professors. “Within evangelicalism, conversations about social justice, especially as it pertains to race, have taken center stage” (p. 152). But today’s “social justice” is hardly the kind of justice championed in the Bible! It’s defined by the United Nations as: “The fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth”—meaning, as Kamala Harris said, “we all end up in the same place.” This, Stuckey says, “includes not just ensuring job opportunities, but combating everything that may affect one’s ability to prosper: sexism, racism, transphobia, and other forms of discrimination” (p. 132). Closely examined, however, Stuckey finds little evidence for “systemic” racism, sexism, etc., and to the extent “social justice warriors” prevail in the U.S.A. much harm almost always results.
Concluding her treatise, Stuckey says: “Christians are commanded to love, and empathy can help us love well. But empathy without biblical truth isn’t love at all—it’s hate. It’s hate, because—just as Satan did with Eve in the Garden—affirming sin means nudging someone off the edge of the cliff” (p. 158). Our job is to speak the truth, refuting Satan’s lies, doing what we can to establish Christ’s Kingdom, free from toxic empathy that misdirects our moral compass.
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Anthony Esolen is one of America’s finest Christian writers, the author of some 30 books and a distinguished translator of Dante’s Divine Comedy. His The Lies of our Time (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, c. 1993, 2023; Kindle Edition) provides a masterful diagnosis on our morally diseased body politic and prescribes stout goblets of Truth as the remedy. Esolen’s mastery of literature provides him ample fare for building his case, so that deeply philosophical issues gain visual clarity through apt illustrations.
The first and most “fundamental lie of our time” declares there is no God, and failing to worship Him leads us to turn to creatures (naturalism) or human creations (humanism), two of the most prominent current worldviews. Esolen skillfully sets forth credible reasons to believe in God as He revealed Himself to Moses—“He Who Is.” The second lie says there is no objective moral truth. Everything’s relative! But throughout history man has had to deal with a troubled conscience! Some things simply should not be done! Written deeply into human nature is an awareness that our well-being requires certain moral certitudes. As with the law of gravity, ignoring the natural law will destroy us. “There Is No Such Thing As Beauty” says lie number three. We’re told that enjoying beauty is a purely personal feeling—“beauty is in the mind of the beholder.” But Esolen declares it’s a reality that’s self-evident and needs no justification. Thus: “No one finds the bare wall beautiful” (p. 80). The modern world features many “cults” of ugliness, but they cannot endure. There’s beauty all around us and we profit from enjoying it.
The fourth lie pretends “Human Nature Does Not Exist,” a view popularized by Existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and his disciple Simone de Beauvoir. In response, Esolen points to a host of unique human traits as evidence of our essence—speaking, forging social systems, worshipping, doing artistic work, etc. Utopians always want to deny or alter human nature—as is painfully evident in the transgender movement—but reality has a way of surviving and thriving despite innovators’ endeavors. Pascal said it well: “The greatness and the wretchedness of man are so plain to see that the true religion must needs teach us that there is some great principle of greatness in man, and a great principle of wretchedness too” (Pensees, #430). Lie number five holds that: “The Foundation and the Fulfillment of All Human Society Is Equality.” This position is strongly asserted by socialists of various sorts, including American progressives. But “equality is a mathematical, mechanical, legalistic, or juridical notion” that cannot prevail in any healthy society. Consequently: “Societies that accept inequalities in station as a matter of course tend to be peaceful, while those that demand equality must be in a state of constant turmoil, because a narrow-eyed envy supplants humility” (p. 105).
That “Cultural Progress Is Inevitable” is the sixth lie of our time. Folks such as Barak Obama urge us to get “on the right side of history,” espousing a version of historicism rooted in Marxism. Truth to tell, if we study such things as modern art, music, architecture, morality and family life, we live in an era of cultural decline—what T.S. Eliot described as a “wasteland.” Prominent thinkers almost routinely invoke the word “barbarian” to describe what they see, and Esolen thinks evidence of decay abounds and easily refutes claims of cultural progress. Most all forms of feminism embrace lie number seven, claiming that “Western Christian Men Are to Blame for Everything.” One need only read Shakespeare to learn that both men and women (e.g. both Lord and Lady Macbeth) do deadly things. Creative, good men have enriched our world and must recognized for their contributions. Demeaning an entire sex shows nothing more than irrational prejudice. Consider the many technological inventions that have improved the lot of women—labor saving sewing machines, refrigerators, dishwashers. “In this regard, the ingratitude and self-contradictions of feminists appear quite astonishing,” for they covet the devices while demeaning the men who developed them (p. 160).
Mark Twain once quipped that there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” So Esolen finds “statistics” the eighth lie we must guard against. Whenever we consider important issues such as domestic violence or divorce or murder rates we’re easily misled by “statistics.” Thus we’re told it’s absolutely good for certain ethnic or sexual groups to increasingly attend college, when we ought to wonder if they’re actually learning anything of significance. Statistical studies may provide us useful information, but they can never address truly important things. Wisdom cannot be found by counting!
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Lucas Miles hosts a podcast—“The Epoch Times, Church & State with Lucas Miles”—which was named the 2023 “Program of the Year” by the National Religious Broadcasters organization. He pastors a church in Indiana and is a popular speaker as well as the author of several books. In his latest treatise, Woke Jesus: The False Messiah Destroying Christianity (West Palm Beach, FL: Humanix Books, c. 2023) he writes “to assemble a definitive resource on the history of Wokeness and its dangerous repercussions within the church (and what we can do about it)” (p. 10). Doing so involves explaining its historical roots, most especially in a neo-Gnosticism “rooted in Hegelian and Marxist thought, reinforced by nefariously crafted arguments from feminists, diversity officers, Critical Theorists, communist elites, social justice activists, and ‘Woke’ pastors” (p. 13).
Denying the deity of Jesus Christ marks most neo-Gnostics who follow Immanuel Kant in holding that Christ was “totally human,” though admittedly a wonderful example—“the prototype of a humanity well-pleasing to God.” For today’s “woke” Christians, Jesus is invoked as a guide to liberating the oppressed (primarily blacks, women, gays and transexuals). In the process Scripture is downgraded in order to elevate personal experience. Woke advocates say you may disregard clear biblical texts but dare not challenge an individual’s story—his or her “own truth.” Thus there are, Edward Feser says, a host of “apostate projects” such as progressivism and identity politics. This includes Black Liberation Theology, largely shaped by James Cone, who endeavored to “analyze the satanic nature of Whiteness” and “prepare all non-Whites for revolutionary action.” Cone’s Jesus is a social reformer determined to eliminate injustice. Jesus came not to save sinners but to establish economic equality. Thus Critical Race Theory (CRT) replaces repentance from sin with commitment to social change, primarily through politics. CRT, Miles says, “is built upon a foundation of atheistic materialism” that “promotes varying moral standards based on the color of a person’s skin, instead of God’s righteous judgment” (p. 84).
Miles devotes a chapter to the “school of woke,” tracing the secularization of Americ’s colleges and universities. When Harvard College was founded its motto read: Veritas pro Christo et Ecclesia, which means “Truth for Christ and Church.” During the subsequent centuries the motto was changed to suit the spirit of the age and was recently chopped down to a simple Veritas. As is well known, what happened to Harvard was replicated in the nation’s elite universities such as Princeton, Yale, and Columbia. But Miles thinks the same process is happening again in “evangelical” schools such as Biola, Azusa Pacific, and Wheaton, which “are facing the exact same drift toward secularization, risking the loss of the few remaining trusted voices in American higher education” (p. 92). Much the same can be said about the nation’s churches, some of which are more concerned with being Woke than proclaiming the Gospel. Woke radicals (frequently funded by oligarchs such as George Soros) are clearly targeting the churches,, claiming to espouse a new and better morality. Progressives to the bone, they frequently claim everything is relative, though in fact they are absolutists when it comes to items they favor, such as abortion, same-sex marriage, immigration, etc. Whole posing as Christians they are actually promulgating a false religion, because as Scott David Allen says, the “social justice” they champion is truly “‘a culture of hatred, division, a false sense of moral superiority and a false understanding of justice. A culture where truth is replaced by power, and gratitude by ingratitude’” (p. 198).
To rightly respond to these issues Miles sets forth rather simple, traditional means. Serve God rather than man. Root your faith in the fact that God became man to atone for our sins. Make Scripture your authority. Join a Bible-believing, doctrinally orthodox church. Take care to know what your children are learning in school. There’s a culture war taking place and we must support the right side, taking our place in the church militant, both realistically assessing the situation and joyfully engaging in combat, confident we will triumph in the end.
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As a university student Rosaria Butterfield found feminism a cause worth championing and lived for a decade as a lesbian activist, becoming a tenured professor of English at Syracuse University. Then she met a gracious pastor of a Presbyterian church who lovingly prodded her to carefully consider who she was and how she was living. In time she became a Christian, married a pastor, and has written fine books rooted in her story and new-found faith. She recently published Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, c. 2023), primarily to give guidance for Christian women. She has, Peter Jones (a friend of mine) says, “written a landmark book on there lies our culture is rapidly adopting regarding sexuality, what she calls ‘the idol of our time,’ namely LGBTQ+ ideology.” Still more, he says: “She offers profound, and deeply convincing, reflections on Christian spiritual issues of temptation, sin, envy, and modesty, as well as the doctrines of the Scriptures and ecclesiology.”
Butterfield begins by saying: “Seemingly overnight, a civil war within Christianity has broken out” (p. 1). From her standpoint it’s a battle between good and evil, truth and lies. The “world is in chaos, and the church is divided because we have failed to obey God and value his plan for how men and women should live” (p. 7). The lies all too many Christians have embraced put them at odds with God, who clearly reveals Himself and His will in Scripture. The lies giving structure to the book are: 1) homosexuality is normal and good—“the central and controlling narrative of our anti-Christian age;” 2) being a “kind” person is better than being a biblical disciple; 3) feminism is good for both society and the church; 4) transgenderism is good; 5) modesty is outdated and locks women into patriarchal domination. For years, even for a while after becoming a Christian, Butterfield believed these lies. But two Supreme Court decisions forced her to change her positions. In Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015, the court legalized same-sex marriage; in Bostoc vs. Clayton County, CA, 2020, it guaranteed civil rights for LGBTQ+ persons. It was clear, in those decisions, that Sigmund Freud had replaced the Bible as our culture’s authority.
Then Butterfield understood that Christians must boldly declare deeply traditional sexual standards and call everyone violating them to repent. Though we must extend love to everyone, we dare not confuse acceptance with approval. Accepting and extending grace to a lesbian daughter may establish a basis for building a good relationship. But approving her behavior may well dissuade her from repentance and ultimately damn her soul. Loving your gay son means doing what’s best for him and that includes refusing to attend his “gay wedding.” If your 12 year old daughter wants to become a man you must do everything possible to prevent it. These moral positions are, of course, anchored in Scripture and theology, so Butterfield seeks to explain how the Christian faith, by proclaiming the truth, is the answer all too many people in our world desperately need. God designed our world and has given us clear instructions concerning how to live well. This is particularly evident in ways men and women complement each other, a truth denied in anti-Christian lies. And we must resolve to “live not by lies.”