Yesterday we meditated on the essential lesson of Passover: that of empathy. Empathy is the “central message” of the 8-day season of Passover, said Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of the UK.
Empathy and compassion lie at the center of Jesus’ teachings as well. “Be compassionate as your Creator in heaven is compassionate” summarizes his life and teaching and even the reason for his death that we remember this week. Thomas Aquinas called compassion “the fire that Jesus came to set on the earth.” Teachings of compassion lie at the core of abundant parables of Jesus, from the Good Samaritan to Matthew 25 and many more.
In contrast to the Passover tradition of Judaism and from Jesus, this headline arose recently in The Guardian: “Loathe thy neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian right are waging war on empathy.”* Author Julia Carrie Wong underscores how “Trump’s actions are irreconcilable with Christian compassion. But an unholy alliance seeks to cast empathy as a parasitic plague.”
The lawless effort to keep union member, father of three and admittedly innocent prisoner Kilmar Abrego Garcia in a notorious Salvadoran prison by the current administration is not only blatantly illegal but also blatantly without empathy for him, his wife and family, co-workers and more.
Arguments why it is possible emanating from the current regime (including lawyers who should know better) are strongly suggesting that a war against empathy is at the heart of the administration’s agenda– even though all nine SCOTUS judges agreed that he should be returned.
I highly recommend reading Wong’s article and what it tells us about the current regime and all those Congress people who support it without so much as a peep. Many of them love to show off their so-called Christianity at a drop of the hat (Mr. Johnson, Republican House speaker primary among them).
Wong begins her article with a public statement from Elon Musk about how empathy is “the fundamental weakness of western civilization,” and the “empathy response” constitutes “a bug in western civilization.” Instead of being “your standard, golden rule-type stuff,” Wang points out, evangelical creationists and vice president JD Vance, reprimanded by Pope Francis, both want to declare that immigration and foreign aid constitute a sin of too much empathy.
The goal of the rightwing movement against empathy is to squash “our capacity to recognize and respond to suffering” and is “a flashing red light warning of fascist intent.” It makes room for mass deportation without due process, draconian cuts to domestic and foreign aid programs, and a set of “foreign policies that amount to a prescription for mass suffering and death.”
Let us not leave out domestic policies promising mass suffering and death by deconstructing Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare, scientific research and more.
When Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde preached to Trump on inauguration day asking for “mercy upon people in our country who are scared now,” a “Christian podcaster” named Ben Garrett tweeted: “Do not commit the sin of empathy. This snake (Budde) is God’s enemy and yours too.”
Pastor Joe Rigney excoriated Bishop Budde for her “clear example of the man-eating weed of Humanist Mercy.” His book, The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits, was released this February. Wong tells us that “Rigney’s views are increasingly appealing to evangelical Christians.”
For Susan Lanzone, author of Empathy: A History, “the disparagement of empathy is…a deliberate effort to set up a permission structure to dehumanize others.”
* Julia Carrie Wong, “Loathe thy neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian right are waging war on empathy,” The Guardian, April 8, 2025.
See Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice..
See Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
And Fox, The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
Banner Image: “The Parable of the Good Samaritan, Messina Church of the Miraculous Medal House of Hospitality, Collereale,” G. Conti. Wikimedia Commons
Queries for Contemplation
How concerned are you about the disappearance of empathy being perpetrated by so-called Christians and others in league with Trumpian policies and politics and the structure it is creating to dehumanize others?
Recommended Reading
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
The Pope’s War offers a provocative look at three decades of corruption in the Catholic Church, focusing on Josef Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI. The final section in the book focuses on birthing a truly catholic Christianity.
“This book should be read by everybody, not only for its ferocious courage, but also for its vision for what needs to be saved from the destructive forces that threaten authentic Christianity.” ~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope.
“In the gripping The Pope’s War, Matthew Fox takes an unwavering look at the layers of corruption in the Catholic Church, holding moral truth against power.” — Jason Berry, author of Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
