During 2024, but particularly during the election, we were assailed by warnings of the boogeyman of "Christian nationalism." No one was ever quite sure what it was other than using Christianity as a guardrail for public policy and guaranteeing Christianity had a place in the public square. Both of these ideas were insufficiently inclusive to satisfy the secular left.

JD Vance appeared on Sean Hannity's show on Wednesday, and, in my view, he gave a masterclass on how a Christian worldview provides answers to difficult problems. The intertwined issues were immigration and foreign aid.

Jack Poso 🇺🇸
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Jan 29, 2025
@JackPosobiec
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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

A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. //

Immediately following this, he was hit by leftists shouting, "No way, that's not Christian." //

This is the type of stuff that is not only wrong, but it is such a grotesque misrepresentation of Christian thought that it drives many people away.

I had to look him up, but Rory Stewart is someone who is supposed to be important when up and has his trousers on.

Rory Stewart @RoryStewartUK
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A bizarre take on John 15:12-13 - 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… //

JD Vance @JDVance
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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? //

What is ordo amoris? It is the Christian idea of "properly ordered love." All love is not equal. We are told to love God above all else, something the left ignores. In the same way, they use the English word "love" interchangeably for the eight Koine Greek words for love, those rendering love for God the same as homosexual sex because, you know, "love is love."

Ordo amoris was defined by Saint Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century, but best exposition on this heirarchy is in Saint Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica.

1. There is an order in charity, and God is the principle of that order. God is to be loved out of charity, before all others. The other beings that are to be loved out of charity are, so to speak, lined up in their proper places, subordinate to God.

2. God is to be loved for himself and as the cause ofhappiness. Hence, God is to be loved more than our neighbor, who isloved, not for himself, but for God.
   .... //

In fact, Aquinas, being Aquinas, even offered objections to his thesis and defended against the objections.

Then Vance returned to Mr. Stewart.

JD Vance @JDVance
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Replying to @JDVance
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: the problem with Rory and people like him is that he has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130. This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years.
4:11 PM · Jan 30, 2025

Just as the Constitution is not a suicide pact, neither is Christian Theology. Just as we use the Constitution to order our public lives, we should use well-formed Christian thought to order our personal lives and, through those lives, order the nation. //

anon-todh
2 days ago
Christian hospitality is to welcome the stranger as demonstrated by Jewish law. Welcoming is to offer them food and shelter as they pass through, not to permanently support them. Jesus fed the 5,000 but did not open a housing agency and focus his work there. //

streiff anon-todh
2 days ago
food, drink, clothing, shelter, medical care...and then back home.

Laocoön of Troy anon-todh
2 days ago edited
In fact after Jesus fed the 5K, parts of the crowd followed him to another part of the lake looking to be fed again.

"They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

John 6

Jesus was there to teach them about himself and God. Most of the rest were there to get another free meal. //

Indylawyer
2 days ago
This is true, but I suggest there is a more relevant distinction to be made: charity is an obligation of individual Christians, often exercised in churches and other organizations. It isn't something that can be done through involuntary taxation. Christians can and should be aiding strangers whom they find in their communities, just as the Good Samaritan aided the Jewish stranger who fell into his path. But it's not compassion for the government to tax people to do it, nor is it compassion for the government to forsake its duties to protect its own citizens by allowing mass migration - particularly when it is largely facilitated by criminal gangs.