The Church of Empathy

This is a Front Porch first, but here is a review of a book. The review actually cuts to the heart of a lot of wrangling that has happened in the wider American church since 2016. What happens when a church focuses on reaching and accommodating the 'marginalized' above all things? Gospel drift.

Carl Trueman does a great job exploring this. Someone else called it "untethered empathy" (empathy that isn't tied to doctrinal conviction). To give you a flavor of the review, Truman says this about a church that lost course as it went all in on empathy: "In an odd way, the troubled, obnoxious [pastor] demonstrates the weaknesses of the whole ethical project of “empathy,” refracted through the language of Christian piety but informed by the values of contemporary progressive politics" and then later, "The vision of a loving community that cares for the outcast and the despised is surely a beautiful one, but detached from a foundational sense of the greatness and holiness of God, it will gradually conform to those elements of the world that its leadership finds therapeutic."

I hope this is instructive as we continue to work to be salt and light in our community, showing God's love in all we do.