On empathy, sympathy, and discernment — and why shared words don’t always mean shared vision.
Note: This will be the last time I address this specific event. There is a time to wrestle, a time to name, and a time to let be. For me, now is that time.
I recently listened to a clip of Charlie Kirk reflecting on leadership and language. His words caught my attention because they were both sharp and simple—yet simplicity does not always equal truth.
Here’s the comment, in full:
“I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that—it does a lot of damage. But, it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy, I prefer more than empathy. That’s a separate topic for a different time.”
— Charlie Kirk, The Charlie Kirk Show, Oct. 12, 2022
On the surface, this frames the issue as a choice between sympathy and empathy, clarity and damage, strength and weakness. It is rhetorically effective—but I am not convinced it is theologically sufficient, and he openly presented himself and his views as theologically grounded.
Sympathy acknowledges pain from a safe distance: that must be hard.
Empathy risks proximity. It imagines the world through another’s experience, even without fully sharing it. It says: I’ll stay with you long enough for your suffering to matter to me.
Both postures have limits. Empathy without discernment can overwhelm leaders, blurring judgment and responsibility. Sympathy without depth can become little more than sentiment—pity without presence.
The harder truth I wrestle with is not just whether Kirk was right or wrong, but that we frame the conversation in terms of sides at all. Should there be sides? Not according to the brown-skinned Nazarene I follow.
And yet, the reality is that sides exist. Which makes discernment all the more essential.
Shared Words, Different Roots
The complexity deepens when language overlaps. I advocate for homeschooling. I affirm the importance of fathers being present in their homes. These words sound similar to things Kirk has said. But words do not stand on their own—they are rooted in values, stories, and intentions.
I cannot claim to know his foundations beyond the evidence of his words. I only know mine. My convictions about education and family are grounded in grace, accountability, and presence—not in culture wars or control, but in formation and belonging.
Shared vocabulary does not always reveal shared vision. This is where discernment matters most.
I do not have neat answers. I do not know where the line should be drawn between empathy and clarity, or between sympathy and strength. But I know this much: when empathy is dismissed as weakness, people are reduced to abstractions instead of treated as neighbors.
Politics without empathy becomes power without people.
Faith without empathy becomes ritual without presence.
Life without empathy becomes survival without connection.
And politics without discernment becomes chaos.
Faith without discernment becomes empty ritual.
Life without discernment becomes noise without meaning.
And politics with only sympathy becomes pity without action.
Faith with only sympathy becomes sentiment without sacrifice.
Life with only sympathy becomes sorrow without solidarity.
Sympathy says, I see your pain.
Empathy says, I’ll sit with you while we figure out what to do about it.
Am I right? Was he right? I cannot even begin to draw that line. Perhaps that is not the point.
And before anything else, I will say this: Charlie Kirk had the same God-given right to be alive, to speak, to be heard, as anyone else. That right is also political — a freedom protected and contested in public life. I do not agree with him, but his life and his voice mattered.
Do we need empathy? Do we need discernment? Do we need sympathy?
Yes. But perhaps not in the divided ways we have been taught to pit them against one another.
I do not know the balance. But I keep showing up to listen, to learn, to offer, to teach, and to connect—because I can. And that is not something I take for granted.
Be First to Comment