I recently attended the movie Nuremberg based on the true story of the Nuremberg trials following WW II and the relationship between Hermann Göring, Hitler’s second-in-command, and U.S. Army psychiatrist Captain Douglas M. Kelley. Kelley was charged with interviewing Göring and his fellow defendants, all from the Nazi high command charged with war crimes including their complicity in the “Final Solution”—the Jewish holocaust. Following the trial Kelley returned to the U.S. where he was interviewed about his experience and tried to warn his fellow citizens about the impending danger stating: “I am convinced that there is little in America today which could prevent the establishment of a Nazi-like state.”
One wonders if Captain Kelley was prescient considering what is happening today on the national political scene. There is a poster in the National Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. that should give us pause. It lists the early warning signs of Fascism as follows:
- Powerful and continuing nationalism
- Disdain for human rights
- Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
- Supremacy of the military
- Rampant sexism
- Controlled mass media
- Obsession with national security
- Religion and government intertwined
- Corporate power protected
- Labor power suppressed
- Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
- Obsession with crime and punishment
- Rampant cronyism and corruption
- Fraudulent elections
Evil as the Lack of Empathy
In his book, 22 Cells in Nuremberg, Captain Douglas Kelley wrote: “In my work with the members of the Nazi Regime on trial for numerous atrocities, I witnessed the one characteristic that connected all the defendants—a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow humans. I concluded that evil is the lack of empathy.” And American and German historian, Hannah Arendt would later observe: “The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.” Some believe that America is on the precipice. In fact, Robby Jones, Author of The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future, believes we are currently experiencing an empathy void in our culture. He calls out any form of Christianity in America today that is divisive, vengeful, unjust, and not following Jesus' admonishment to love and care for the neighbor whoever they may be. He writes: “There’s an old heresy, now recirculating in some Christian circles, that empathy is antithetical to the gospel.” We can point out that previous purges of empathy as a Christian virtue among white Christians in America prepared the ground for disastrous actions, such as the genocide of Indigenous people and the enslavement of people of African descent.” This belief justified unimaginable cruelty to fellow human beings who were children of God. It is the same rationale that allowed German Christians to turn a blind eye to the persecution of Jews and others during Hitler’s reign of terror.
Consider the impact of the recent congressional budget cuts on millions of Americans. Plans to dismantle Medicaid which provides health insurance for the poor and disabled; orders to cease Federal Aid for food banks and senior “Meals on Wheels;” cutting $186 Billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that helps more than 40 million people, including 1 in 5 children, afford groceries. Not to mention massive cuts to Pell Grants, school lunches, and Head Start. All of this in order to give the richest people, like Elon Musk, even more tax cuts. It’s not surprising then that in February Musk said on the Joe Rogan show: “empathy is the fundamental weakness of Western Civilization.” Perhaps in some twisted way, the empathy void allows some believers today to not feel pangs of guilt or sadness for the sufferings of others including immigrants living in terror of deportation, the less fortunate losing their health care, with elders and children going hungry. American Journalist, Charles Blow, suggests: “One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient.”
What Does it Mean to Follow Jesus?
Jesus is the personification of empathy. Consider his interaction with the woman who had a discharge of blood, a condition that made her ritually impure, marginalized, socially isolated. She lived as a non-person, untouchable, cut off from her community and from the presence of God. When she reaches out to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe, the flow of blood stops. She is cured. But the story doesn’t end there. Jesus halts, looks for her and insists on an encounter. When she comes forward, trembling, he listens. Then speaks and names her “daughter.” It is a stunning reversal—from exclusion to belonging, from marginalization to kinship. She is truly healed, not when the bleeding stops, but when she is seen, spoken to, drawn back into fellowship with Christ and with her community. We see here that empathy is more than just a cognitive identifying with another person’s pain, but it is to actively relate to them by sharing a measure of God’s love and grace.
Which begs the question, how will we follow Jesus and live out our baptismal calling to love the neighbor, show compassion, and act for justice in these challenging times? It is as simple and as hard as loving one another. After all, empathy is Christ-like. Jesus said: “A new commandment I give you that you love one another as I have loved you. By this they will know that you are my disciples.” Martin Luther suggested the way we show love and gratitude to God is by loving the neighbor in need. Pope Leo IV put it this way: “Life is made up of encounters, and in these encounters, we emerge for what we are. We find ourselves in front of others, faced with their fragility and weakness, and we can decide what to do: to take care of them or pretend nothing is wrong." And the Prophet Micah put it this way, “What does the Lord require of us but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.” (Micah 6:6-8) Consider ways that you might work for justice and can be a better neighbor to those in need today.