A Fancy Latin Rationalization

No. 246: January 31, 2025

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Dear Friends,

Social media sites are lit up with heated discussion about a fancy Latin phrase: Ordo Amoris, the “order of affections (or loves).” This was prompted by Vice President J.D. Vance, who brought up the interesting topic in a televised interview. The idea is that there is a hierarchy or “order” to love; in his telling, first you love your family, then you love your community, then your fellow citizens, and only then people outside in the rest of the wide world.

It is an interesting area of Christian ethics with a long and storied tradition, and I am actually going to write very little about it; it would be a waste of my time because nobody is really interested in the Ordo Amoris. Nobody woke up suddenly animated by the Ordo Amoris because they came under some conviction of sin or prick of the conscience that they needed to reprioritize their loves and their time and energy and money and attention. They are suddenly animated by the Ordo Amoris because now they have a fancy Latin rationalization for why they don’t have any moral obligations to icky foreigners or brown people.

That much is transparent. Racists and “kinists” use this rationale all the time for why one ought to show partiality and preference for people who share the same level of melanin (and those folks, as far as I am concerned, can go take a bath in bleach), and now just run-of-the-mill immigration hawks are finding it equally useful to justify their policy aims.

As you might expect, the actual “debate” is mostly being carried out by complete amateurs and people who have no idea what they are talking about. Here are two of my cents.

First, any discussion of the Ordo Amoris that fails to take into account Jesus’ radical teachings is a non-starter. Disciples of Christ are simply called to a higher standard than the “natural” tendency to think that biological blood or physical proximity is the thickest substance to bind people together.

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:46-47).

‘Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.

Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matt. 10:34-39)

He replied to him, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’ (Matt. 12:48-50)

Second, many are arguing about whether grace destroys nature or whether grace perfects nature. That is, does redemptive grace (becoming a Christian and entering into God’s kingdom) cancel out our “natural” inclinations and obligations? Or does redemptive grace put a stamp of approval on our “natural” inclinations and obligations? That’s the ongoing debate I’ve seen, and the participants are in over their heads. Grace restores and perfects nature. That is, our own understanding of our “natural” inclinations and “natural” obligations are themselves corrupted by sin. We need redemptive grace to re-order even our “natural” loves.

In other words, grace neither destroys nature nor does it “perfect” nature in the sense of simply taking it up into the kingdom simpliciter. It restores nature from its post-fall corruptions and transforms (perfects) it into what it was meant to be. Tribalism, thinking that blood is thicker than water, “family is everything,” etc., is natural to us in our fallen condition, and Jesus upended all of it. Grace, not race, is the operative ingredient in the kingdom of God. For there, there is neither Jew nor Greek.

See, there is an interesting discussion to be had! But there is nothing honest about the current debate so it isn’t even worth having. People are simply reaching for any weapon to hand to justify and rationalize their prior commitments about immigration, and that’s the whole of it.