Firm Foundation with Bryan Hudson

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Genesis 8:22, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.”

1 Corinthians 3:1, For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

This is not about trying to stand. It is about where you stand.
It is not about trying to be strong. It is about being strong in the Lord.

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“Reflections on a Living Landmark”

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Proverbs 22:28, Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set.

Psalm 145:4, One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.

Jeremiah 6:16, Stand in the ways and see, And ask for the old paths, where the good way is,

Watch The Eulogy for My Father, Horace Bryan Hudson

“Reflections on a Living Landmark”

Visit the Horace Hudson Memorial Webpage

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Listen to this Article Read by a Digital Voice

SUMMARY: This article challenges the growing tendency within Christian nationalism to portray empathy as a weakness or even a sin. It argues that rejecting empathy opens the door to injustice, dehumanization, cruelty, and the mistreatment of vulnerable people. Drawing on historical examples, constitutional principles, and biblical teachings, the article exposes the dangers of religious identity disconnected from the character of Jesus Christ. True Christianity is demonstrated not by labels, political alliances, or claims of moral superiority, but by the fruit of a transformed heart. Empathy does not eliminate accountability or justice; it helps prevent both from becoming instruments of cruelty. Christ-like empathy strengthens our capacity to love, protects human dignity, and reflects the heart of God.

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A lack of empathy does more than render people indifferent; it makes suffering easier to dismiss, injustice easier to justify, and cruelty easier to permit. When we lose the willingness to understand another person’s pain, we risk treating people as inconveniences or, worse, as obstacles to selfish motives.

The darker reality of viewing empathy as something to avoid is a tendency toward extreme measures against “subjects” labeled guilty or suspicious. Harsh actions aim to demonstrate a “tough” anti-empathetic stance. Recent news about potentially live-streaming a public execution illustrates this mindset. It is not enough that justice might be served; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appears intent on projecting toughness by advocating a publicly live-streamed execution by firing squad. This is the same individual who is requiring male military personnel to take a test measuring testosterone levels.

Jesus taught that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. That does not prevent holding a neighbor accountable, but it should prevent treatment inconsistent with the nature of Christ. Your neighbor is not only the person next door or those you choose to accept. Your neighbor is every person you might encounter.

It is ironic that some of the worst policies of our present time, and throughout history, are backed by people claiming to be Christian. People who claim to be Christian without the character of Christ operate under a delusion of holding authority and permission from God. Combining religious conviction with self-serving motives is a dangerous mix.

Frederick Douglass observed that the most brutal slaveholders often presented themselves as the most devout Christians. Many European conquests seized territory and subjugated Indigenous populations under the banner of the “Doctrine of Discovery,” which was an ungodly Christian construct in which religious leaders granted followers permission to dominate and take land from those labeled non-Christian. Even the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler appropriated Christian language and imagery to legitimize aspects of its ideology.

The label “Christian” is a title and does not guarantee any connection with Jesus Christ. A tree is known by its fruit, rather than its title. I recall clearly calling myself a Christian long before I formed any relationship with Christ.

Misrepresenting empathy warrants attention as Christian nationalist circles increasingly describe empathy as sinful. Pastor Joe Rigney’s book, Leadership and the Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits, and Allie Beth Stuckey’s book, Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion, address this subject. These are essentially “straw man" arguments. A straw man argument is a logical fallacy in which someone misrepresents, exaggerates, or distorts another person’s position to make it easier to attack or discredit.

Rigney, Stuckey, and others have spread claims that identifying with another’s suffering might weaken truth or moral judgment. Their views vary, yet both portray certain types of empathy as spiritually hazardous.

Empathy is primarily a feeling or mindset, so its moral significance depends largely on how it influences our judgments and actions. It is certainly not a biblical sin, and suggesting otherwise is presumptuous and decidedly anti-biblical. It is not the place of sinful people to define “sin” for others. As the saying goes, “The pot cannot call the kettle black.”

The anti-empathy movement is poised to desensitize the population, including children, to become more inclined to hold suspicions of “other” people rather than default to acceptance. This will contribute to a mindset of normalizing brutal treatment of those “others.” ICE abductions and internment of people in facilities that many of us regard as concentration camps are examples of how a lack of empathy strips away inhibitions in treating many honest, hardworking people worse than persons actively telling lies, starting wars, wasting human lives, hiding evidence of crimes they have committed, and authorizing acts of harm and deceit.

When protecting an ideology demands silencing concern for another person, that ideology must be challenged and rejected. Following Christ requires keeping one’s heart open to people, including difficult or disagreeable people, remembering that we are not the ultimate judge, but also that accountability is necessary.

Justice is not detached from empathy. The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution states in part:
“[No person shall] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

As was the case with my African-American ancestors and with Native Americans, individuals not deemed to be “persons” were denied equal recognition and protection under the law and could be subjected to inhumane treatment and deprived of fundamental rights.Today, the lack of regard for personhood is the basis of harsh treatment for undocumented persons, including similar harsh treatment of U.S. citizens suspected to be undocumented. Again, this is an instance where empathy would provide a check on inhumanity and cruelty to avoid harming innocent persons or mistreating suspected persons. This is also an example of the abusive outcome of an anti-empathy mindset.

In our justice system, individuals are supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But there is a subset of persons in our country who are not afforded that presumption of innocence.

Anti-empathetic mindsets may also contribute to miscarriages of justice, including wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA evidence. Empathy could have created room for a fairer assessment. Among Christian nationalists, whose religious identity merges with cooperating political authorities, in defiance of the Constitution, “others” are framed as a threat; the vulnerable are treated as a burden; and listening to fully understand is seen as weakness.

Jesus showed a different approach. He wept with those mourning Lazarus, touched people others avoided, and answered weary crowds with care. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the one who modeled empathy was the person who drew near to suffering and offered aid to someone outside of his culture, unlike those who walked past and even distanced themselves from the injured person to keep their religious “purity” intact. (Luke 10:25-37)

Scripture urges believers to weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15), carry one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), and join compassion with humility (1 Peter 3:8). These instructions require us to create space for other people’s experiences, not just those of our family, friends, and fellow church members.

Empathy does not guarantee wisdom, but rejecting it removes a guard against dehumanization. Having empathy, as demonstrated by the Lord Jesus, allows us to practice the proverb that says, “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)

According to Scripture, we don’t know our own hearts. This fact makes it essential to allow God’s grace, truth, and Christ-like empathy to train our hearts. Otherwise, the human heart becomes subject to this reality: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

Claiming to be a Christian without a heart-changing encounter with Christ, as evidenced in bearing good fruit, will not prevent human deceitfulness and wickedness from ruling the heart. All of the inhumanity and cruelty we see today is the fruit of the natural state of the human heart without Christ. Again, identifying as a “Christian” may have nothing to do with the Lord Jesus Christ.

A Christianity that trains people to question empathy and doubt compassion will lead to hard hearts. It is not a version of Christianity with Christ at the center. Empathy will expand one’s capacity to love with the God kind of love, while maintaining the ability to hold one another accountable.

~ Bryan Hudson, D.Min.

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Empathy Knows: "Who is My Neighbor?”

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The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Luke 10:25 And behold, a certain [a]lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”

27 So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ”

28 And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”

29 But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among [b]thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. 33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 On the next day, [c]when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’ 36 So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?”

37 And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

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“You Were Built for Standing”

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Genesis 8:22, While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.

Romans 14:4, Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.

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