Sympathy

It is generally accepted that in order to evaluate the actions of people, you must first sympathize with them. It's the polite thing to do. But, there is a perverse idea of sympathy being propagated by the secular humanist religion dominating the popular American culture today. Kindness and love, the fruits of the Spirit that are the foundation of true sympathy, have been usurped by pride, the chief jewel in the existential crown, leading to a twisted notion of sympathy that is debilitating to those that espouse it and frustrating to those who it is being forced upon, which is everyone else.

You'll notice this perversion principally in discussions involving race and gender. It often goes down like this:

{some statement is made challenging the world view of the humanist}

"Well, you have never been...

a. a woman,
b. a man,
c. a gay man,
d. a gay woman,
e. white,
f. black,
g. hispanic,
h. asian,
i. eskimo, or
j. any combination thereof

...so you can't talk!"
(then his lame friends go "OOHHHH!" and his cool friend says, "Treated.")

The antagonist has exalted personal experience as lord over all. He would have you believe that unless you have personal experience with the exact situation being considered, any desire you have to express an appropriate opinion is hopeless due to your ignorance. Also, the more experiential categories that you can display mirrored in your own life, the more weight your opinion holds. This is congruous with the existential philosophy that walks hand-in-hand (or hand-in-foot, or foot-in-backside, it's all relative) with the secular humanist religion, so at the very least his momentary consistency should be lauded.

The discussion, for all rational purposes, is effectively over as far as reaching an understanding about either race or gender. Not, as the humanist would have you think, because he has leveled your opinion like a French airport. It is because his existential beliefs are the cracked foundation upon which he has tragically built his teetering worldview. There is no sense in laboring to build the third floor on this soon to be condemned structure. The best thing one can do is help him abandon it. Then demolish it so no kids start playing inside and get hurt.

The secular humanists all are looking from slanted floors and crooked windows at the house built on the steady Rock, the level Cornerstone, and insisting that it resembles the Tower of Pisa. The trouble is, this foolishness is so rampant among the American culture that we find people rooted on the Rock speaking as if they too have placed their hope on a faltering foundation.

"Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted." (NASB Bible, Book of Hebrews, chapter 2, verses 17 and 18)

"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." (NASB Bible, Book of Hebrews, chapter 4, verses 15 and 16)

These verses from the Word of God are speaking of Jesus Christ, the Rock and Cornerstone, who is also our high priest. They declare one of the most soul-reassuring truths known to man, namely, that Jesus, the Son of God, can sympathize with us! The glorious shine from this facet of God's character illumines and warms any life placed before it.

Read the verses in context for a true understanding and even study the Greek.

The temptation of Jesus in the desert

The knowledge presented in these chapters of scripture make any point I feebly try to make negligible. But I will humbly go on.

The Spirit of God purports to teach us to assuredly approach Jesus with full confidence of His ability to understand us and be compassionate towards our troubles by asserting through the Word that Jesus can sympathize with us. This fact is undergirded by pointing to Jesus' experience in becoming fully human, in that Jesus was tempted to sin, and thus, this passage makes a convincing case for His ability show compassion on us due to Jesus' encounters with temptation. Of note is also that Jesus' full divinity is not mentioned in regard to His sympathy for us, except as an obvious inference from His sinlessness.

Any existential claim (can a relativist have a claim?) that in order to sympathize with another person one must experience their set of circumstances is evaporated in the light of these passages like the nebulous mist before the awakening glory of the dawning sun. This fallacy carried out to its logical progression would render Jesus unable to sympathize with any non-heterosexual, non-Jewish, non-male. Thankfully, this is untrue.

The false definition of sympathy fuels much of the mistaken clamor surrounding the need for "diversity" in schools, businesses, churches, and the like. It is not necessary to experience every beautiful and horrifying nuance in the human journey to gain compassion for all of God's creation. The Book of Hebrews reveals that Jesus is able to sympathize with us all who are also tempted. In turn, following Jesus' example, resisting those temptations is the path towards sympathy. The closer we move to the Father, the more able we are to emulate His gift to us: Love. This will lead to more compassion than all the social engineering we can dream of.

"Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled on the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert, is exactly the part he ought to doubt--himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt--the Divine Reason."--G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy