Toxic Empathy: When “Compassion” Harms More Than It Helps
- Rex Ballard
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Recently, Elisa and I had the great fortune to interview Dr. David Thompson and his wife, Becki, about their 35 years in Africa doing medical missionary work. In his concluding remarks, he offered inspiration and said that it is so important to maintain true Godly love for people in their hearts. He was quick to point out that sometimes this love can turn toward "Toxic Empathy". These words are the basis for today's article.
In today’s cultural and political climate, empathy is routinely praised as an unquestioned good—the mark of a caring, moral society. Yet conservative author and commentator Allie Beth Stuckey has powerfully argued that empathy, when untethered from truth and wisdom, becomes something far more dangerous. In her 2024 book Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion, Stuckey coins and develops the term “toxic empathy,” defining it as the distortion of compassion into a tool that affirms sin, validates lies, and advances destructive policies.
Stuckey, a prominent Christian voice, contends that progressives have weaponized the very compassion many Christians hold dear—rooted in biblical calls to care for the vulnerable—to pressure believers and the broader public into supporting agendas on crime, gender, immigration, family, and more that ultimately undermine human flourishing.
What Makes Empathy “Toxic”?
True empathy involves understanding another’s pain and responding with wisdom and love. Toxic empathy, by contrast, demands that we suspend judgment, ignore consequences, and prioritize feelings over facts or moral order. It pressures us to affirm behaviors or policies we know are harmful because refusing feels “unkind.”
As Stuckey puts it, empathy becomes toxic “when it encourages you to affirm sin, validate lies, or support destructive policies.”
This is not abstract theory. It plays out in real-world policies sold under the banner of compassion but producing measurable harm—especially to the very people they claim to help.
Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote an article in the Atlantic attacking Allie Beth Stuckey and her book. Stuckey did an excellent job of rebuffing those attacks in this interview.
Warped Compassion in Action: Lessons from Laura Hollis
Columnist Laura Hollis has long examined these dynamics in pieces for The Epoch Times and Creators Syndicate, including her analysis of what she terms “warped compassion.” Hollis illustrates how policies framed as compassionate often erode the foundations of a healthy society: respect for human life, property rights, the rule of law, and personal responsibility.
Consider California’s Proposition 47 (2014), which reclassified many theft and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors when the value was under $950. Marketed as a compassionate reform to reduce incarceration and focus on treatment, it instead contributed to a surge in retail theft, smash-and-grabs, and property crime. Business owners watched thieves operate with near-impunity; communities saw increased disorder. Similar “compassionate” experiments—drug decriminalization efforts, reduced use of involuntary commitment for severe mental illness, and cashless bail policies in various jurisdictions—have correlated with visible declines in public safety and quality of life in cities from San Francisco to Portland.
Hollis notes that these approaches often prioritize leniency and “understanding” over accountability and order. The result? More victims, strained public resources, and a breakdown of the social contract. What began as an appeal to empathy ended up harming the vulnerable most—those living in high-crime neighborhoods, small business owners, and families trying to raise children in safe communities.
Local Ripples in Shasta County
Shasta County has not been immune to these broader California trends. Prop 47’s effects were felt locally in elevated property crimes, theft, and retail losses. The county has since pursued Prop 47 grant-funded programs aimed at behavioral health and housing navigation for low-level offenders, while voters and leaders have supported measures like the 2024 Proposition 36 to restore stronger penalties for certain drug and theft crimes—explicitly to counter some of Prop 47’s unintended consequences.
Homelessness and fentanyl-related challenges remain pressing local concerns. Debates over enforcement versus services, treatment versus enabling, and accountability versus unchecked “understanding” continue. These are not abstract national issues; they shape daily life in Redding and surrounding areas—public spaces, business viability, family safety, and taxpayer burdens.
Free needle (syringe exchange) programs provide another clear example. Promoted as compassionate harm reduction to prevent disease transmission (HIV, hepatitis), these initiatives distribute clean needles to active drug users. Shasta County operates a Syringe Services Program (SSP) through its Health and Human Services Agency, offering 1-for-1 exchanges, naloxone, testing, and supplies at locations like the Public Health office in Redding.
Critics argue these programs, while possibly reducing some infections in the short term, enable continued addiction by removing natural consequences and signals of urgency for recovery. They often correlate with increased public litter of used needles in parks, streets, and playgrounds, posing risks to children, first responders, and communities. Opposition has grown in parts of California, with cities and counties pushing back against programs due to safety and quality-of-life concerns. Rather than prioritizing treatment, detox, and long-term recovery, toxic empathy can sustain the cycle of dependency under the guise of kindness.
When policy is driven primarily by toxic empathy rather than a balanced commitment to compassion and truth, the costs are paid by real people in real communities like ours.
Reclaiming Compassion Rooted in Truth
The antidote to toxic empathy is not callousness or indifference. It is discernment—pairing genuine care for people with a refusal to ignore reality, consequences, or moral order. Biblical compassion, as modeled by Jesus, frequently included both mercy and truth-telling: “Go and sin no more,” calls to repentance, and confrontations with destructive patterns. It did not equate love with affirmation of every feeling or demand.
Stuckey’s work challenges Christians and conservatives to resist the emotional blackmail that equates disagreement with hate. Hollis’s columns remind us that societies built on foundations of law, responsibility, and ordered liberty cannot survive endless concessions to feelings over facts.
Here in Shasta County and across the nation, we need leaders and citizens willing to ask hard questions: Does this policy actually help the person in need, or does it enable harm while making others pay the price? Does it strengthen families and communities, or erode the conditions that make flourishing possible?
Toxic empathy weakens those conditions. True compassion, grounded in truth, strengthens them.
Further Reading and Sources
Allie Beth Stuckey, Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion (2024).
Laura Hollis, “What ‘Compassion’ Isn’t,” The Epoch Times; and related columns on warped compassion (Creators Syndicate).
Local context drawn from Shasta County Probation reports and public discussions of Proposition 47 and Proposition 36 impacts.
