All Snaked Up About Medusa

That one argument about empathy, stock art mythology, and the slippery slope

Perseus and Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini, 1545

If you don’t spend time on Christian Twitter, you’ve probably had a more productive week than I have.

Recently, Joseph Rigney, fellow of theology at New Saint Andrews College, published a post with American Reformer, entitled “Women’s Ordination is Indeed a Watershed Issue.” For those unfamiliar with Rigney, he has spent the past few years making a name for himself for battling “untethered empathy.” (He also resigned as president of Bethlehem Seminary last spring, due to his support of Christian nationalism and belief in infant baptism.)

Rigney’s theory is that as a culture we fall prey to a dangerous sort of empathy, a sort of well-meaning but dangerous abundance of feeling that can lead to wallowing with an injured party, instead of keeping the objective distance needed to help them. This can lead to uncritically believing those who claim abuse, he suggests. In turn, we would forgive any action they take (say, a child rape victim having an abortion), and in this way, we elevate the claimant to a God-like position. That, therefore, is a sin.

The argument was directed last week at women generally, and feminists in particular, in a piece in which Rigney explained, “My basic contention is that running beneath the ideological conflicts surrounding all things ‘woke’ (race, sexuality, abuse, and LGBTQ+) is a common emotional dynamic involving untethered empathy–that is, a concern for the hurting and vulnerable that is unmoored from truth, goodness, and reality.”

Rigney assessed a case made by a Fr. Robinson, that linked feminism, critical race theory and queer theory, explaining, Robinson “identified feminism as the gateway drug to Critical Theory in the church, calling women’s ordination a ‘Trojan Horse’ and a ‘cancer.’” Rigney couldn’t help but agree, namely, in his view that women are uniquely susceptible to untethered empathy. It’s great the way women can bond and care in relational ways—as the heart of communities such as the church (i.e., doing the free labor that makes a church home)—but when women are in leadership roles, Rigney writes, that empathetic impulse “becomes a major liability when it comes to guarding the doctrine and worship of the church.”

The piece was illustrated with an image of a statue of Perseus holding up Medusa’s decapitated head.

What ensued online was a squabble about the image, which, I agree was an odd choice. I did not witness women newly adopting Medusa as their standard bearer, but there was plenty of noise suggesting feminists had and Rigney has suggested that this happened. Former Trump administrator William Wolfe shared the story with its thumbnail decapitation scene, writing “Feminism will be defeated.” Theologian and writer Karen Swallow Prior pointed out in an interesting aside that in Ovid’s account, “a beautiful young maiden at the time, was raped by the god Neptune in the temple—and Medusa was the one punished.”

Maybe the image choice was apt after all.

I’ve written enough stories for which an editor chose the headline or an art director finalized the illustration that I’m not fussed up on the picture. I do think it’s worthwhile looking at Rigney’s argument, because the meat of it is likely to be repeated over and again by leaders suddenly anxious about women pastors (such as in the Southern Baptist Convention, where the issue has seen far swifter action than decades of sex abuse coverup that triggered a Department of Justice investigation).

In his telling, Rigney offers as a basic premise that his category of untethered empathy is real: there is a dangerous impulse to blindly believe the stories of the injured and hurting. (See, “Believe Women.”) This also includes a second suggestion that this trust of victims is absolute and comes without question, thus disempowering the listener to such a degree that the victim looms like God over them.

As someone who has had to vet serious allegations just for the purposes of reporting, who has spent more hours than I can count reading Title IX records and police reports, who is aware of just how few cases of rape are reported to police, and of those, the number that result in incarceration, all I can say is wow. This worry about unfettered support for alleged survivors is not based in reality.

Source: RAINN

But even if you want to allow for this premise despite the way victims are interrogated out in reality, there’s a second part to anxiety over “untethered empathy” (an accusation of hysteria wearing a new suit): women are good at empathy. For Rigney, this magnifies its danger.

To keep going with Rigney, you have to both accept that human beings are collapsing under the God of victimhood, but also fail to recognize a proclivity for empathy in people other than women. When men, for instance, do get tangled up in believing women, Rigney writes, “Put simply, it is this: men struggle to deal with the unhappiness and displeasure of women. Put another way, female distress activates male agitation. Male empathy for the unhappy woman is frequently a disguise for his own anxiety and angst. This is especially true of good men, who have been taught to be ‘servant leaders.’ We’re all familiar with the modern social media phenomenon of ‘the white knight,’ the man who, seeing a woman in distress (that is, engaged in online debate with a man), comes to her aid by attacking her opponents with a vehemence and zeal that he would not have if a man was engaged in the same sort of ideological conflict.”

So, men can fall prey to Rigney’s untethered empathy, but it is only when bad women set the trap. Their victimhood might be true abuse or merely online bullying, but either way, men will be stirred as right-meaning if unnecessary defenders.

It’s like a rhetorical magic trick, the way all the attention gets cast at those on the defense. I don’t see the same fixation on the culprits of abuse, whether Twitter jerks or real criminals (because in the case of abuse allegations, do not forget, these are allegations about crimes).

Here’s the trouble for the church, in Rigney’s assessment: “…faithful men struggle to resist unfaithful women. She-wolves, especially ones who present themselves as victims, give even faithful men fits, because of the unavoidable asymmetries in the dynamics. What’s more, ungodly women are often willing to exploit these asymmetries in order to steer entire communities.”

I think it’s obvious that Rigney’s theories are an attempt to process a wider phenomenon occurring across evangelical churches: the gross volume of abuse allegations that have surfaced in the #MeToo/#ChurchToo era, particularly by women, against men in positions of influence within the church. It is a useful tactic to be able to dispose of victims as playing God, those who believe them as sinners and those who defend them as being manipulated by their sins.