Is empathy a sin? Right now, if you’re a Christian, your head might be spinning a bit. Maybe not over whether empathy in general is a sin, but perhaps over who God thinks deserves it, and by extension, to whom you should extend it.

The current kerfuffle centers squarely on issues surrounding illegal immigrants. At a prayer service following President Trump’s inauguration, the leader of the Episcopal diocese of Washington, Mariann Budde, implored Trump and Vice President JD Vance to have mercy on illegal immigrants in the United States, the majority of whom, she said, are hardworking people. It’s a message many Catholic bishops are echoing in their cautions against mass deportation. The message here is that God commands us to have compassion for all people, including those who might have skirted some laws to try and find a better life.

On the other side of the aisle, there’s a different view of what God wants. Vance, along with many conservative clergy, argue that God cares primarily about justice, and that, according to Christian tradition, care should first be extended to family, then to community, to countrymen, and then, last and least, to those from other lands—an argument Vance bases on St. Augustine’s idea of the ordo amoris (i.e., the order of loves).

You might think a quick appeal to the authority of Scripture could settle the dispute. But the Bible is a book of many voices, and so when it comes to questions around whose suffering matters—around retribution and mercy—inferring God’s intentions can be difficult. Where Leviticus commands people to treat foreigners in their land as they would native-borns, the Psalmist urges smashing the heads of invaders’ children against rocks. The Book of Hebrews advocates extending kindness to strangers in your land, while in the First Epistle of Timothy, Paul reminds his reader that anyone who does not ensure support for his or her relatives is acting against God’s wishes.

The upshot seems to be that God can be loving or callous toward outsiders. So when it comes to illegal immigrants, many of whom have come here to escape hardship and anguish in their own land, who is correct, the Left or Right? The answer isn’t exactly clear. While it’s easy to chalk this dispute up to hypocrisy—people conveniently taking a side to support their political team—I think something deeper is at play. Something involving not just people’s politically expedient views, but their honest beliefs about God Itself.

You might think a quick appeal to the authority of Scripture could settle the dispute. But the Bible is a book of many voices, and so when it comes to questions around whose suffering matters—around retribution and mercy—inferring God’s intentions can be difficult. 

It’s here that behavioral science offers some insight into why there are heartfelt positions on both sides—positions that seem to belie the ambiguity in the sacred texts themselves. The fissure comes down to a glitch of the mind. Simply put, research shows that our views of God aren’t fixed; they change below conscious awareness to suit our needs. And here, psychologist Joshua Jackson and colleagues have identified one of the biggest determinants of those changes: a culture’s tightness or looseness.

Conservatives tend be tight—a stance characterized by a strict view of ingroup norms and a punitive response toward those who violate them. Progressives, meanwhile, tend to be loose—a stance characterized by an openness to new groups and ideas and a more lenient view toward laws and social norms. And differences in tightness and looseness directly affect people’s views of God and what God values.

Across several studies involving thousands of participants as well as analyses of historical records, Jackson and his colleagues found that changing differences in a culture’s tightness predicted whether its people believed God was more punitive or merciful in nature. For example, using Google Books to review billions of words in English literary texts from 1800-2000, the team found that as a culture’s levels of tightness increased, so too did references to punitive verses from the Bible. In a similar vein, the researchers found that asking people to spend time imagining what it would be like to live in a tight culture also increased their endorsement of punitive religious beliefs. Studies like these help explain how cultural differences between progressives and conservatives can account for their differing views about religious responsibility when it comes to empathy: conservatives tend to be much tighter.

Our views of God aren’t fixed; they change below conscious awareness to suit our needs.

But apropos of the current moment, Jackson and colleagues took this work a step further. In additional studies, they showed that when people feel their way of life is imperiled, by an influx of refugees or political conflicts between groups, they become more culturally tight, irrespective of their original state. And as a direct result of that increased tightness, they come to view God as a more angry, wrathful, and punitive deity.

Findings like these suggest that, for many, the clashing views around religion and empathy toward illegal immigrants aren’t just another manifestation of our tribal politics. Yes, views of God can vary, but it’s not always at the whim of electoral concerns. People don’t simply paper over their views of the divine to be consistent with their votes. Conservatives and liberals hold divergent views about whose suffering is important to feel—views that come from their level of cultural tightness, and that, in turn, shape their views of religious obligations and of the divine itself. But when their way of life feels threatened, their view of God can fundamentally change even more in a manner that makes it seem authentic and deeply held. There is no sense of dissonance; there’s a feeling of righteousness, a belief that God favors enforcing rules and punishing those who break them.

I’m no theologian, so I won’t offer an opinion as to what God’s true message is (if in fact God exists). But I will caution that the glitch of the mind underlying this dispute will make finding common ground extremely difficult. As psychologist Jonathan Haidt is fond of noting, moral views often come from intuitions, not reasoned analysis, meaning that if your mind, seemingly unbidden, makes you feel God wants you to favor those close to you, and punish those who are different—who threaten the traditional moral and social order—shackling and deporting illegal immigrants makes good sense. Likewise, if you’re traditionally more progressive or don’t see threats here, it remains easy to believe God wants you to be merciful toward the illegal immigrants in your midst. In either case, your mind believes this is what God wants, no matter how many lines in the Bible say otherwise. And as a result, appeals to put partisanship aside will ring hollow. Herein lies the folly of appealing to religion as a guide for policy: its dictates seem authoritative, while its flexibility hides below our consciousness.