Are You Running on an Empathy Deficit?

 This is the Sunday before the presidential election. The United States is feeling more like the Divided States of America as we approach the ballot box. Sides have been drawn. Chasms have replaced communities, separating us from the humanity we share. Instead of being together with each other, we have “othered” one another.

We are experiencing an empathy deficit as a people, and it is literally killing us.

Empathy is the ability to enter into the joys, pains, and experiences of another. It does so fully, not from our frame of reference, but from theirs. Without empathy, we are unable to understand another’s experience and therefore give it validity. As a result, injustice increases and communication breaks down.

A lack of empathy enables one to treat another as an object, meant for one’s own pleasure or power. Sexual harassment/abuse fails to understand the impact one’s behavior has on the one being abused. It has no concept of how the behavior shames and harms. It can take years for an abused one to finally name the behavior. Someone who asks why it took so long for the abuse to be named fails to have empathy for the one who was harmed, to note the visible and invisible scars that create a deafening silence.

Perhaps more than any issue, race relations in the United States provides evidence of the empathy deficit we face. Whites have difficulty seeing beyond the privilege their race affords to seeing those whose experience is much different. Racial discrimination is often discounted or denied. There is an inability or lack of will to open oneself up to the real lived experience of another.

A recent Saturday night live skit was about the lack of will we have to be empathetic. A “new product” promised five hours of empathy. The main character couldn’t bring himself to take the product. Why?

Empathy requires a willingness to be disturbed by the reality of another. We can no longer rest in the slumber of our own comfortable world because we see the impact our living has on others. Empathy forces us to ask questions of why: why is there injustice? Why are there hungry people? Why doesn’t everyone have access to health care, housing, good schools? And when we ask these questions, we recognize that the answer lies with our willingness to work with those who are not like us to create a more just and equitable world.

Are you running on an empathy deficit?

James Fowler was a seminary professor who articulated that, much like human development, there is a faith development he called, “Stages of Faith”. There are six stages of faith, although Fowler believed that most people never get beyond stage three, in which faith conforms to authority: any conflicts with one’s beliefs are rejected because these inconsistencies are too threatening to live with.

Stage six is where faith opens us to empathy—the ability to enter into the world view of another and be moved to action by what we learn. According to Fowler, stage six is seldom reached, quite possibly because it is preceded by stage five. This stage rarely is achieved before midlife. It requires one to be aware of the limits of one’s own logic and begin to accept that there can be multiple truths, even within the same sacred story. Stage five invites us to lean into ambiguity.

It is time for our churches to become faith development centers. Faith development doesn’t end with confirmation or membership. It is a lifetime commitment to growing into a deeper love of God and neighbor. What are you doing to grow your faith? What stage are you in? How does it fill you with empathy? And how does your empathy move you to create a more just and equitable world?

How will it inform the decisions you make on election day?

Be well! Stay safe! Wear a mask!