Empathy is one of God’s most beautiful gifts. It connects us, heals wounds, and helps us love as Christ commanded. When someone is hurting—whether it’s through loss, loneliness, or deep struggle—empathy helps us bridge the gap, sit in their sorrow, and offer comfort. But empathy, when severed from reality and biblical truth, can sometimes move us from blessing into trouble. In today’s culture, this can mean supporting not just the suffering, but those in communities and movements deeply at odds with Scripture and God’s design—including LGBTQ, “woke,” and activist groups like BLM.​

Empathy: God’s Good Gift—Especially Through Women

Scripture and experience both show women are generally gifted with a unique capacity for empathy. This sensitivity is a blessing to families, churches, and society. Women’s instinct to support the hurting is essential to the health of any group, and Christian women have often responded with open arms—even when those hurting belong to communities deemed “outside the fold” by many believers. We’ve seen Christian women reach out to those struggling with same-sex attraction, gender identity, and emotional pain connected with movements like BLM and social justice activism. Often, this support isn’t just for those suffering injustice or rejection, but also for people in pursuits or lifestyles that the church regards as misguided or unbiblical.​

When Empathy Overpowers Truth

Problems arise when empathy alone rules our response. In an effort to show compassion, Christians—often led by tender-hearted women—may avoid voicing biblical truth, ignore hard conversations, and skip holding people accountable. Churches, moms’ groups, and ministries grow fearful of being labeled “unloving” or “judgmental.” The desire to love risks drifting into full affirmation or emotional enablement of choices clearly unaligned with God’s Word.

Online, powerful personal stories and activism tug at our hearts. Messages of acceptance, inclusion, and affirmation dominate, tempting Christians to offer unqualified support even when it means softening or sidestepping biblical convictions about sexuality, gender, justice, or morality. It’s easier to “just listen and love” than to lovingly challenge—and in the absence of truth, empathy becomes selective, even manipulative. Sometimes compassion is misused to silence voices who hold unpopular but faithful views.​

Supporting the LGBTQ Community

Christian women, especially, may be drawn to offer support to LGBTQ friends—even those fully embracing identities and behaviors the Bible calls us to handle with caution and care. It is right to listen, build real relationships, and include those who feel alone or rejected. But the tension arises when empathy moves from care to affirmation, erasing Scripture’s clear word on God’s design for sexuality and gender. Some influential evangelical women have become public allies, signaling warmth and acceptance, sometimes at the expense of biblical teaching, in the hope of showing “radical love.” Others try to walk a fine line, seeking ways to love without compromising conviction.​

Empathy and “Woke” Movements

Movements labeled “woke”—with goals like full inclusion, affirmation, and social justice—often spring from a place of real pain. Empathy compels many to listen and stand with those facing discrimination, trauma, or exclusion. But when compassion demands we embrace ideologies or policies contrary to God’s truth, the church can easily lose its anchor. Supporting just causes such as racial equality or care for the marginalized is entirely biblical; supporting everything branded “woke” without discernment, however, may pull us off-course.​

Responding to BLM and Social Justice Causes

Black Lives Matter and similar movements began with cries for empathy—an honest reaction to suffering and injustice. Christians, energized by compassion, feel called to show solidarity, participate in activism, and support the restoration of dignity for all people. Yet when support drifts beyond biblical justice into endorsing anti-Christian worldviews or divisive ideologies, empathy has moved past its healthy bounds. Love for the hurting must operate within the boundaries set by Scripture—seeking mercy and truth hand in hand.​

Seeking Biblical Balance

Scripture is clear: we aren’t asked to choose between empathy and truth. “Speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) means our compassion is not just about feeling with others, but also sharing God’s wisdom and holiness. Truth without love hardens hearts, but love without truth leaves others lost. The challenge for every Christian—especially those with tender hearts—is to hold both gifts together. Edith Stein’s wisdom matters here: “Do not accept as truth that lacks love, nor love which lacks truth.” The deepest empathy always points toward truth, even when doing so means having tough conversations or setting loving boundaries.​

Empathy as an Absolute: Trouble Brews

Compassion, untethered, can enable cycles of brokenness or collective denial. It might feel good to shield others from pain—or to affirm everyone’s self-chosen path—but sooner or later, reality sets in. The gospel does not leave us in our pain, confusion, or sin; it offers a path to wholeness in Christ.

This tension plays out in church debates and personal relationships. Sometimes empathy leads us to ignore scriptural teaching on sexuality, marriage, or justice; other times it seeks to silence voices pleading for fidelity to God’s Word, branding them as “bigoted” or “behind the times.” Love must be welcoming, but also transformative: “Go and sin no more” is not rejection, but the greatest hope.​

Cultivating Courageous Empathy

Christ-like empathy listens, welcomes, and helps the hurting feel seen. But it also asks the hard questions and points toward God’s better way. We build trust through relationships, humble listening, patient prayer, and gentle correction. Courageous empathy means risking misunderstanding or accusations—all in pursuit of real restoration. It says, “I love you too much to lie—even if the truth is uncomfortable.” Compassion walks with, but also invites others to move forward in faith.

Why Empathy Needs an Anchor

Empathy as an absolute can feel virtuous, but if it loses touch with truth, it leaves people unhealed. Truth, spoken in love, is the anchor that keeps empathy from wandering into mere sentimentality or unhelpful enabling. Without truth, our empathy cannot truly heal the deepest places of hurt. The church is called to embody both—to be a people of open arms and clear convictions, reflecting Christ’s heart of mercy and holiness.​

What Should Christians Do?

  • Stay rooted in scripture, letting truth anchor every act of compassion.

  • Pray for wisdom to discern when empathy aligns with or departs from biblical teaching.

  • Build relationships of trust where hard conversations can happen.

  • Embrace humility—don’t pretend to have all the answers, but don’t abdicate discernment, either.

  • Stand firm against cultural winds, but remember to love even when people disagree.

  • Walk patiently with those struggling—whether in their sexuality, worldviews, or activism—without sacrificing what God has revealed.

The Way Forward

Living with empathy anchored to truth isn’t always easy. Pain in our world is real, and ideologies, identities, and movements abound—often marked by genuine sorrow and longing for acceptance. But the church’s calling is unique: to offer love that is deep, sincere, and rooted in God’s unchanging truth.

Empathy—especially the instinctive warmth so common in women—has enormous power. Used well, it can change lives, heal divides, and transform communities. But for empathy to truly be God’s beautiful gift, it must be anchored to truth. That is the heritage of every Christian: loving with open hearts, living with courage, and offering the hope found in Jesus—where mercy and truth meet.​