What is empathy? I asked some of my close friends and family, and their responses included “a person’s  ability to feel for and  understand how someone is feeling with what they are going through” and “understanding and feeling the feelings that someone else is experiencing.” Empathy is a natural ability possessed by certain individuals; a person is either empathetic towards others, or not. 

Before joining the Empathy and the Religious “Enemy” team, I would have said something similar. Empathy was an innate ability to put myself in someone else’s shoes, feeling how I thought they would feel, especially in tough times. I’ve always believed that we can choose how we behave around others, how we react to contention, but it’s a lot harder to choose  how we feel about the most skin-prickling situations. 

Since joining the team, I’ve learned that empathy can also be a skill in need of practice. Empathy requires the ability to put emotional distance between myself and another person, while continuing to perceive and pursue a shared human experience. While I myself haven’t yet made a trip to visit the oppositional groups (Westboro Baptist Church and Neturei Karta), I read and discuss their beliefs and material on an almost daily basis with these projects. I appreciate the methodology behind our interactions with oppositional groups and what is often perceived as extreme and hateful language. Their beliefs and controversial language aren’t the focus of the project, even though they are often unavoidable. When interacting with each person, we look to go beyond their beliefs, focusing on their experiences, their feelings, their community. The most controversial religious groups, such as Westboro Baptist Church, still consist of parents, children, grandparents, employees, gardeners, musicians, and more, who claim to be working hard on behalf of their communities, families, and selves. They may employ controversial language to talk about their firm beliefs, but that does not mean that I cannot choose to employ empathy when encountering their practices and persons. 

The skill of empathy isn’t easily taught in writing or in speech, but in practice with a team that is committed to the same goal. That’s what I find paramount about what Empathy and the Religious “Enemy” is doing. This project isn’t just collecting data or meeting controversial religious groups, Dr. Hillel Gray is building a system that teaches how to interact with everyone with respect and dignity. We learn to listen without disagreeing, and accept disagreement without antagonizing. In this way, I am learning how descriptors and interactions with oppositional groups often sustain a feedback loop of opposition and even attempted dehumanization, and how to counter this cycle. This is not only applicable in working with oppositional groups, but with every single person I meet. 

Empathy as a skill is extremely valuable in a multitude of situations. With the Empathy and the Religious “Enemy” project, we are looking to train ourselves to recognize our mutual human experiences with individuals who espouse controversial religious beliefs. I’ve found empathy useful to reframe my own thinking both of oppositional groups and in my daily life. I look to employ empathic thinking  when hearing negative assumptions about others. In practicing empathy for Westboro Baptist Church and Neturei Karta members, I am seeking to improve the way I speak around others about anything, from families, religion, politics, and more. 

Individual people aren’t caricatures. Each of us can’t be summarized into three or four belief statements. The more effort we put into practicing empathy, the more I believe we will be able to connect with each other and educate ourselves on the vast differences across the human experience. I may never agree with many of an oppositional group’s beliefs and statements, but, with practice, I can see the humanity in each individual, despite how they may speak. In this, I am hopeful that Empathy and the Religious “Enemy” can continue to teach myself and others to connect with each other to bridge ideological differences. 

Cheryl joined the team in the Spring of 2022 to continue pursuing religion in an academic sense, having graduated with degrees in religious studies from the University of Virginia in 2017 and 2018.