The New Yorker:

The head of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary says that empathy is “used politically in ways that are very destructive and manipulative.”

By Isaac Chotiner

Albert Mohler, the longtime president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is one of the best-known evangelicals in the United States, famous for his writings on faith, and now for his podcast, “The Briefing,” which airs every weekday. Mohler was a harsh critic of Donald Trump in 2016, calling him a “sexual predator,” and lamenting his popularity among Christians. (Mohler says that he did not vote that year.) When Mohler and I spoke in June of 2020, he called Trump “a huge embarrassment,” but nevertheless offered various reasons why it was necessary to support him in that year’s election. He admitted that his reasoning had a certain “pragmatic, utilitarian dimension to it,” explaining that Democrats and Republicans had diverged so much on social issues.

Five years later, Mohler interviewed a fellow-theologian about “the sin of empathy.” The conversation occurred in February, around the same time that Elon Musk told Joe Rogan that “civilizational suicidal empathy” was destroying the West. I wanted to hear more about Mohler’s perspective on empathy, and whether his views on American politics and the Trump Administration had evolved since we last spoke. Our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, is below.

Do you still think President Trump is an embarrassment?

Now when you say those words, you are going back to 2016?

2020. You said that to me.

O.K., I need context here. I supported President Trump’s election in 2020.

I know you did, but when we talked you said, “President Trump is a huge embarrassment, and it’s an embarrassment to evangelical Christianity that there appear to be so many people who will celebrate precisely the aspects that I see Biblically as most lamentable and embarrassing.”

Yeah, I mean, I said that in a context. I mean, frankly, many of the particulars of the story of Donald Trump are embarrassing to evangelicals. But, at the same time, I unapologetically supported him in 2020, and I supported him in 2024. And, by the way, I supported him as President once he was elected to his first term. I don’t think it’s fair to have that statement as an isolated statement. Donald Trump’s not the only politician that has embarrassed me that I have supported.

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