Hillary Clinton Speaks Out Against ‘Toxic Empathy’ – But Misses The Point
There is a tactic in modern discourse that feels designed to freeze your mind and shame your conscience all at once. It wraps moral demands in warm language so no one thinks to ask hard questions. Christians need to name that tactic and refuse to be gaslit by it.
That insight comes from most Evangelicals have never heard of but encounter every day: tifa. The word, borrowed from Communist strategy, describes short, emotion-charged slogans built to shut down thinking and convert feeling into a verdict.
Tifa sounds compassionate on the surface, but compassion without truth can be kidnappers of souls. These phrases ask for instant allegiance rather than careful judgment, and that impatience often hides a moral lie. If we love people as Jesus taught, we must love them toward the truth, not simply echo their feelings.
How Tifa Works On Christians
Tifa operates by confusing categories that should stay distinct: compassion versus approval, sympathy versus endorsement, dignity versus doctrinal agreement. It rigs debate so that disagreement is labeled cruelty before any argument is heard. That rhetorical trick forces believers into a defensive posture and damages the church’s witness.
https://x.com/ConceptualJames/status/2018295648680812926?s=20
Clinton’s essay titled “MAGA’s War on Empathy.” is a textbook example of this tactic at work. She collapses complex moral conversations into a single test: empathy equals virtue, dissent equals vice. “How can a person of conscience justify the lack of compassion and empathy,” she asks, and in that move the questions that matter are sidelined.
To grant feeling the power to settle truth claims is to court injustice. Feeling for one group does not erase harm done to another, nor does it substitute for careful moral discernment. Scripture calls us to love, but biblical love seeks the good, even when that good demands hard words.
Allie Beth Stuckey’s response illustrates a healthier posture without being cruel or dismissive. She separates empathy from the Christian duty of love, arguing that empathy is feeling what someone feels while love aims for what is true and good for them. That distinction is not clever wordplay; it protects the vulnerable by refusing to make sentiment the final arbiter of truth.
Rejecting tifa does not mean refusing compassion for immigrants, those experiencing gender confusion, or women facing difficult pregnancies. It means refusing slogans that demand we sacrifice facts or moral clarity at the altar of public approval. You can honor human dignity and still insist on moral realism.
Calls for a “third way” or less polarization sound reasonable until they become pressure to concede on essentials. Neutrality in the face of rhetorical pressure typically helps whoever controls the catchphrases. Christians must recognize when calls for calm are really calls to capitulation.
Paul’s call to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” is not an instruction to feel more deeply and less wisely. It is a summons to think more clearly, to test assumptions, and to restore the mind so that love is informed by truth. Discernment is an act of love, not its opposite.
Breaking The Spell
Slow the conversation down. Ask what a slogan assumes, what it erases, and who benefits from that erasure. Resist the moral blackmail that equates disagreement with hatred.
Discernment looks like care plus truth: we refuse to weaponize empathy, and we refuse to let empathy become an excuse for affirming every impulse. The church’s witness depends on learning to love rightly—compassion that leads people toward what is true, good, and life-giving.
- Tifa thrives on speed; slow down and probe assumptions.
- Ask whether a moral claim is actually, objectively true before offering moral judgment.
- Respond with disciplined love that holds dignity and reality together.
The cost of surrendering truth for the appearance of compassion is far greater than a few awkward conversations. If the church trades clarity for applause, we stop reflecting Christ and start reflecting the culture’s slogans. That is a spiritual loss no rhetoric can justify.