About that 'empathy is a sin' idea...

If empathy is a sin, most of those saying so don’t seem to have been tempted beyond their ability to bear it.

That’s one reason I’m not too worried about the latest rhetoric of empathy as the great danger to the church and the world, mostly from those who previously told us that danger was yoga, or yoga pants, or Harry Potter, or hip-hop.

Plus, this rhetoric fails the Screwtape test. "I’m with the Devil and I’m here to recruit you" is not the kind of language that works except with those already committed to the bit. The really dangerous stuff tries to be a little subtler.