This was new to me so I tried looking it up as well. I found a lot of results right away with startpage, which makes me wonder what search engine you were using?

They (the evangelicals) are apparently calling it "toxic empathy" and they jump through a lot of loops to claim that it's bad to have empathy with the victims of USA republican policies.

My first result was a long opinion piece criticizing evangelicals for their newfound crusade against empathy: https://churchleaders.com/news/511911-the-scandal-of-evangelical-empathy.html/4

2nd result is an evangelical that does a bit of mind bending to explain why empathy with outgroups is "toxic": https://unityinchristianity.com/2025/02/03/the-truth-about-toxic-empathy-and-why-its-becoming-a-controversial-topic/.

The 3rd article has a claim that Jesus Himself was not empathic: "Clearly the Lord Jesus Christ can be sympathetic, but He cannot be empathetic in the sense of identifying with our sinful emotions and desires." https://www.e-n.org.uk/features/2025-03-the-problem-with-empathy/ That article also references a book by an evangelical called "the sin of empathy".

Modern USA could be summed up by the old Russian adage: "And then, somehow, it got worse."

[–] SL3wvmnas@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 2 days ago

This is. ... something ?! I'm flabbergasted. Thank you, wish I could give you more than one upvote!

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago

Thanks. I was using Duck Duck Go for the terms "Evangelical" and "Empathy", and found only pro-empathy articles on tht first page of results (other than the Screwtape Letters chapter).

[–] antbricks@lemmy.today 4 points 2 days ago

"...identifying with our sinful emotions and desires" Don't they also say that's why he was fucking sent to Earth in the first place?

And the US evangelical team has won the gold in mental gymnastics once again.