Hillary Clinton speaks out against 'toxic empathy' — but misses the point
There is a reason some modern political slogans feel impossible to challenge without sounding cruel, un-Christian, or “extreme.” It’s not because they are true. It’s because they are designed to stop you from thinking.
That insight comes from James Lindsay, who recently explained a sloganeering concept most Evangelicals have never heard of but encounter every day: tifa. The word comes from Chinese Communist political strategy and refers to short, emotionally loaded slogans engineered to hijack moral instincts and shut down critical thought.
In plain English: tifa are thought-terminating clichés. They sound compassionate. They feel righteous. But they smuggle in falsehoods, moral confusion, and ideological commitments that most Christians would reject if stated honestly.
Think of phrases like “trans women are women,” “abortion is healthcare,” or “no human being is illegal.” Each is short. Each feels morally coercive. And each dares you to disagree, because disagreement is immediately reframed as hatred, cruelty, or a lack of empathy.
This matters because many Christians are being told — often by other Christians — that the faithful response to cultural conflict is to find a “third way,” lower the temperature, avoid “polarization,” and speak with more nuance. Divorced from concrete moral questions, such responses can be entirely appropriate. But when deployed reflexively, those generic calls are often a trap.
How “tifa”(提法) works on Christians
James Lindsay explains that tifa (提法) works in a simple but disruptive way. It uses emotionally charged slogans to confuse moral thinking and corner people into agreement before they’ve had time to think.
First, these slogans blur important distinctions — between compassion and approval, love and affirmation, human dignity and moral truth. Second, these slogans rig the conversation so that disagreeing doesn’t just sound wrong, but cruel or mean. Before you’ve even made an argument, you’re made to look heartless.
Nowhere is this clearer than in The Atlantic article by Hillary Clinton, titled “MAGA’s War on Empathy.” The piece is a case study in tifa applied to Christians. Her goal is to limit your ability to discern.
Clinton frames the entire moral universe this way: empathy equals Christianity, and resistance to progressive policies equals cruelty. “How can a person of conscience justify the lack of compassion and empathy,” she asks, while collapsing complex moral debates about immigration, abortion, and gender ideology into a single accusation — you don’t care.
That is classic rhetorical entrapment. The reader is never asked whether the policies in question are true, just, or aligned with reality. We are told that to question them is to wage a “war on empathy.” Disagreement becomes sin.
Even more revealing is Clinton’s dismissal of “toxic empathy” as an oxymoron. She insists empathy “does not overwhelm our critical thinking or blind us to moral clarity.” But that assertion is precisely the point under dispute, and her assertion is calculated to avoid even discussing the obvious reality that misdirected empathy routinely produces injustice.
Feeling deeply for one person while ignoring the harmed parties on the other side of a policy is not virtuous. It is a moral imbalance.
A model for how to respond
This is where Allie Beth Stuckey’s response matters, not because she is perfect or beyond critique, but because she refuses the spell.
In her rebuttal, Stuckey does something increasingly rare: she separates empathy from love. Empathy, she explains, is feeling what someone feels. Love, biblically understood, is seeking what is true and good for them, even (especially) when that truth is hard.
That distinction is devastating to tifa. It exposes how slogans weaponize compassion by demanding emotional alignment while forbidding moral evaluation. Stuckey names the lie plainly: empathy becomes toxic when it leads us to affirm sin, validate falsehoods, or support destructive policies.
Notice what she does not do. She does not deny the dignity of immigrants, women, or those experiencing gender dysphoria. She refuses the false binary. Human dignity is not up for debate, but neither is reality or objective truth.
That is exactly why Clinton targets her. The article is not really about Stuckey. It is about silencing a growing number of Christians — especially women — who recognize emotional manipulation and are no longer willing to surrender truth for the sake of social approval.
The danger of “third-way” Christianity
This is where the call for “less polarization” becomes spiritually and theologically dangerous. When the culture deploys tifa, neutrality or false empathy always favors the lie. Calls for empathy on clear moral issues often function as pressure to compromise, because the slogans themselves are never morally neutral.
Jesus did not avoid polarization. Truth divides by nature. The Gospel itself is a stumbling block. The problem is not that Christians are being too clear. The problem is that many have been catechized to believe clarity is cruelty and that polarization is immoral.
Paul’s command in Romans 12:2 was not to empathize harder, but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is good, pleasing, and true. Discernment is work. It requires resisting emotional shortcuts. It requires doing more research and asking uncomfortable questions about what slogans assume, what they erase, and who they ultimately harm.
A Christ-follower who trades objective truth for the appearance of compassion won’t be a light to the world. He’ll be absorbed by it.
Breaking the spell
- Tifa thrives on speed. Slow down and ask: What is this slogan assuming?
- Tifa moralizes disagreement. Ask instead: Is this actually, objectively true?
- Tifa demands immediate emotional allegiance and often appeals to tribal allegiance. Respond with disciplined love grounded in reality and truth.
Christians are not called to be cruel. But we are not called to be manipulable either. The most loving thing the Church can do right now is recover moral clarity and refuse to let empathy be used as a weapon against truth.
If we lose that, we won’t just lose arguments. We will lose our witness. And that is a cost no amount of applause from the world can justify.
Josue Sierra is the Director of Communications for the PA Family Institute, and a writer and speaker on Biblical worldview and Christian discernment in cultural engagement. He lives in the Mid-Atlantic region together with his wife and 5 kids.
