Empathy and the Election of Donald Trump

Good writers know the difference between “sympathy” and “empathy.” I sympathize for another person when I have compassion for their fear or their sorrow. But I empathize with that person when I allow myself to feel what they feel. I choose to enter into their suffering as though their nerve endings were connected to my own brain. And this is a choice. Sympathy only goes as far as what I myself feel. Empathy actively enters into another’s suffering until I feel it myself.

I’ve been surprised and baffled to hear that blacks, women, Jews, Muslims and others are reacting to Donald Trump’s election with tears and fears. Because of my personal demographic – male, white, middle-class, living in a rural, very non-diverse area – I don’t feel threatened. Personally, I would have been more afraid if Hillary Clinton had won. It’s really hard for me to grasp statements like these from a respected, Reformed, black pastor—

“Congratulations white evangelicalism on your candidate’s win. I don’t understand you and I think you just sealed some awful fate . . . evangelicals expressed solidarity (again) with some of the worst aspects of American history and culture while abandoning brothers and sisters of like precious faith.”

Huh? But I have precious brothers and sisters in Christ representing very different demographics than mine, who share this pastor’s grief and fear. I might think they are over-reacting and exaggerating. But this is where empathy is required. I have to admit that I’m not living in their skin or in their cities. They might be right or wrong, but their feelings are still real and painful. Brotherly love compels me to empathize with their fears even if I can’t understand their logic.

Anthony Bushnell, writing on John Piper’s Desiring God site said this—

“One of the central teachings of Christianity is to love your neighbor as yourself. The Bible exhorts us to ‘weep with those who weep;’ it doesn’t tell us to ‘judge whether they should be weeping’. . . The same is true for those in fear. We don’t have to agree with the intensity of their fear in order to empathize with them. Compassion doesn’t require us to be convinced another person is entirely correct. It requires us to care about how he is feeling. Even if you think the danger won’t come to pass, the fear is certainly real.”

I’ve said before that I am no Donald Trump fan, but my “side” won in this election: the stats show that a majority of white, male, older (don’t laugh), evangelical Christians voted for Trump. I don’t require any empathy. But my friends who love Jesus as much as me but look nothing like my demographic, deserve my empathy even if we don’t see this election the same way. I need to listen to them until I feel, in some measure, what they feel. I owe it to them to do my best to get in their skin. It’s what I would want from them if the situation was different.

And it’s what God did for His children in the Incarnation. God is spirit, and cannot suffer, and did not need to suffer. He was immune to suffering, but in the Incarnation, He laid aside His immunity to pain to feel ours. God the Son literally got inside our skin, not just to suffer for us, but to suffer with us. He didn’t need to, but He chose to. His empathy for us took on flesh and blood. So we know He cares for us. And I think that’s all our brothers and sisters, frightened by this election, want to know from us.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. . .” Hebrews 4:15