Power of Mature Empathy: In Response to Sexual Violence in Faith Communities

Each day, approximately twenty-five thousand people die from hunger and related problems while on the other side of the globe people worry about how to reduce food waste. Looking at photos of children who are skin and bones, we wonder what is wrong, and how we can transform our polarized world into a just and caring one. This book finds one of the answers from the power of mature empathy, especially from communal empathy, drawing on psychology, ethics, and women's and gender studies. How can we stop the vicious circle of violence and hunger and make this world a better place? Looking into sexual violence cases in faith communities and the #MeToo movement as a case study, the author identifies dysfunctional, immature empathy as one of the culprits for tragedy in our world. Mature empathy will help us to arise and dismantle injustice together in solidarity by equipping us with compassion for those who suffer unjustly because of systemic evil. With mature empathizers trained to empathize even with total strangers, our society can imagine and be motivated to cultivate a world whose foundational value is mature empathy balanced with justice and care.