Spiritual Abuse: Redefining Empathy

How spiritual abusers and cult leaders change the meanings of words to manipulate, control, and enable abuse.

Hopefully, for your sake, you’ve never been in a cult. If you have, you’ll know that cult leaders often change the meanings of words.

Spiritual abusers do the same thing.

When I was a kid, the word “forgive” meant “pretend you’re fine.” That’s not what the word means to any emotionally healthy person, but that’s what it meant in our family.

Subsequently, when I heard our pastor preach on forgiveness, I thought he was teaching me to pretend to be OK.

When I read Bible verses about Jesus exhorting us to forgive seventy-times-seven-times, I thought he meant that I must hide the bruises, fake a smile, and not tell anyone what my dad had done.

The redefining of one simple word changed my entire understanding of who God is, what God wants, and how I should honor him. It also severely inhibited the ability of my pastors and friends whose words were filtered through the crafty lies of an abuser.

When spiritual leaders change the meanings of words, they isolate their followers, creating a mental and spiritual vacuum. People on the outside of their influence don’t understand what they mean. Only their inner circle knows what they’re saying.

It’s like speaking in code.

For example, if we changed the definition of “hope” to mean “weak faith,” we could chide someone for saying, “My hope is in Jesus Christ.” That person will lose all credibility with our followers, who believe the lie that “hope” implies doubt, uncertainty, and weakness. They think that person is a bad Christian, or maybe not even saved. Of course, this would be a wicked thing to do, but it’s exactly how abusers operate.

When people outside their circle misunderstand them, the abusive leader will often act as if that person is stupid or ignorant. They may tell them to buy their latest book, read their latest article, or quote Bible verses that - in actuality are pure and beautiful - but contain their coded word. They may even act like the person has confessed to some kind of sin because the words being used are coded in their inner circle to mean something negative.

Recently, you may have noticed this pattern occurring among certain hard-right pastors and influencers. You may have heard them talk about “the sin of empathy” on a podcast, or read their posts about “untethered empathy” and “suicidal empathy.”

If you’re in their clique, you know what they mean.

If you’re outside their clique, you have no idea what they’re talking about.

That’s because they’ve changed the definition of the word empathy.

Empathy is a kind of emotional intelligence. It means you can strongly relate with or understand what another person is feeling or going through because you’ve experienced it yourself.

For example, I can empathize with child abuse victims because I've suffered child abuse personally and I know what it feels like firsthand. However, I can only sympathize with someone who struggles with drug addiction, because I've never been addicted, yet I know what suffering in general feels like.

The Bible also defines empathy this way.

Hebrews 4:15 says that Jesus can empathize with our every weakness. Why? Because he was tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he never sinned. Jesus knows firsthand what it's like to be human, to suffer, and to be tempted, because he’s experienced all those things personally. Nevertheless, he remained holy, thus fulfilling the law on our behalf.

If Jesus could not empathize with us - if he’d never experienced human weakness, suffering, or temptation - we'd all be damned.

Literally.

Subsequently, claiming that empathy is a sin is heresy.

Besides the fact that they’re accusing Jesus of sin, they’ve stuck a giant illiterate wrench in the doctrine of imputation. They’ve redefined empathy to mean something more along the lines of enablement.

For example they might say, “Empathizing with illegal immigrants is evil.” And sure, hiding a convicted Guatemalan rapist in your basement is a crime. But it’s not empathy. Empathy would force us to think of the man’s victims, and potential future victims, and turn the evil rapist in.

By contrast, helping a loving mom and dad from Guatemala get their Green Cards, get jobs legally, and find a good neighborhood and church home, is a wonderful thing to do. That’s empathy.

They might say, “Empathizing with trans children is evil.” But what they’ll never tell you is that enabling the adults who brainwash kids into thinking they’re something that they’re not so that they can give them puberty blockers or even sex-change operations isn’t empathy at all. It’s more along the lines of sadism or sycophancy. If we truly empathize with such children, we will protect and defend them from abusers, and that is good.

Synonyms for empathy include compassion, mercy, understanding, and warmth. People such as abusers, racists, and misogynists often completely lack empathy. That's because they view other people with disdain, hostility, and objectification.

A misogynist or sexual predator cannot empathize or even sympathize with women whatsoever, because in his mind they are objects or even enemies.

Pastors and spiritual leaders with abusive or misogynistic tendencies are no exception. They have observed that women (generally speaking) tend to be more empathic and sometimes more emotionally intelligent than men. Men tend to have other types of intelligence. I'm certainly not saying that men aren't intelligent, or that they can’t be empathetic, but that they generally tend to think and feel in different yet wonderful ways.

This is likely because women are naturally wired to empathize with their children and husbands. We need to diagnose the discomforts of babies who cannot talk. We need to remain self-controlled when our pre-teen daughter is on her third meltdown today. We need to anticipate how our husband and those around us will respond to various complex scenarios. Our empathy enables us to protect our families from negative influences and provide for them emotionally, spiritually, and mentally.

So-called "feminine intuition" is nothing magical. It's just women subconsciously picking up on social cues and subtle emotional dynamics that men often miss. It's that "trust your gut" phenomenon. Your brain is picking up on something, you're just not sure what it is yet.

Because of this, abusers and misogynists who fancy themselves theologians want to brand empathy as a sin. They likely know either consciously or subconsciously (ironically) that empathetic women might pick up on their disdain or get a "bad vibe" from them. Worse, they might expose or call out their sin, making such women dangerous threats.

So what do these theologians do? They redefine the word "empathy," classify it as a sin (even though the Bible never says it is), and misinterpret God's Word in order to justify their irrational and emotionally driven behaviors.

Once empathy is accepted as sinful among their followers, they have the leverage they always wanted to say that women shouldn't be ministry leaders, shouldn't be pastors, shouldn't vote, shouldn't have jobs, shouldn't speak in church settings, shouldn't educate men or even give them driving directions, shouldn't be allowed to post online without their husband screening every post, shouldn't talk to each other about their husband's treatment of them, etcetera.

Because, if empathy is sinful, women's emotions are sinful, and women are incapable of independent thought in any form. So, they changed the meaning of one little word to enable the sin of misogyny. In so doing, they have falsely accused Jesus Christ of sin, and twisted the meaning of countless Bible texts.

This is spiritual abuse, and it is evil.

Header image by Grok.