Episode 229 (Transcript): What About Empathy?

Episode Transcript

Many thanks to listener Zinah Burke for her work in transcribing this episode!

This episode can be found on any podcast app or can be listened to here on our website as well. All the notes and resources we cited in the episode are found at this link as well:

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CW: Have you ever heard in a scripture story, though, with Jesus healing someone - have you ever heard that a person was healed because of the faith of their friends? 

Empathy. Right? If that isn’t empathy -  tearing out the roof! And I just think, what a visual that is of empathy, of having friends mourn with those who mourn and had compassion, right?

Because the empathy moved them to compassion to do something.

SH: Hello, I'm Susan Hinkley.

CW:  And I am Cynthia Winward.

SH: And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things, and the title of today's episode is “What About Empathy?” 

CW: What about empathy? Susan, are you ready?

SH: I wonder why we're having a conversation about empathy right now, Cynthia. 

CW: Gee, I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine. But we're gonna get there, and hopefully our listeners come along with us as we dissect it. 

SH: Yeah, it's, it feels like a complicated topic in new ways, I guess to me. 

CW: Yeah. New ways. 

SH: Empathy has suddenly become a hot button issue, and I never really knew that it could be or would be, I guess. 

CW: Right? How could you take something that is so Jesus-y and make it controversial? I don't know, but we've managed to do that. So yeah, let's go ahead and talk about it, because, like you, I've been perplexed, but mostly I've been super sad to hear all the talk in our culture. And maybe it's just American culture, apologies to our friends who are outside the United States, but there's been a lot of talk here in the United States.

Is it, is the talk mostly coming from like, Christian nationalists? Like they're writing books, I'm not even gonna say the title of their books, but they're poo-pooing empathy. 

SH: Right.

CW: There are podcasts from, you know, the dude bros talking about how it's a sin. And I'm really sad also to say that I see it in our own church community as well.

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I haven't really heard our leaders use, like that phrase, “the sin of empathy”, but the sentiments are there. And we'll get into some of the ouchie things I've heard leaders say in a minute, but I think it's really common when navigating big changes with the organization of the church to have to decide to break away from maybe what church leaders are telling us to instead, prioritizing what our heart tells us, what our spirit is telling us, our conscience, however we wanna describe that. I think that's really just what Christlike compassion is. Christlike empathy is.