If JD Vance does nothing else as US vice-president, he has helped to popularise the obscure Christian idea of “ordo amoris”.
In case you missed his recent Fox News interview, Vance articulated what he said was a “very Christian concept” in support of America First. “You love your family, then you love their neighbour, then you love your community and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country and then, after that, you can focus and prioritise the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that,” he said.
Among those to challenge Vance about his grasp of scripture was Rory Stewart, the former British Tory minister now best known as a left-leaning podcaster, who said it was “a bizarre take” on Christian teaching. In a follow-up post on X, Vance told Stewart: “Just google ‘ordo amoris’,” drawing attention to a thesis from the Middle Ages associated with St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas on the proper ordering of one’s affections.
Vance is correct about one thing: Liberals and conservatives don’t love the same way. A 2019 study, which drew together data from a string of research projects involving more than 30,000 US citizens, found voters on the left tend to show compassion towards “universal” entities, while those on the right focus on “parochial” ones.
JD Vance is right about this: Liberals and conservatives do not love the same way
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In one strand of research, people were asked to register their concern for things on a 16-point scale from: 1) “your immediate family” – through friends and fellow citizens, all humans, all animals, and even alien lifeforms and rocks – to, finally, 16) “all things in existence”.
The results showed conservatives’ “moral circles” heavily skewed towards family and friends – with relatively little compassion for aliens or rocks – whereas liberals’ moral circles went the other way, emphasising the universal over the specific.
There is a far-left type who proclaims to love humanity, but seems to hate actual humans. Through the Cold War, and today still, we find apologists on the extreme left for atrocities carried out for a supposed higher cause.
But there are plenty of examples of perverse moral priorities on the extreme right too. And, as for scripture, unfortunately for Vance the Bible has numerous references championing universalism.
Jesus Christ told his followers to abandon their families and to love the stranger in their midst. There is little room for ambiguity in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. And as one Jesuit priest posted on X, whatever about Vance’s interpretation – or misinterpretation – of ordo amoris, it “doesn’t take precedence over the Gospel”.
The ins and outs of Medieval theology cannot be settled here. But an interesting feature of the debate is how Vance got so riled by Stewart he eventually resorted to insults: “The problem with Rory and people like him is that he has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130.”
There are parallels in Donald Trump’s huffy reaction to Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde’s sermon at a prayer service in Washington DC last month, in which she criticised policy announcements that clashed with the Gospel. It seems an effective way of winding up politicians who advertise themselves as “Christian” is actually to quote the Bible to them.
There are lessons here for the left in Ireland, or more accurately for those in Ireland concerned about fairness, justice and democracy.
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An attitude has emerged here in recent years that Christianity represents everything backward – that it stands against social progress – and therefore “progressives” must distance themselves from religion. That is historically inaccurate and politically naive.
The role of Christianity in social reform is well documented over centuries. So, too, its part in shaping moral thought, including modern forms of secularism and atheism.
Politically, it is short-sighted to abandon the potent language of hope and charity that Christianity has bequeathed us. Pope Francis is today one of the green movement’s greatest allies. And there are numerous examples of Christians advancing the “liberal agenda” in Ireland because of their faith, not despite it.
In the 2018 abortion referendum campaign, probably the most consequential intervention by any public figure was Micheál Martin’s Dáil speech in which the Fianna Fáil leader – as a man of faith and self-proclaimed “pro-lifer” – said repealing the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution was necessary “if we are sincere in our compassion for women”.
Christianity acts as a dynamic framework for thinking about what’s valuable. It is too important to leave to nationalist or conservative extremists to colonise.
Ireland has a competitive advantage in Christian scholarship, and now might be the right time to deploy some of that soft power domestically and internationally. If the Taoiseach does get an invite to the White House for St Patrick’s Day he could use the opportunity not to lecture Trump about his policies, but to speak about the shared Christian values underpinning Irish and American societies.
The case for reviving Christian speech is more pressing domestically. A great mistake many of us have made in recent years is to think Jesus’s teachings are just for Christians.
I’m an atheist, but still rightly offended when someone manipulates the faith of my ancestors for their own ends. No one owns Christianity. It has room for you and me too.
