JD VANCE: There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) January 30, 2025
A lot of the far left has completely inverted that pic.twitter.com/XkoTiKgq3g
Just google “ordo amoris.” Aside from that, the idea that there isn’t a hierarchy of obligations violates basic common sense. Does Rory really think his moral duties to his own children are the same as his duties to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away? Does anyone? https://t.co/otvv5g1wFN
— JD Vance (@JDVance) January 30, 2025
Time for a bit of seminary.
Thanks to a bit of discourse JD Vance engaged in, we have our next big question.
What is ordo amoris?
The Vice President appeared on Fox News to discuss the administration’s immigration policies and picked up an emergent thread in conservative circles regarding the “sin” of empathy, arguing the political left carries empathy too far and attempted to shrink the bounds of empathy to a closer circle of people. From the quote, highlighted in the tweet above, “There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world.”
It’s a great quote and it’s a great sound bite.
The problem is that it is a stretch and a misstatement of the Christian concept.
As many in the subsequent days, including Vance himself, have pointed out, Vance seemed to be trying to highlight the theological concept of ordo amoris, or “ordered love”.
The concept comes from the work of St. Augustine in The City of God. Augustine believed that true virtue and moral goodness stem from properly aligning our affections and desires with what is truly valuable and worthy. Thus, God’s love must be centralized in reordering our affections. Our ultimate fulfillment then lies in the pursuit of virtue and moral goodness required the proper ordering of our desires, with God as the ultimate object of love and devotion.
“But if the Creator is truly loved — that is, if He Himself is loved, and not something else in place of Him — then He cannot be wrongly loved. We must, however, observe right order even in our love for the very love by which we love that which is worthy to be loved, so that there may be in us that virtue which enables us to live well. Hence, it seems to me that a brief and true definition of virtue is ‘rightly ordered love.’” (City of God, XV.22).- God
- Ourselves, as a man ought to love himself more than his neighbor
- Our neighbors
- Our bodies, as a man ought to love his neighbor more than his body
"Now, since Christ has shown in the parable of the Samaritan that the term 'neighbor' includes even the most remote person (Luke 10:36), we are not expected to limit the precept of love to those in close relationships.
I do not deny that the more closely a man is linked to us, the more intimate obligation we have to assist him. It is the common habit of mankind that the more closely men are abound together by the ties of kinship, of acquaintanceship, or of neighborhood, the more responsibilities for one another they share. This does not offend God; for his providence, as it were leads us to it.
BUT I say: we ought to embrace the whole human race without exception in a single feeling of love; here there is no distinction between barbarian and Greek, worthy and unworthy, friend and enemy, since all should be contemplated in God, not in themselves.
When we turn aside from such contemplation, it is no wonder we become entangled in many errors. Therefore, if we rightly direct our love, we must first turn our eyes not to man, the sight of whom would more often engender hate than love, but to God, who bids us extend to all men the love we bear to him, that this may be an unchanging principle: whatever the character of the man, we must yet love him because we love God." John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 2, Chapter 8, Section 55.
Jesus responds with a familiar story that I've written about before. He tells of a Levite and a priest that pass by the injured man and worry more about themselves. What will happen to me if I touch this man? Will I be defiled? What has he done to deserve such a fate? It's important to note that both the Levite and the priest could not imagine themselves in the man's position. They could not empathize enough to see his need for assistance, so they crossed on the other side of the road to avoid him.
The Samaritan on the other hand worried about what would happen to the man if he did nothing. Perhaps, the Samaritan could imagine himself in a similar situation. He knew the treachery of the road and saw how it could have easily been him in that fate.
From the story, we see that the only response to Jesus' question at the end, asking who was the neighbor to the man who fell to robbers, is "he who showed mercy on him." We see that all we come in contact with are people who are our neighbors. And we have the opportunity to be neighborly in response by being the ones who show mercy and love.
"You shall not wrong nor oppress the stranger, for you were strangers in the Land of Egypt" Exodus 22:20
"The strangers who reside with you shall be to you as your citizens … for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Leviticus 19:34
"For the Eternal your God is God supreme and Lord supreme, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, providing food and clothing — you too must love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Deuteronomy 10:18-19
“Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” Romans 12:13
“Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.” 1 Peter 4:9
“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:2
“Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.” Titus 1:8
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” Matthew 25:35
“Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you. They have told the church about your love. Please send them on their way in a manner that honors God. It was for the sake of the Name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans. We ought therefore to show hospitality to such people so that we may work together for the truth.” 3 John 1:5-8