Hi, I'm Glenn from Speak Life. We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus. The culture wars are just a post-Christian society hurling Bible verses at each other. We've just forgotten the references. I keep on saying this on the channel, and here we are about to consider exhibit number 3275. It is JD Vance on Fox News discussing immigration, but he can't discuss immigration without discussing Jesus. Let's listen in.
SPEAKER_01But there's this old school, and I think it's a very Christian concept, by the way, that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders. That is no way to run a society. And I think the profound difference that Donald Trump brings to the leadership of this country is that the simple concept, America first. It doesn't mean you hate anybody else. It means that you have leadership. And President Trump has been very clear about this that puts the interests of American citizens first. In the same way that the British Prime Minister should care about Brits and the French should care about the French, we have an American president who cares primarily about Americans, and that's a very welcome change. What is President Shi doing? What is with Vladimir Putin's? Looking after the Chinese. Putin is looking after the Russians. That they're entitled to do that. Thank God we now have an American president who's looking after the citizens of his own country.
SPEAKER_00Now the thing that triggered a lot of people about this is that J.D. Vance brings Jesus into it and brings Christianity into it as though it's a profoundly Christian thing to look after your own. This triggered a number of different commentators online, including Rory Stewart, who is the co-presenter of the Rest is Politics podcast alongside Alistair Campbell. And uh he is a churchgoer himself. He tweets out a bizarre take on John 15, 12 to 13. That's where Jesus says, Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. And I guess Rory is picking up from J.D. Vance some John 15 vibes, perhaps, in which uh Jesus lays down his life for his friends. He doesn't at that moment say, I'm laying down my life for strangers, and he doesn't at that moment say, I'm laying down my life for enemies, even though the Bible is replete with verses about Jesus dying for enemies. So Rory Stewart is hearing in J.D. Vance's uh words, the words of Christ, as though Christ is only wanting to look after his own, and he thinks it's a bizarre take on John 15, 12 to 13. Less Christian and more pagan tribal, we should start worrying when politicians become theologians, assume to speak for Jesus and tell us in which order to love. So here is J.D. Vance saying that his particular position on immigration and on America first is Christian. Uh Rory Stewart is saying, oh no, Christianity would push you in a far less tribal direction. You sound pagan to my ears because I've been attuned to the teaching of Jesus. So which take on uh Christianity is actually the true take, and uh whose politics is more in line with Jesus? Well, J.D. Vance uh responds in a quote tweet. He says, just Google Ordo Amoris, the order of loves, uh, the Latin phrase there. 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 think that? Uh in a second we'll see that uh yeah, there are people who think that. But Vance first asks us to Google order amoris, and uh if you do so, you will you will find the teaching of figures like Augustine in the 5th century or Aquinas in the 13th century. So in On Christian Doctrine, Augustine writes that the just man has an ordinate love. He neither loves what should not be loved, nor fails to love what should be loved. He neither loves more what should be loved less, loves equally what should be loved less or more, nor loves less or more what should be loved equally. So there are things that we ought to love, and the just man, the just human being, is the person who orders their loves rightly. And clearly if the Bible says things like the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother, then that is the sort of love that should take some priority over a random stranger in another land in another time. So obviously Augustine teaches a right ordering of love, but he also teaches things like this what is perfection in love? To love even one's enemies and to love them to the degree that they may be brothers. Love your enemies in such a way that you wish them to be brothers, love your enemies in such a way that they are brought into your fellowship. And so it's true that Augustine speaks about a right ordering of love, but he also speaks about extending the circle of love and desiring very strongly to bring those from the outside of your natural affections, to bring them in, to love them as family. Those Christians who have spoken about a right ordering of love have also been very clear that we are to go beyond our natural loves, to love the stranger, to love the alien, to love the outsider, to love the marginalized and the poor and the weak, to love those who can do nothing for us, to love even our enemies, and therefore to extend that circle to the very fringes of the human family. Now Aquinas goes into this a lot more, and he is very clearly influenced by Aristotle and even quotes him in the relevant section of the Summa Theologica. But he writes that we ought to, out of charity, love those who are more closely united to us more, both because our love for them is more intense and because there are more reasons for loving them. Now, intensity of love arises from the union of lover and beloved, and therefore we should measure the love of different persons according to the different kinds of union so that a man is more loved in matters touching that particular union in respect of which he is loved. We must say that friendship among blood relations is based upon their connection by natural origin, the friendship of fellow citizens on their civic fellowship, and the friendship of those who are fighting side by side on the comradeship of battle. Wherefore, in matters pertaining to nature, we should love our kindred most. In matters concerning relations between citizens, we should prefer our fellow citizens, and on the battlefield our fellow soldiers. Hence, the philosopher. And when Aquinas speaks of the philosopher, he is speaking not of Jesus, he is speaking of Aristotle. But hence the philosopher says that it is our duty to render to each class of people such respect as is natural and appropriate. This is in fact the principle upon which we seem to act, for we invite our relations to a wedding. It would seem to be a special duty to afford our parents the means of living and to honour them. So in Aquinas we have a much more developed sense of it is natural to love those who are closest to us, whether that's in the family or in the nation. But of course, as soon as he quotes the philosopher Aristotle and says, obviously, we only invite relations to a wedding, now at that point your Christian antennae should be up. Whether you are a a churchgoer or not, um you perhaps know some of the great stories that Jesus tells, and many of his parables are about a wedding feast in which everyone is invited, rich or poor, they are dragged in from the highways and the hedges in order to celebrate a wedding. Yeah, that's not natural. Well, no, it's not natural, but it is the way the supernatural kingdom of Jesus operates, in which those who are naturally beyond our affections are those who are brought into our affections to celebrate the great union. And Aquinas knows this as well. That's why he's saying, by nature we order our loves according to natural affection. Aquinas is very clear that there is nature and there is grace. And grace does not destroy nature, it perfects nature and raises nature up to what it is truly intended to be. But beyond the natural loves that we have, Aquinas is also very aware that we are to love those who are beyond the natural circle of affection that we ordinarily draw around ourselves. And now that I've mentioned nature and grace, I think what we are in the position to do is to assess the culture wars as we face them in the year 2025. Because essentially, if Christianity is about a union of nature and grace, of earth and heaven, of humanity and God, of the way things are and the way things ought to be, if Christianity is about the union of nature and grace, and if it's Jesus Christ who is the union of nature and grace, of man and God, of flesh and spirit, of the way things are and the way things ought to be. If Jesus Christ is the mediator, what happens to a society that rejects Jesus Christ? What happens is that nature and grace are kind of burst asunder, and what we have are more the people who focus on nature and the people who focus on grace. And what do you notice about the people who focus on nature? They are more in the Aristotelian mold of saying, let us love that which is natural, let us honor nature and blood ties and kinship ties and matters of nation and blood and soil, right? But those who focus entirely on nature will be the sort of blood and soil types, won't they? But those who focus on grace will forget nature, and it doesn't matter what nature is. What matters is the way things ought to be, and how things ought to be, is that nature ought to be transcended. There is a grace that is to be offered to all that actually upends nature and reorders things in the way that things ought to be. And so you get the more nature people and the more grace people. And what does that look like in the culture wars? Well, in 2019, there was a fascinating study done, ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle. And what they did was talk to a bunch of people who self-identify as conservatives and a bunch of people who self-identify as liberals, and they said to both groups, you have unlimited moral units to assign to various groups. What kind of activities count morally? If you are to be kind to someone who is very close to you, like a blooded relative, or if you are to be kind to somebody who is in your neighborhood, kind to somebody who is in your nation, what is most morally significant? Kindness to those who are close to you, or kindness to those who are very far from you? And you'll see the heat map here. Um the the different rings begin with ring number one, all of your immediate family, number two, all of your extended family, number three, all of your closest friends, number four, all of your friends, including distant ones, number five, all of your acquaintances, number six, all people you've ever met. Number seven, all people in your country, number eight, all people on your continent, nine, all people on all continents, and then we get to mammals, and then we get to amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fish and birds, then we get to all animals living on Earth, including paramecia, I don't know what they are, and amoeba. Um taking it they are very simple forms of life, then thirteenthly, all animals in the universe, including alien life forms, and then all living things in the universe, including plants and trees, and then all natural things in the universe, including inert entities such as rocks, and then all things in existence. So showing benevolence, showing kindness and compassion to members of each group, what are the most morally significant groups that you can show kindness to? The self-identified conservatives, notice where the heat map is, okay? It's all towards the center. It's it's towards your immediate family and your extended family and your close friends, okay? And then it gets very cool once it goes out certainly beyond the human family, and uh not a lot of love for paramecia and amoeba among conservatives. Liberals, on the other hand, the coolest part of their heat map is actually those who are closest to them. So their immediate family, their extended family, their closest friends. Um that's the coolest part of the heat map. The warmest part of the heat map is when we've left behind humans, and there's quite a lot of love for paramecia and amoeba, and aliens and rocks and cosmic debris. Now a conservative looks on that and says, that is bonkers. You l you love comets more than you love your own children. Is is that really the case? Um, liberals, if they are wise to the color key at the bottom here, notice that um liberals actually give a lot more units of love out there. And uh the most that conservatives give uh 12, whereas the most that liberals give uh is twenty. And so if the scales were exactly the same, the conservative heat map would look a lot cooler than the liberal heat map. Uh there would be a lot less intensity of love and fervor on the conservative side. So liberals might look at this map and just say, Yeah, I knew it. Those conservatives they don't love at all. Whereas the conservatives look at the liberals and say, I knew it. They love comets more than they love their own children. And in the comments, Paul Embry quotes from William Blake: He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars. General good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer. It reminds me of the famous Peanuts cartoon where Linus just yells, I love mankind. It's people I can't stand. It's very easy to nurse in your heart an experience of benevolence and to consider yourself to be compassionate because you love humanity in general. Um, but did you call your mother this week? Have you? Right? You know, everyone wants to save the world, no one wants to do the washing up. Everyone loves the idea of benevolence towards all created things, but they might be a terrible neighbor. And a terrible friend. Connor Tomlinson quotes from C.S. Lewis on Twitter in the screw tape letters. Uh, one of the most devious means that a demon can use to lead men astray from virtue is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbors whom he meets every day, and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference to people he does not know. So that's the way that conservatives look at liberals who have divorced nature from grace, and let's forget all about nature, and let's forget all about the ties of blood and soil and obligation and all the hierarchy that nature gives to us, all the embeddedness and entwinedness of natural human life. Let's forget all about that. We are just choosing individuals who want to show grace in a more abstract sense. A conservative looks at a liberal and just thinks, that's not actually compassion. But a liberal looks to a conservative and says, But before we side with the conservatives against the liberals, I I think both sides are in a post-Christian world divorced from that sense of obligation and love and need. Conservatives in the modern post-Christian world are every bit as atomized, actually, as liberals are, and tend to think that they stand on their own two feet, and yes, they are more affectionate towards those who are closer to them, but they also consider, usually, that meritocracy got them where they are, that they deserve to be in the center of their moral concern. Not because the sheer grace of God has led them to where they are in life, but that they stand on their own two feet as an individual, and that what they have actually belongs to them and is not to be shared wider in the circle. There are characteristic sins of conservatives, there are characteristic sins of liberals, of course there are, because we have split apart nature and grace, and the scriptures would hold together what we burst asunder. And let me show you from the Bible how actually the conservative can find all sorts of scriptures to back up their position, just as the liberal can find all sorts of scriptures to back up their position. The J.D. Vance's of this world have Bible verses and the Rory Stewart's have Bible verses. Let's think about the verses that really speak of nature. And of course, when you're thinking about nature, you should think about creation. And Genesis chapter one, we have a very ordered creation, don't we? In which humanity stands at the head of all creation, with the land animals and then the sea creatures and the and the birds of the air and then the plants. And there is an order to all things, and humanity are in charge. They have dominion, they are to rule and have dominion over creation. Now, that dominion is not to be expressed as domination, it is to be expressed as service, as compassion, as love. Humanity are made a little lower than the angels. There's an ordering that Psalm 8 speaks of. They are made a little lower than the angels, but they are to pass on the love of heaven to that which is beneath them. And there is an up and a down, and there are sort of circles of obligation. Adam is told to name the animals. He's not told to name the plants. Adam and Eve can eat plants. They can't eat animals at this stage, but animals would be on the menu post-flood. And so you have an ordering. You have circles. There is life that is vegetation that you can eat. There are animals that you can't eat. Well, some of you some of them you end up being able to eat, and some of them still remain off the menu until the New Testament. And so you have this ordering of value with humanity at the center. So here is nature, and nature is a communal thing. Notice that it's not just Adam as an atom, it is Adam together with Eve, who are told to be fruitful and multiply. The original position of humanity is not the single individual who stands with dominion, it is the family. The family is the unbreakable unit of human organization, not the individual. And so bonds of love and dependence are at the heart of what it is to flourish as a human being, not simply an individual who is all by himself making choices. And we'll see how post-Christianity gets this entirely wrong. But there is nature with these concentric circles of concern. And you get to the Ten Commandments. The fifth commandment is the second table of the Ten Commandments. The first table is all about our duties towards God, and the second table is about our duties towards humanity. And the first duty is a familial duty. It is not honor every single sentient being on the planet. It is honor your father and mother, those who are very naturally close to you, those who focus on the order amoris put the fifth commandment right at the heart of their understanding of things, and you can understand why. Move on into Leviticus chapter 19, and here we're getting more articulation of what the laws to Israel are all about. And you'll see nature and grace kind of side by side. Leviticus 19 is a really interesting example. From verse 13, notice all the neighbor love that is spoken of. Do not defraud or rob your neighbor, do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight. Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God, I am the Lord. Do not pervert justice, do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly. Do not go about spreading slander among your people, do not do anything that endangers your neighbor's life, I am the Lord. Do not hate a fellow Israelite, a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor, frankly, so that you will not share in their guilt. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself, I am the Lord. So who are we to love? Well it's not the Linus philosophy. I love mankind, it's people I can't stand. Um we are to love our neighbor, right? Those from among our own people, says Leviticus 19. So the big question is like who is my neighbor, and who counts as my neighbor? Who counts as the sort of person who I ought to show love to? And if those were the only verses you read in Leviticus 19, you might just think, ah, it's only your own kith and kin. It's only those to whom you are connected by blood and soil. But of course, there is more in Leviticus 19, and there's a lot more in the Bible, about who our love is to be shown to. And then those who most want to foreground kind of nature and the conservative side of things, they'll come into the New Testament. And interestingly, Galatians chapter 6, the Apostle Paul in verse 10 says, Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. You see, there are concentric circles, and it's okay, in fact, it's commanded for you to first look after those who are closest to you. The order of loves is a thing. It's right there in the scriptures. Or you might go to 1 Timothy 5, verse 8, where the Apostle Paul says, anyone who does not provide for their relatives and especially for their own household has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Again, the order of loves is not just allowed for here, it is positively commanded, and if we don't look after our own, we have denied the faith. That's pretty serious stuff. And so those on the more conservative side of things, those who are foregrounding nature, will cite all this in terms of scriptural evidence. But what about those who are more on the grace side of things, those who are more liberally minded when it comes to politics? Well, they have plenty to draw upon in the scriptures as well. They can go back to Genesis and they can notice that yes, there is Adam and Eve, and there are father and mother, but even in Genesis 2, even before the fall, there's this thing that really complexifies this picture of nature. Because it says, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. That's a radical statement if you're just going with nature. If you just think that honoring father and mother is the be-all and end all of your social obligations within the family, then you would never prioritize the married relationship over the father-mother relationship. Because to leave a natural relationship of blood in order to join a covenant union of love, that is the prioritizing of grace over nature in one sense, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't have to be a tug of war, and hopefully, those natural relationships of blood and the covenant relationship of love can coexist together, but there is a priority. The man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. And a Christian doctrine of marriage actually elevates something above blood relationships. Which is one of the reasons why in the Middle Ages Christians were constantly saying, Oh, yeah, no, don't, don't, you can't marry your brother and sister. I mean, that's that's there in the Old Testament. But you can't marry your cousin, you can't marry your second cousin, you can't marry even up to your seventh cousin in the high Middle Ages. That was the level at which the covenant union of love was to trump the blood ties that in traditional cultures are what shape marriage. Arranged marriages are about families taking precedence over this person marrying that person. The Bible is actually, no, you are to actually prioritize the covenant union of love over the blood ties and the arranged marriage thing, and just marrying your daughter off to the prince of the next tribe as this political move. Grace interrupts nature in a profound way right back in Genesis chapter 2, right before the fall. And then the grace person starts to notice that, yes, in Leviticus 19 it talks about neighbor a lot, but it finishes by saying, When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native born, love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Who is my neighbor? My neighbor can be a foreigner residing in our midst, and I am to treat them as my neighbor, even though they have no relationship of blood and soil. None. But love is to draw them into the tightest possible circle so that they don't just become fellow citizens, they become brothers and sisters, and you love them as you love yourself. Yes, there is an order of loves, but perfect love is that which draws the outsider in so that you love them as you love yourself. And that's an Old Testament teaching. That's right there in Leviticus 19. But we by our flesh always want to corrupt that. We we always want to just keep ourselves to ourselves and never go beyond ourselves in terms of love. To the point where in the New Testament, Jesus has to correct ways in which people are misquoting Leviticus. In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, verse 43, Jesus says, You've heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Love your neighbor comes from Leviticus 19. Hate your enemy just comes from the flesh. The Bible never says hate your enemy. Pagan philosophies say hate your enemy. An old Roman saying was, every day you should do something to help your friends and harm your enemies. And that makes perfect sense, okay? Love those who are in the in-group and harm those who are in the out-group. Of course, that just makes perfect sense in nature. That is how nature operates, right? The survival of the fittest and the sacrifice of the weakest. You help your friends, obviously, and you harm your enemies. And even the people of God had been importing that kind of pagan understanding to scriptural understandings, such that they twisted the Bible. Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, says Jesus, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. What's he like? He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 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 own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that. Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect. If you use the order amorus in order to keep yourself to yourself, that is utterly carnal. That is totally from the flesh. There is nothing about the Spirit of God to that. Nothing. This is very much a word for conservatives. You do well to honor your father and mother. You do very well to look after your own household. But if you only love those to whom you are bound by blood and soil, what are you doing more than what the pagans do? You are doing something utterly carnal. The spirit's love is love of the other. That's how God operates. He loves the righteous and the wicked. He loves them according to his order of loves, as we will see. And God doesn't just atomize all individuals out there and love them in this abstract way. He certainly has an order of loves, but he also, by the Spirit, goes to draw those from the outside to the inside. That is our Heavenly Father's perfection. And of course, the big verse that you're going to go for, if uh you are more liberally minded and you want to show love for very much the outsider, you're going to go to Luke 10, verse 25. On one occasion, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. Teacher, he asked, What must I do to inherit eternal life? What is written in the law? He replied, How do you read it? He answered, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. That's so important in the order of loves. This comes first, right? But a second love is like it. There's love of God, and there is love your neighbor as yourself, Leviticus 19. You've answered correctly, Jesus replied, Do this and you will live. But he wanted to justify himself, don't we all? So he asked Jesus, and who is my neighbor? How tightly can I draw the circle of love? Surely it will include my father and mother, and it will include my children, my household, maybe my neighbor, maybe my maybe maybe my friends on a good day when my blood sugar is sufficiently elevated. Um who is my neighbor? How how wide are you going to draw this circle? And here Jesus draws the circle right to the very fringes of the human family, even to your enemy, but that enemy is still a neighbor in this story. This story he's about to tell is not about writing a check and sending it to a charity so that on the other side of the world a well can be dug, or malaria nets can be bought, or whatever it is. Um this is still neighbor love, but it is neighbor love that draws the outsider in, so that it's a very proximate, intimate love. Here's the story. We all know it. In reply, Jesus said a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man he passed by on the other side. Boo hiss. Right? Because he's keeping himself to himself, and he just the priests are for the priests. And if he were to touch this unclean man, he himself would become unclean, and so he keeps himself to himself, and many people hearing this story would think, You are doing the right thing, Mr. Priest. Verse 32 So to a Levite when he came to the place and saw him pass by on the other side. But a Samaritan as he travelled came where the man was. When he saw him, he took pity on him. This is uh a word that is most associated with Jesus in the New Testament. In fact, the only person in the New Testament who is said to have this kind of gut-wrenching pity. It's a word for stomach-churning love. It's always associated with Jesus, okay? This good Samaritan is very much a Christ figure who comes from outside the situation, sees him, takes pity on him. He goes to him, he bandages his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Oil is always a symbol of the spirit in the Bible, wine is always a symbol of blood in the Bible. Then he put the man on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. The only other thing we learn about denarii in the New Testament is that it's about a day's wage. So it gets you through a day. So this guy's got enough to get through two days, really. Look after him, he said, and when I return, when is it when's he going to return? Hmm, after two days. Perhaps he'll return on the third day. On the third day, when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expenses you may have. What a Christ-like figure, of course he is. But then Jesus says, Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? So we are meant to put ourselves first and foremost in the sandals of the person who is beaten up, the person who is very much in need, the person to whom great love was shown. A beautiful stranger, a Samaritan, has come and loved us. He's poured out blood, he's poured out his spirit. He has taken us to a safe place, and he'll be back on the third day to raise us up to great uh health and peace and shalom. We are the beaten up guy, we are left for dead, and Jesus has saved us. The expert in the law, he's gripped by the story. How else can he reply? He says, Well, the one who had mercy on him, Jesus told him, Now go and do likewise. Now go and be the good Samaritan. You to whom such mercy has been shown, now that you've been set on your feet, now go and do likewise. Now, do likewise in what sense? Is it to set up a direct debit to a charity so that people on the other side of the world can benefit? Well, maybe that's the sort of thing that you could do. But what did the Good Samaritan do? He he went to where the man was, and he was a neighbor. He happened to be crossing the path of this other person, and he did not love him at a distance. He he loved him very proximately. Interestingly, also, the Good Samaritan didn't do everything. The Good Samaritan obviously had other plans. He was off to do some other things for another couple of days before he returns. The Good Samaritan does not donate a kidney, he does not donate, you know, fifteen talents of of money. He doesn't do everything. He does what he can, and he entrusts the injured man to those who are close by who can really help. So the Good Samaritan might not be teaching what the very liberally minded person thinks that the Good Samaritan is teaching, but the Good Samaritan is very much challenging the person who just wants to keep himself to himself. That's what the priest did, that's what the Levite did. Don't be like those guys, right? And so in the scriptures, what do we have? We we have plenty of scriptures that justify the Ordo Amoris, that justify the nature that we all share. And my nature is to be bound in tires of obligation that I did not choose. I come into this world and my parents are given to me. My siblings are given to me, my nationality is given to me, blood and soil have been given to me, and I am to honor those things that have been given to me in nature. There are ties of obligation that I did not choose. And I must not divorce myself from those so that I can go and choose to love in the abstract. That is utter perversity, and it's hypocrisy if I think I'm being compassionate by not loving those who have been given to me to love and instead choosing to show compassion to those who are at a distance. If I want to save the world and never do the washing up, if I love mankind and I hate my neighbor, I am a foul hypocrite. And so there is a great challenge to those who are just the grace people, right, who are simply on the left of politics. But there's also a massive challenge here to those on the right. You know, if you say you're following God by following the Ordo Amoris, by simply ordering your loves and simply loving your own, what are you doing more than pagans do? What are you doing more than tax collectors do? This is utterly carnal behavior. And if you happen to love your nearest and dearest, of course you do. Of course you love your nearest and dearest. There is a natural affection towards your kith and kin. But if you claim that this is the godly love that you are upholding, that might be a foul hypocrisy as well. That might just be a very carnal love of blood and soil, which comes naturally to all people, whether they're pagans or tax collectors or whoever they are. But if you're claiming that that natural affection has God's stamp of approval, that's a hypocrisy as well, isn't it? What do we need to do? We need to put together what post-Christian society has burst asunder. Post-Christian society, in walking away from Christ, sees the disintegration of nature and grace. But in Christ, there is the integration of nature and grace. Think of the most famous verse in the Bible. Think of it. John chapter 3, verse 16. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Notice that God has an order of loves. He has a one and only Son, right? And this verse only works because God has a fierce and burning and original love for his Son Jesus Christ, filling him with the Holy Spirit from before the world began. God has an order of loves. Before there is anything else to love, the Father loves the Son. And in fact, in John chapter 3, verse 35, the Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. There is an order of loves in God. They say in heaven, love comes first, as Belinda Carlisle sang, in Ooh, Heaven is a place on earth. Well, she was right. She was more right than she knew. That before there is a love for the world, there is a father's love for his son. That's a very familiar love, isn't it? There is a father's love for his son. But then that father's love for his son then moves out to the, there's the whoever who believes, right? The church, okay? Um, the the church that comes to find its place in Christ to be loved with that same love, that is the whoever who believes, right? Who has eternal life and who shares in the eternal life and love of God. And then there's the God so loved the world, right? So there is the Father's love for the Son, and then in the Son, his love for the church, and then through the Son, his love for the world. And the world is invited into the church so that the church might share in the love of the Father for the Son. And that individual, specific, prior love of father and son is at the heart of the gospel. God did not give a random individual to die on the cross, right? The whole verse, the whole of John 3.16, the whole of the gospel works because there's a there's an order of loves. The father gives his most beloved son, his one and only, on the cross. And that's at the heart of the gospel. But also what's at the heart of the gospel is that the one and only Son is given so that the world might be part of the whoever, so that all nations might participate in the church and therefore in the church, participate in Christ and therefore to receive that original love. This is what unites the world. Christ is the one who unites the world. And notice that he can only love the world in self-sacrificial service. It is very costly for God to love the world in this kind of way. There is no virtue signaling with the love of God. He doesn't write a social media post about the world. He doesn't write a love poem and leave it at that. It is the costly love, the Father giving up the Son, the Son giving up his life on the cross, the Spirit being poured out to the nations. There is something that is very costly, there is utter self-giving in this kind of love. And there's something very particular about this love. The way in which God loves the world is that he sends his one and only, and his one and only had a band of twelve followers, right? And, you know, on the day of Pentecost there are only 120, and then by the end of the day of Pentecost there are 3,000, and then there are 5,000, and it moves person to person very particularly. It is neighbor love that saves the world, but it is self-sacrificial neighbor love that looks to the very ends of the earth that is what saves the world as well. So left and right, conservative and liberal, those who foreground nature, those who foreground grace, um foreground Christ instead. C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man makes a great argument that at the heart of all moral systems in the world, including in Christianity, there is an order of loves. But in the Great Divorce, he gives this word of warning, especially to those who are more on the conservative side of things. He says, There is something in natural affection which will lead it on to eternal love more easily than natural appetite could be led on. But there's also something in it which makes it easier to stop at the natural level and mistake it for the heavenly. Brass is mistaken for gold more easily than clay is, and if it finally refuses conversion, its corruption will be worse than the corruption of what you call the lower passions. It is a stronger angel, and therefore, when it falls, a fiercer devil. If you believe in the order amorus and believe that this is what the scriptures teach, you are right, but if your love is so circumscribed that you never love the alien or the stranger or your enemy, and if on top of that you rubber stamp your selfishness with a godly imprimature, and if you justify such selfishness, saying that this is godly love. That is devilish, says C. S. Lewis. The Bible does indeed teach an order of loves, but it is an expanding circle. But then to those on the left, those who consider themselves more on the liberal side of things, those who privilege grace over nature, maybe don't be so sure that the parable of the Good Samaritan is entirely on your side. Certainly, the grace of the Good Samaritan lifts up nature and interrupts nature and heals nature and does what nature will not do for itself. And certainly the Good Samaritan is so much better than the priest and the Levite. The Good Samaritan does not remain a stranger to the man in trouble. He goes to where the man is and expends himself in costly practical service. He doesn't love the stranger as a stranger, at a distance, but he draws near and draws the man into bonds of community, such as the innkeeper. He doesn't do everything for the man, but what he does do is to love him as a neighbor, to love him as himself, and to draw him into the circle of love, not to leave him at a distance. It's very easy to love at a distance, or to say that you love at a distance, but so easily that descends into mere virtue signaling when what we really need is the virtue of actual love. So, what does this mean for the culture wars of today? What does this mean about the political hot potato of immigration and of America first policies and of nationalism and all those sorts of things? Well, you can discuss those in the comments. I've just given you some things to think about from the scriptures. But I hope you see that when we take Jesus out of these things, we burst asunder what the scriptures actually integrate. And true sanity and healing is found when we come back to Jesus. If you want to look more at life according to Jesus, you should do the 321 course. Have you done the 321 course yet? Uh go to 321cour.com. You can start an account in seconds. It's absolutely free. You can watch the eight videos in a couple of hours or do them one at a time. 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