Beware of the sin crouching behind this popular Christian idea



In our modern age — especially within Christian circles that embrace self-awareness and spiritual growth — people often talk about identity in terms of personality types and natural strengths.

Tools like the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, and StrengthsFinder are often used as mirrors to better understand ourselves and others. I’m a sucker for a good personality test like anyone. Though these frameworks can be enlightening at times, here’s the danger: These tools, as helpful as they may be in their place, can quietly become idols. They can morph into spiritual blinders that reinforce something far more subtly dangerous than we realize — the sin of self-determination.

True freedom isn’t found in finding our perfect role — it’s in letting God define our role entirely.

Let’s be clear: Nowhere in scripture does God say, “Because of your personality type, you get a pass on obedience.” He doesn’t say, “Oh, you’re an Enneagram 5, so it’s fine that you’re emotionally detached,” or, “You’re naturally quiet — don’t worry about speaking the truth or sharing the gospel.”

And yet, how often do we do just that? We spiritualize our preferences and protect our comfort zones, all while whispering to ourselves or boastfully proclaiming to others, “This is just how I am.”

That mindset is a slow poison to surrender. Instead, we should be asking, “How are you shaping and stretching me, God?” When personality profiles become excuses, and natural giftings become the boundary lines of our obedience, we risk falling into the ever-subtle sin of self-determination rather than surrender to God and His calling.

But we must be open-handed to how the Lord wants to use us.

When personality becomes permission & gifting becomes a boundary

The moment personality becomes a shield and natural gifting becomes the edge of our obedience — we’ve stopped following Jesus and started following ourselves. The line is razor-thin, and it’s easy to cross. And when we do, we quietly slip into the belief that we get to define what obedience looks like.

We must resist the lie that God only wants what comes easily. His Spirit is not limited to what we’re “good at.” He doesn’t ask for your comfort — He asks for your "yes." A surrendered, open-handed "yes."

I hear these phrases often:

  • “I’m not a good cook — that’s not my gift.”
  • “I’m not into hosting — it drains me.”
  • “That’s just not my personality.”

But scripture doesn’t ask if hospitality is our thing. It commands us to pursue it. Romans 12:13 says, “Seek to show hospitality.” In John 21, the resurrected Jesus makes breakfast for His disciples. The Son of God washed feet and fed friends. Not because it was His “strength,” but because love serves. These were not “kingly” activities, but the model of Christ crushes our excuses.

If Jesus Himself served others in such a practical, humble way, how much more should we be willing to do the same?

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There are many everyday skills — like cooking, cleaning, and hosting — that may not come naturally to us, but they are often the very means through which we love others well. It’s been said: "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.”

God calls us to serve and be uncomfortable by stretching ourselves in areas we’re weak in. In fact, God rarely calls the “qualified” to accomplish His purposes in the Bible or those with natural talents to lead.

Moses, Jeremiah, Gideon, the disciples — all were not technically qualified to do what God called them to, but God chose them to lead because He’s not hamstrung by “natural giftings.” He delights in using weak vessels marked by humility far more than those who believe they’re strong enough and talented enough to do life without Him.

God rarely chooses the 'qualified'

Look at the men and women God uses throughout scripture.

Moses stuttered and protested God’s calling — pointing to his lack of eloquence and confidence. Gideon was timid and afraid — weakest in his family and least in his tribe — yet called to deliver Israel. Jeremiah was “too young” and didn’t know how to speak, but God gave him the words and equipped him. The disciples were unremarkable fishermen, tax collectors, and misfits. Their resumes were unimpressive, but their obedience was history-making.

God delights in using the weak. Why? So no one else gets the glory but God.

In God’s Kingdom, the question isn’t, “What are you naturally good at?” It’s: Are you willing to obey, even when you feel utterly unqualified?

And the truth is: We’re all unqualified — until the Holy Spirit empowers us.

When we rely solely on our strengths, we rob God of the opportunity to showcase His. When we only serve from comfort, we take credit for the fruit. But when we step into weakness, we have to depend on God — and He loves to meet us there.

This pattern is found all throughout the Bible. Jesus didn’t choose disciples based on charisma, influence, or spiritual gifts. Peter was impulsive and brash; Thomas was analytical and skeptical; James and John were ambitious. Yet, Jesus called each to follow, be transformed, and participate in His mission.

The biblical narrative consistently confronts the lie that our natural bent defines our usefulness. In God’s economy, identity is not who we are by default, but who we become through surrender and obedience.

God’s power is made perfect in what we’d rather avoid

Let’s not forget what Paul said: “But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Do you believe that God wants to show His power through your discomfort? That He may intentionally be calling you to that ministry, that task, that person — not because it fits you perfectly, but because it will stretch you deeply?

Spiritual gifts, too, are not about personality. They’re supernatural empowerments from the Spirit for the edification of the church. And often, they come in areas where we feel most ill-equipped. Why? So we’ll never forget that it’s God working through us, not us working for Him.

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Just look at Billy Graham. The man who would preach to millions of people around the globe was initially hesitant to speak in public and cut off the very idea of it as an adolescent. He was so uncomfortable as he felt God pushing him to share the gospel through public speaking that he practiced sermons to birds and trees just to gain confidence. But his fear didn’t get the final word — God’s calling did. And because of that surrender, eternity is different for countless souls.

If we only say "yes" to what we like or understand, we miss the miracle of transformation. God's call is not about where we shine most naturally — it’s where He shines most supernaturally. Our weaknesses are not a liability; they're an invitation.

So let’s stop asking, “What do I want to do for God?” and start asking, “God, what do You want to do through me?” Let’s not be closed-fisted with our preferences when God is asking for open hands.

Here are a few practical steps toward true surrender:

  • Pray with a posture of surrender: Don’t just ask for clarity — ask for courage.
  • Use personality tools with humility: They’re descriptive, not prescriptive.
  • Get around people who challenge your comfort: Don’t just look for affirmation — pursue sharpening.
  • Step into discomfort as a form of worship: Obedience is often inconvenient — and that’s the point.

True freedom isn’t found in finding our perfect role — it’s in letting God define our role entirely.

There is no “personality pass” in God’s Kingdom — only the call to be conformed to the image of Christ. That means surrender. That means obedience. That means going where we’d rather not go and doing what we’d rather not do — because He is worthy.

We were not made to serve from comfort. We were not saved to play it safe. We were called, chosen, and commissioned to live a life that displays the glory of a God who works powerfully through surrendered weakness.

Let’s stop limiting God to our giftings. Let’s start asking Him to do what only He can do — in us, through us, and in spite of us.

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Pride Month is on the run. Here’s how to finish the job.



For years, the stroke of midnight on June 1 triggered a corporate and bureaucratic avalanche of rainbow flags across America. Logos changed colors overnight. Government agencies raced to outdo each other in their displays of “inclusion.” From Walmart to the Pentagon, one message rang loud: Dissent from the LGBT agenda would not be tolerated.

This year tells a different story.

Conservatives tend to back off once momentum swings their way. They declare victory, let up, and give the left room to regroup. That reflex must end.

Pride Month 2025 has limped into view. The rainbow wave has receded quite a bit. Now is the time to send it packing — permanently.

The evidence lines up. Target, still smarting from last year’s boycott, scaled back its displays. Other major retailers stayed quiet. Their social media teams left June’s usual fanfare on the cutting-room floor. Under the Trump administration, government agencies that once issued rainbow-laced press releases now operate under strict orders to stand down.

The tone of the country has changed. Americans have grown tired of relentless cultural propaganda, and corporations — always sensitive to backlash — have noticed. When the incentives shift, so does the behavior.

This change marks a win. But it also poses a risk.

Conservatives tend to back off once momentum swings their way. They declare victory, let up, and give the left room to regroup. That reflex must end. The left doesn’t retreat — it regathers. Letting up now guarantees a resurgence later. We have Pride Month on the run. We need to chase it out of public life.

Don’t mistake temporary silence for surrender. The left hasn’t abandoned its agenda. School boards still promote radical curricula. Teachers’ unions haven’t backed down. Cultural elites remain committed to enforcing a worldview that blends LGBT ideology with abortion politics — united by their rejection of divine order. They’re wounded, not defeated. And this is the moment to press the advantage.

Victory doesn’t come from symbolic wins. It comes from sustained action.

Step one: We need bold churches. Pastors must speak clearly and unapologetically about what Scripture teaches. Romans 1:26-27 speaks plainly about rebellion against God’s design. The pulpit isn’t a platform for public relations — it’s a battleground for truth. If pastors go silent, congregations scatter.

We need men like Daniel, who stood firm in the midst of a corrupt regime and “resolved that he would not defile himself” (Daniel 1:8). A culture in crisis needs shepherds with spine.

If your pastor never addresses these issues, urge him to do so. The flock needs clarity. The country needs truth.

Step two: Congregations must reject the lie that LGBTQ ideology is normal. It isn’t. From Genesis to Revelation, Scripture defines humanity as male and female and defines marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman. That’s not hate. That’s clarity.

Loving your neighbor doesn’t mean affirming sin. It means telling the truth with compassion — just as Jesus did when he told the woman caught in adultery, “Go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:11).

Normalizing sin isn’t kindness. It’s cruelty.

Churches must function as sanctuaries of truth, not echo chambers for cultural conformity.

Step three: Take the fight to the institutions.

Run for school board. Run for city council. Run for state legislature. Support candidates who oppose the LGBTQ agenda and the abortion movement without apology. These aren’t separate fights — they’re two limbs of the same ideology. Both elevate the self above Scripture. Both distort what God created.

We need leaders like David, who stood before Goliath and said, “You come to me with a sword ... but I come to you in the name of the Lord” (1 Samuel 17:45). That spirit must guide our political efforts.

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Every seat counts. Every school board, council, and committee sets policy that shapes culture. Leaving them uncontested means surrendering the ground our children stand on.

This is the moment. The left is reeling. Pride Month isn’t gone, but it’s staggering. We hold the high ground. We hold the truth. And we serve the God of whom the psalmist declares, “The Lord is my strength and my shield” (Psalm 28:7).

So hold the line.

Don’t compromise. Don’t wait. Don’t hand back what you’ve reclaimed.

Chase this agenda from our churches, our classrooms, and our public institutions.

Pride Month is on the run.

Finish the job.

Race is not righteousness — Jesus died for our sin, not our skin



For as often as the phrase “Christ is King” trends on social media, it seems like a growing number of self-professing Christians have forgotten that it was sin — not skin — that kept Jesus on the cross.

Millions of Americans gathered this past Easter Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Apart from that ultimate sign of self-sacrifice, we would still be in bondage to sin and face the penalty for indulging it — spiritual death and eternal separation from God. That’s because, according to the Bible, we are all born in sin and remain spiritually dead unless we turn from our sin and place our hope and trust in Christ.

No argument reveals a smaller mind than the impulse to link sin to skin for ideological gain.

Messages circulating on X often sound wildly different, but many follow the same script. On any given day, you’ll find someone — often claiming to be Christian — warning that a specific group poses a unique threat to the American way of life.

Some wrap their claims in the pseudo-academic language of “race realism” and genetic determinism. Others frame it as cultural criticism. But the message stays the same: Those people over there are the real problem.

Years ago, I noticed this pattern in how some black progressives invoked slavery and Jim Crow to argue that “whiteness” itself is an inherently evil force driving racism.

Today, a growing number of white conservatives fire back with crime statistics, claiming black Americans are inherently violent.

Meanwhile, a rainbow coalition of agitators — including Hispanics and Asians — spends its time urging followers to “notice” Jewish control of everything from pornography to U.S. foreign policy.

Different faces, same poison.

Ethnic and political tribalism has convinced many Americans that moral decay is always someone else’s fault. It’s not our problem. It’s their problem.

They chase any story or video that reinforces their worldview and dismiss anything that challenges it. A white police officer involved in a fatal shooting of a black man becomes proof that policing itself is systemically racist. A black teenager who commits a crime becomes a symbol of supposed racial dysfunction — not an individual but a statistic.

Many in this mindset obsess over IQ scores and genetic theories. But no argument reveals a smaller mind than the impulse to link sin to skin for ideological gain.

Christ’s death on the cross should convict every one of us to examine our own hearts. The moment you start measuring your worth by someone else’s failure, you’re already losing the moral battle. Comparative righteousness is a foolish and dangerous game.

The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18 illustrates the danger of self-righteousness. Pharisees prided themselves on strict adherence to the law, so it’s no surprise that the one in Jesus’ story thanked God for his supposed moral superiority. He fasted, tithed, and avoided obvious sins. He was especially grateful not to be like the tax collector — a judgment that, on the surface, seemed justified.

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Jesus shocked the crowd with the conclusion: It was the tax collector — not the outwardly religious Pharisee — who went home justified. He drove the point home with a final line that still cuts: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The world would look very different — better, even — if more people, especially Christians, followed the example of the tax collector instead of the Pharisee.

Every person, family, and community carries its own burdens. Certain sins may show up more often in some groups than others, but that only looks like moral deficiency when we stop measuring ourselves against God and start judging others as the standard.

That’s why I advocate an “inside-out” approach to social commentary. I focus first on the issues that are common, pressing, and personal. Telling hard truths is difficult enough. It’s even harder when the messenger comes off as an outsider taking shots rather than someone who cares enough to speak from within.

Conservatives have every right to criticize America’s cultural collapse — but they should think twice before using China’s Xi Jinping to deliver the message. And if even Vivek Ramaswamy can’t offer light criticism without backlash, maybe it’s not just the left that has a problem hearing the truth.

The inside-out approach beats the alternative. It forces us to confront our own flaws instead of obsessing over everyone else’s. The outside-in method puts the sins of others under a microscope, while hiding the mirror that would show our own.

That’s why I don’t understand black pastors in neighborhoods torn apart by gang violence who spend their sermons denouncing “white supremacy” or DEI. Those things may be worth discussing — but they’re not why kids are dying in their streets.

Likewise, a white pastor in Wyoming would do much more good addressing his state’s sky-high suicide rate — often involving firearms — than speculating on how rap music and absent fathers are ruining black teenagers in Chicago.

Nothing’s wrong with offering honest insights about what plagues other communities. Tribalism shouldn’t stop us from grieving or rejoicing with people who don’t look like us. But the problem comes when we frame both vice and virtue in ethnic terms.

The apostle Paul didn’t tailor his warnings about idolatry, greed, lust, or murder based on ethnicity. His message was universal because the human condition is universal.

That’s why Christians must always remember: Jesus died for our sin, not our skin.

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Silence isn’t peace — it’s just surrender in slow motion



Blaze Media recently published my opinion piece “Agree to disagree? More like surrender to the script.” In the days that followed, readers left thoughtful and reasonable comments.

But when the Christian Post republished the same article, the comment section there sparked a firestorm.

If God the Father had been willing to 'agree to disagree' with humanity about sin, He wouldn’t have sent His Son to die in our place.

If you don’t have time to read the article or browse the responses, here’s the short version:

The piece centers on a conversation I had with my friend Jeffrey, who strongly dislikes President Trump. Over the four years of the Biden administration, Jeffrey never once criticized Biden or his team — no matter how egregious their actions. Yet, barely two months into Trump’s return to office, Jeffrey was already taking shots at him. And he did so during what had been, until that moment, a relatively uneventful phone call.

To be clear, I didn’t bring up the topic of the president. I knew it was a sensitive subject for Jeffrey. But during a conversation about a recent movie, he found a way to insert his objection to Trump’s deportation policy, calling those deported “asylum seekers.” He also declared that Trump was “bad for democracy.”

I pushed back gently, noting that America is not a democracy but a constitutional republic. Jeffrey agreed.

When I pointed out that an open border has led to sex trafficking, fentanyl deaths, and violent criminals infiltrating small towns, he said he didn’t support any of that. But then he quickly ended the conversation with, “Let’s just agree to disagree.”

Trump broke the truce

I found that well-worn phrase — “agree to disagree” — strange in this context. It suggests any disagreement, no matter how serious, can be casually brushed aside. Sure, my wife prefers chocolate ice cream, and I prefer vanilla. On that — and countless other minor things — we can “agree to disagree.” But when the stakes are higher? When lives are at risk — even the future of the nation? People should articulate and defend their positions.

After my “agree to disagree” article appeared in the Christian Post, commenters there came after me. Apparently, I wasn’t being a good Christian because I stirred the pot by bringing up Donald Trump — “the great divider,” as some called him. Never mind that I didn’t bring up his name. My friend did. But I wasn’t about to let his cheap shots go unchallenged.

In the original piece, I asked whether my friend — a faithful Christian — also sees his allegiance to the Democratic Party as an “agree to disagree” matter. Can a Christian’s loyalty to any political party cloud his judgment on what’s clearly right or wrong?

Jeffrey said he opposes sex changes for kids and drag queen story hours. But when it comes to deportation, he sees Trump’s second-term policies as domineering and out of bounds.

Disagreeing isn’t a sin

On critical issues — like the devastating effects of open borders — silence is complicity. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned, “Silence in the face of evil is evil. Not to speak is to speak.” When others looked the other way — or “agreed to disagree” — during the Nazi rise in 1930s Germany, Bonhoeffer stood firm. He was one of the few pastors who refused to be silent.

Today, the American left censors, cancels, and silences anyone who disagrees. Leftists expect us to “agree to disagree” but only if we’re the ones doing the agreeing — and the disagreeing. That demand for submission is part of why the country now finds itself in such dangerous and unstable times.

In my earlier article, one line struck a nerve:

It’s hard to imagine these days that the words ‘Christian’ and ‘Democrat’ can be mentioned in the same sentence.

That line sparked outrage. One commenter at the Christian Post wrote: “Nothing ends discussions — or even friendships — faster than questioning someone’s salvation over their political party.”

But here’s the problem: That’s not what I said. That commenter assumed I questioned my friend’s salvation. I didn’t. Within the context of the article, it’s clear I questioned his wisdom — something entirely different.

Jesus didn’t flinch

A few years ago, it was trendy to wear wristbands with the initials “WWJD?” — short for “What Would Jesus Do?”

But I always thought the better question was “WDJD?” — “What Did Jesus Do?”

Without knowing the Gospels, we risk projecting our own preferences onto Christ. We imagine He would act just like us in any given situation. But if we read scripture and study His words, we begin to understand how He actually responded — and how we should, too.

Nowhere in the four Gospels does Jesus “agree to disagree.” He never split the difference. He never wavered. He always led from a position of authority.

Take His encounter in the Temple. Jesus didn’t debate the moneychangers. He didn’t issue a polite warning. He flipped their tables and drove them out (Matthew 21:12-13). He didn’t scold them and promise to check in again next Sabbath for a follow-up heart-to-heart.

Jesus didn’t agree to disagree. He made it unmistakably clear: God’s house would not be defiled.

Oswald Chambers, in his classic devotional “My Utmost for His Highest,” ends the March 24 entry with this piercing line: “You may often see Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it.”

He cites Matthew 10:34, where Jesus says, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

That doesn’t sound like someone looking to “agree to disagree.”

Debate or dodge

One commenter tried to compare disagreement to a hung jury — where jurors can’t reach a unanimous verdict. But that analogy falls apart under scrutiny. Hung juries don’t arise from casual disagreement or an early vote. They happen only after jurors rigorously examine the evidence, debate the facts, and dig into every detail.

A jury doesn’t begin deliberations by taking a straw poll and calling it quits. It doesn’t return to the judge after a 7-5 split and declare, “Let’s just agree to disagree.”

A fair trial demands serious discussion — so should any conversation where truth and justice are at stake.

If God the Father had been willing to “agree to disagree” with humanity about sin, He wouldn’t have sent His Son to die in our place. We could have gone on living however we pleased — hurting others, being hurt, and suffering the consequences. Jesus might have shown up just to stand on the sidelines, shaking His head as we destroyed ourselves.

Consider the woman caught in adultery in John 8:1-11. The Pharisees reminded Jesus that the law required her to be stoned. He could have done what Pontius Pilate would do later — wash His hands of the situation. He could have said, “The law is the law,” and let the crowd do as it pleased. Agree to disagree, right?

But Jesus didn’t do that. Instead, He delivered a mic-drop moment that spared her life. Then, He told her, “Go and sin no more.”

Compare that to what happened when Jesus stood before Pilate. Pilate, faced with the mob, knew Jesus was innocent. But instead of standing up to the crowd, he caved. He agreed to disagree — and sent Christ to the cross.

When it comes to sin and judgment, “agree to disagree” is just cowardice dressed up as compromise. Jesus never did that.

You posted, didn’t you?

Some readers of my original article accused me of sounding self-righteous for taking a firm stance with Jeffrey. But I don’t believe we should compromise — or “agree to disagree” — on matters of real consequence. That’s why I laid out the facts clearly, whether Jeffrey knew them or not.

There’s more to be said, but let me end with this:

A surprising number of commenters on the Christian Post insisted that we should always “agree to disagree,” even on major issues. But every one of those comments proved my point. Not a single person “agreed to disagree” with me. Instead, they made sure their dissenting views were heard — some twisting my words, others going straight for personal attacks.

If they truly believed in “agreeing to disagree,” they wouldn’t have commented at all.

So who’s right about the value of “agree to disagree”?

Well, it appears it's debatable, after all.

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Emotional blackmail: How empathy became a tool of control



The sin of empathy.

When you write a book with that title, you need to be prepared to explain it. And sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

A friend recently sent me an image from the Mexico side of the southern border. It shows the word “Empathy” graffitied on the border wall. Presumably, the person responsible views the border wall as an affront to the modern virtue of empathy. In doing so, the person communicates the fundamental argument of my book.

For years, empathy has been pitched as sympathy 2.0. It’s compassion — but upgraded. In a famous viral YouTube video, Brené Brown describes the way that sympathy is cold and judgmental, standing aloof from suffering. Empathy, on the other hand, is a sacred space that fuels connection by staying out of judgment.

But pay attention to the fine print. What sounds like a simple call for human decency and kindness actually masks emotional blackmail. For, as the artist in Mexico said so clearly, empathy means no borders, no walls, no boundaries.

This was the warning issued in the early 2000s by Edwin Friedman, a rabbi and family systems counselor.

"Our focus on empathy is one of the major factors that has everybody stuck," Friedman said. "The concept of empathy has wound up encouraging everyone to lose their own boundaries, so it works against the very self-regulation that is necessary for it to be employed objectively."

In other words, empathy frequently becomes untethered from what is true and good, and it becomes a power tool in the hands of the sensitive. It elevates a person’s immediate feelings over healthy boundaries and thereby becomes a means of emotional manipulation.

Anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a guilt trip knows how easily we can be steered by our empathy and compassion. In fact, if we’re honest, we’ve likely put those we love on a guilt trip ourselves. It’s easy to throw a pity party or to adopt a martyr complex to influence and steer those we love.

And of course, emotional blackmail is not new. I’m sure that Adam and Eve (and Cain and Abel) engaged in their share of emotional manipulation. One hundred years ago, G.K. Chesterton asserted that the modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. They “have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth, and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity, and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”

Forty years later, C.S. Lewis warned that “Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful,” describing this noble virtue as a man-eating weed when it is transplanted from the rocky crags of justice to the swamp of humanitarianism.

In a world that demands all empathy and no borders, choose a better way.

But modern society has institutionalized this ancient human impulse, buttressing it with ideologies like critical theory and intersectionality.

The result? The Victimhood Olympics that we witnessed over the last decade, in which various “oppressed” groups competed to see who was the most oppressed.

In a society flooded by untethered empathy, victimhood confers invulnerability. Victims (real or imagined) cannot be questioned or challenged but must be affirmed, validated, and permitted to set the agenda for everyone else. What’s more, they are absolved from all responsibility for their actions, and they can count on the members of society to excuse all manner of behavior out of misguided compassion.

Of course, the man-eating weed of untethered empathy is very willing to selectively adopt the tenets of justice when it wants.

For example, the Biden administration facilitated the invasion of our country, abusing programs like Temporary Protected Status and expanding programs for asylum-seekers to flood the country with millions of migrants. And now, as the Trump administration seeks to undo this invasion, all of a sudden it’s vital that every illegal migrant receive an individual trial. Thus we see not only a corruption of compassion, but a corruption of justice and a bureaucratic and judicial tyranny that usurps the role of the nation’s duly elected officials.

This is the challenge for us as individuals and as a society: How can we actually be compassionate without giving in to the empathetic manipulation that dishonors God, destroys lives, and smothers justice? Because it is amazing how much cruelty can be done in the name of empathy. You can murder the unborn. You can castrate and mutilate children. You can facilitate an invasion. All in the name of empathy.

Resist any of these efforts and you will be called heartless, cruel, and ungodly, as Sunny Hostin did on "The View."

But true compassion, the kind that Christ calls us to, is not steered by false accusations and labels. True compassion weeps with those who weep while seeking their ultimate good. Because it is tethered to truth, goodness, and reality, it refuses to lie to appease the manipulators who would steer us by our kindness. It always reserves the right not to blaspheme.

So in a world that demands all empathy and no borders, choose a better way. Good fences make good neighbors. Firm boundaries enable true compassion.

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