Empathy, often mistaken for weakness, is actually a profound strength. Empathy requires emotional intelligence, courage, and resilience. Empathy requires emotional intelligence, courage, and resilience.

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Emotional Intelligence:

Empathy enhances communication and relationships, crucial for personal and professional success.

Courage to Connect:

It takes bravery to engage deeply with others’ emotions, showing true emotional fortitude.

Strength in Vulnerability:

Embracing empathy means being authentic and honest, fostering trust and meaningful connections.

Problem-Solving:

Understanding diverse perspectives leads to innovative and inclusive solutions.

Resilience: Empathy builds a support network, enhancing adaptability and strength in facing challenges.

Empathy is not a weakness; it’s a powerful tool for creating a compassionate and understanding world.

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Authentic empathy always requires significant cognitive effort, particularly when it comes to understanding another person’s point of view (also known as “perspective-taking“).

Some scholars further parse this angle into:

Cognitive

“the ability to imagine the other’s experiences”

&

Perceptive

“the ability to directly perceive the other’s experiences”

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Cognitive Empathy

Cognitive empathy, often referred to as perspective-taking, is the mental ability to understand and identify with another person’s thoughts and feelings.

Cognitive empathy involves imagining oneself in another’s situation to gain insight into their emotional state.

Perceptive Empathy

Perceptive empathy, on the other hand, goes beyond mere understanding to actively engaging with another’s emotional experience. 

Perceptive empathy combines sensing emotions, regulating one’s own emotions, and taking skillful action based on these perceptions to meet others’ needs.

Both forms of empathy are crucial for effective interpersonal communication and relationships.

How Do We Test Whether It’s Empathy Or Projections?

When I know that I’m ready to critique a theological perspective is when I can:

“Yes this is exactly what I believe.”

If there are any need of clarification, caveats or modification then my view must be reevaluated.

Integrsting cognitive empathy involves a humble (and difficult) listening skill: withholding any judgment on the other person’s feelings, words, interpretation, and perspective until I understand accurately and robustly.

THE OUTER JUDGE MUST BE TAMED IN ORDER TO EMPATHIZE AT ALL.

Don’t twist my words now:

Christians must resist extreme relativism in our culture, but what I am saying in regards to holding judgment is to do so only for a brief time.

Many can easily misperceive what it means to be “non-judgmental” when discussing Cognitive Empathy.

Being “non-judgmental” often involves agreeing with or validating whatever a person feels and says, no matter what; for the sake of “love” or “tolerance.”

I’ve heard it said,

“If you don’t validate my understanding as your own, you clearly don’t love me.” (Though that’s not what “love” means, even though it’s popular.)

Extreme relativism counsels hurting people “to resent all resistance to their feelings,” as if such resistance were “a direct assault on their dignity and an affront to the depth of their suffering.”

Joe Rigney

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