To the editor:

President Trump’s callous, egomaniac hatchet man Elon Musk (worth $351 billion as of March 25) stated “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” Of the many purveyors of this “weakness,” the most notable was the carpenter Jesus of Nazareth.

Empathy is the ability to share another person’s emotions. Sympathy is a feeling of sincere concern for an individual or group in a difficult and/or painful situation. Empathy often leads to sympathy which — in turn — may result in the pursuit of social, economic and/or political justice that alleviates or eliminates suffering.

Historian Julia Baird notes the following Bible passages about empathy: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). “But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17). “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). “Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered” (Proverbs 21:13).

Christian Nationalist pastor Josh McPherson has a very different perspective of empathy. For McPherson, “empathy is dangerous, empathy is toxic, empathy will align you with hell.” Believers in this blasphemy are attempting to transform Christianity into a “hooray for me and screw you” religion.

After interviewing Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials, psychologist Gustave Gilbert concluded they all shared a common trait: “A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

George J. Bryjak

Bloomingdale