Render & Resist

Part 1 for those who missed it.

Historical Parallels: This Pattern Has Appeared Before

The tactic of reframing compassion as a liability—especially when directed toward those deemed “outsiders”—is not unique to our current moment. Similar ideas and methods have surfaced repeatedly in different eras and contexts, always serving the same purpose: to justify actions or policies that would otherwise conflict with basic human decency or moral intuition. By hardening the heart against certain groups, leaders and movements could rally support for exclusion, coercion, or worse, while framing resistance as weakness or betrayal.

These are not identical situations—contexts, scales, and outcomes differ dramatically—but the underlying mechanism is strikingly consistent: portray empathy for the “other” as dangerous, manipulative, or disloyal, and replace it with suspicion, fear, or tribal solidarity.

A. Segregationist rhetoric

In the American South during the Jim Crow era, calls for empathy toward Black Americans were often dismissed as being “manipulated by outside agitators” (e.g., communists, Northern liberals, or radicals). They portrayed compassion not as moral courage but as gullibility or ideological weakness that threatened social order, racial purity, and biblical separation. The heart was hardened by warnings that any softening toward the oppressed would lead to cultural collapse or moral compromise.

B. McCarthyism

During the Second Red Scare of the 1950s, people frequently treated any sympathy or nuance toward those accused of communist ties—or even basic fairness in questioning aggressive anti-communist tactics—as evidence of disloyalty or “communist sympathy.” The result was a climate where fear of subversion replaced mercy, and loyalty to the anti-communist crusade became the overriding moral imperative.

C. Eugenics

In the early 20th-century eugenics movement (influential in the U.S. before being taken to extremes elsewhere), empathy for the disabled, the “feeble-minded,” or those deemed genetically “unfit” was often derided as “sentimental weakness” or outdated humanitarianism. Advocates argued that such compassion hindered societal progress, burdened resources, and ignored the “greater good.” Feelings of sorrow or protection for the vulnerable were recast as obstacles to scientific rationality and national strength, paving the way for policies of sterilization and exclusion.

D. Wartime propaganda

In various conflicts, including World War II, concern for enemy civilians—whether through opposition to indiscriminate bombing, calls for humane treatment of POWs, or reluctance to demonize entire populations—was sometimes portrayed as treasonous or as giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy. Empathy was framed as a betrayal of one’s own side, a dangerous vulnerability that could prolong the war or weaken resolve. Propaganda amplified the idea that any hesitation or human sympathy toward the “other” side endangered the nation.

E. High-control religious movements

In some authoritarian or cult-like religious groups (past and present), empathy or openness toward outsiders—whether former members, people of other faiths, or those questioning the group—is routinely treated as a spiritual danger. Such compassion is labeled as vulnerability to deception, worldly influence, or demonic attack. The heart must be guarded against “contamination” from outside, with loyalty to the group and its leaders becoming the primary virtue. Doubt, mercy toward dissenters, or even basic human connection beyond approved boundaries is seen as a threat to purity and salvation.

Point

The tactic is always the same: harden the heart so the group (or nation, or ideology) can justify what it otherwise could not. Whether exclusion, injustice, coercion, or dehumanization. By demonizing empathy toward certain people, the formation creates permission structures for actions that Scripture itself would grieve. Recognizing these echoes does not equate today’s debates with past horrors; it simply reminds us how easily virtue can be inverted when fear and loyalty supplant mercy and truth.

This pattern warns us: whenever compassion is systematically reframed as peril, the church risks drifting from the One who said, “Blessed are the merciful” (Matt 5:7) and modeled tears for the outsider.

The Theological Cost: How This Formation Pulls Christians Away from Christ

The tactics described above do more than shape opinions on policy or culture—they reshape theology itself. Systematically reframing empathy as danger and rationing compassion by tribal approval results in a Christianity that increasingly lacks the heart of Christ. This is not merely a practical or emotional drift; it is a theological one, producing a version of faith that is Christless in its core assumptions about God, humanity, morality, and discipleship.

A. A Christless anthropology

At the foundation is a view of people that Jesus never held. Scripture declares every human being an image-bearer of God (Gen 1:27), endowed with inherent dignity regardless of status, nationality, behavior, or politics. Yet this formation reduces people to threats, categories, or political symbols. Immigrants become “invaders” or “burdens” first; the gender-dysphoric become ideological pawns or moral hazards; the poor become evidence of systemic failure or personal laziness.

The image of the enemy overshadows the image of God. Once that happens, it becomes easier to speak of entire groups in dehumanizing terms, to justify policies that treat them as problems rather than persons, and to withhold the mercy Jesus extended without qualification. A theology that forgets the imago Dei in the outsider is no longer fully Christian.

B. A Christless ethic

Jesus’ ethic is mercy-first: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matt 5:7). He commands neighbor-love without exception (Luke 10:25–37), enemy-love as the mark of maturity (Matt 5:43–48), and hospitality to the stranger as obedience to God (Heb 13:2; cf. Lev 19:34).

But when suspicion replaces mercy, fear replaces hospitality, and tribal loyalty replaces neighbor-love, the ethical center shifts. The default posture toward the vulnerable becomes guarded rather than open. The fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5:22–23)—is reinterpreted: kindness becomes conditional, gentleness becomes weakness, and love becomes “tough” enough to withhold compassion when it conflicts with ideology. What Jesus modeled as strength (weeping with mourners, touching the untouchable) is treated as spiritual risk.

C. A Christless courage

Scripture teaches that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Jesus’ courage flowed from love, not from fear. He faced the cross not because He was fearless in the abstract, but because His love for the Father and for us was perfect.

In this formation, the equation reverses: fear protects truth. Warnings about cultural collapse, moral compromise, or “losing the country” become the fuel for boldness. Courage is redefined as confronting the outsider, defending borders, or calling out sin in others—while withholding mercy is framed as brave discernment. The believer is trained to fear compassion more than to fear failing to love. This inverts the biblical order: instead of love driving out fear, fear drives out love.

D. A Christless discipleship

The Sermon on the Mount is sidelined. Its radical calls—turn the other cheek, go the second mile, bless those who curse you—are quietly treated as impractical or politically naive in a “fallen world.” The Beatitudes’ vision of meekness, peacemaking, and mercy is overshadowed by a discipleship that prioritizes clarity, confrontation, and cultural victory.

Jesus’ own heart—moved with compassion for the crowds (Matt 9:36), grieving at hardness of heart (Mark 3:5), weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41)—is admired in theory but avoided in practice. Discipleship becomes about being “right” more than being like Him. The commands to love without partiality (James 2:1–9) and to care for the least (Matt 25:31–46) are filtered through ideological boundaries rather than embraced as central to following Christ.

The deepest cost is this: when the heart is trained to fear its own Christlike impulses, the believer is pulled away from Jesus Himself. Not through overt heresy, but through a subtle replacement—where political loyalty, fear of the “other,” and suspicion of mercy become the new guides. The formation may still use Christian language, quote Scripture selectively, and affirm core doctrines, but it produces a faith that no longer bears the unmistakable likeness of the One who said, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).

The tragedy is that this drift rarely announces itself as heresy; it arrives quietly, through a slow reordering of loyalties that feels righteous even as it pulls the heart away from Christ.

Part 3 coming Friday will look at why it led to that podcast moment, and a hopeful call back to Christ-centered formation.