Do I Really Need to Love Everybody?

One of the most memorable children’s books of my childhood is PD Eastman’s, Are You My Mother?. If you are unaware of this story, a baby bird goes from creature to creature asking, “Are you my mother?” Each time, the answer is “No,” until its mother finds it.

As Christians, who are called to be like “little children” (Mark 10:15), we should have a similarly curious attitude toward everyone we meet.

“Are you my neighbor?”

However, unlike Eastman’s baby bird, the answer to us is always “Yes.” Since the greatest commandment says, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:28–31; Luke 10:25–37), every person deserves love.

But this can feel entirely overwhelming. There are not enough resources for all this love. How am I supposed to love my wife and children, love my coworkers, my neighbors, friends? How am I supposed to love my parents and siblings who no longer live under my roof? How am I supposed to love strangers I come in contact with? My enemy?

These are great questions. And they’re worth wrestling with, because there is no easy answer. What follows is my answer. I’d welcome comments with your own perspective on these questions.

Saint Augustine, JD Vance, and the Ordo Amoris

Around a year ago, Saint Augustine of Hippo was making the rounds on social media due to his ordo amoris (that our love needs to be “rightly ordered”). Though he didn’t initially use the Latin term, Vice President Vance referred to Augustine’s concept as justification for immigration crackdowns. He said:

As an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens. That doesn’t mean you hate people from outside of your own borders, but there’s this old-school [concept]—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.

Vice President JD Vance; quote text pulled from Word on Fire ministries.

The thinking was, “We owe love to our family and friends more than foreigners and strangers,” though his phrase, “prioritize the rest of the world,” is laughable. After spending time and money loving¹ family, neighbors, community, and fellow citizens, there’s nothing left for “priorities.” Not to mention that immigrants could easily be family, neighbors, and community members.

But Augustine is helpful here. And that’s what I want to focus on.

There are two Augustine quotes often discussed in this context: City of God 15.22 and On Christian Doctrine 1.27–29. Two excerpts from the latter read:

Now, he lives a just and holy life who appraises things with an unprejudiced mind. He is a person who has a well-regulated love and neither loves what he ought not, nor fails to love what he should. He does not love more an object deserving only of lesser love, nor love equally what he should love either more or less, nor love either more or less what he should love equally. Every sinner, insofar as he is a sinner, should not be loved, and every man, insofar as he is a man, should be loved for the sake of God, but God is to be loved for His own sake. And, if God is to be loved more than any man, each one ought to love God more than himself. Thus, another man should be loved more than our own bodies, because all those things are to be loved for the sake of God; another man can enjoy God with us, whereas our bodies cannot, because the body lives through the soul, by which we enjoy God.²

1.27, emphasis added

Everyone must be loved equally; but, when you cannot be of assistance to all, you must above all have regard for those who are bound to you more closely by some accident, as it were, of location, circumstances, or occasions of any kind.³

1.28

Augustine makes it plain that we owe every human being love “for the sake of God.” He goes on in the following paragraph [1.29] to discuss love of enemies as well. There is no valid excuse hidden in the ordo amoris that justifies causing people harm.⁴

And lest you think the line “Every sinner, insofar as he is a sinner, should not be loved” gets you off the hook if you can prove someone is a sinner—it doesn’t. The sentence literally continues: “every man, insofar as he is a man, should be loved for the sake of God.” It is beyond dehumanizing to ignore a person’s humanity and focus only on their “morality.”⁵

Augustine clearly says that everyone is to be loved equally. In other words, we are not to play favorites. We don’t get to love the rich people who can pay us back while ignoring the poor people who can’t (James 2:1–10).

Augustine’s understands love as action. It is assisting people with needs, be those monetary, physical, or emotional. He indicates this in the quote above: “when you cannot be of assistance.” In addition, the word he consistently uses for love is the verb diligo (in the whole of Book 1 he only uses amor five times,⁶ but he uses diligo thirty-one times in 1.27–29 alone). This word is related to our English word “diligent.” It is an intentional and hard-working sort of love.

However, Augustine makes it plain that we can’t always love everyone as much as they deserve. It’s literally impossible. So he recommends the ordo amoris. But his ordering of love looks nothing like Vance’s. Augustine orders love (to people specifically) on the basis of who is most closely bound to you, “by some accident, as it were, of location, circumstances, or occasions of any kind.”

The phrase “of any kind” implies that Augustine wants to allow Christian freedom to reign. He won’t command what order our love should be in, as long as we love God first, other people second, and ourselves third.⁷

Note that Augustine refers to “other people,” not various groups of people by geographical dwelling place (you can look back at 1.27 in On Christian Doctrine if you don’t believe me). Vance’s ordering is an attempt to put a yoke upon American citizens in the name of “Christian religion” that no one was ever meant to bear.

Love Does Not Coerce

I believe ordo amoris is being twisted if it is made as specific as Vance wants to make it.⁸ It’s only pragmatism and self-preservation that insists on this sort of specificity. And the gospel is the opposite of pragmatic: “take up your cross” (Luke 9:23). If we insist on a certain hierarchy of love, we are missing the point of love; when love is commanded, it is no longer love.⁹

“Now wait,” you might say. “Didn’t you earlier claim that “Love your neighbor” was part of the greatest commandment? That means love was commanded. That means you can’t do it. Right?”

Good catch. I don’t know if I have a great answer for this, but I’ll try.

I lean toward the position that God is not coercive. He commands love, because he wants us to exemplify his heart, but he wants us to come to this realization on our own. He doesn’t force us to love him (or others), and he won’t torture us in hell for failing to either. As we meditate on God and commune with him in prayer, we become more like him, and his love for mankind grows in us. Thus, when a Christian loves well, it isn’t because it was commanded; it’s because of who they are. “God is love … we are as he is in the world” (1 John 4:16–17).¹⁰

For an explanation of hell that is consistent with God’s non-coercive nature, check out this book review.

Making the Love Command Less Overwhelming

If you’re anything like me, you want to model God’s heart to the world. You want to love well. You want Christianity to be a respected religion. You want to be proud of your country’s policy decisions.

But this all feels incredibly overwhelming.

So we scroll. We stream. We isolate. We fall into addictive patterns. We feel guilty. The guilt turns to hopelessness. We are looking for something—anything—to take the sting out of life. To numb the hurt we feel. To stop thinking about the pain of others. It’s overwhelming.

When so much is wrong, where do we even start? We’re paralyzed by it all, so we do nothing.

I’ve thought of moving out of the country. But it doesn’t matter where I live, whether the United States, England, Australia, or Germany. The news is still at my fingertips. And even if my family moves away, people we love—even people we don’t personally know—are being harmed by the events being reported in the news. It’s hard to sit in silence as so much harm is being perpetrated and celebrated (often in the name of my God).

But the sound of silence is bombs and oppression.

We can’t give up on speaking to these things. This world (humans and nature) can’t afford it. But we also can’t keep going as we are. The scrolling. The streaming. The isolation. The hopelessness. The constant input of more and more negativity.

God has given me—and maybe he has also given you—a family to love and provide for. This provision is not merely a roof, clothes, and food. It’s also the provision of a worldview that actually enables them to understand the world, to develop into competent adults, and to complete the process of breaking generational curses.

I’ve had my phone to a maximum of one hour on social media sites for a while now, but this is so important. We were not created to be able to withstand the constant barrage of news and updates insisting on our attention all the time. This is not to say we shouldn’t be aware of current events, but I think God cares more about us being active in our immediate community (even our immediate household) than he cares about us being active in conversation about events on the other side of the world (or even the other side of the country).

This is not to disparage people whose jobs are working with people around the world. It’s not even to disparage political activism. And we must vote with the least of these in mind (Matthew 25:31–46). But at the end of the day, we answer for our households, not for people living in other countries.¹¹

The immediacy of news twenty thousand miles away is detrimental to our health and wellbeing. When the refugees show up in our town, we need to be ready and willing to help them, but when we can’t tangibly do anything, focusing on the news only leads to anxiety, depression, and hopelessness.

Anxiety, depression, and hopelessness result in a myriad of problems. Often: addiction.¹² And addiction not only leaves families high and dry, but also contributes to oppression around the world.¹³ So if we’re to care for our families (and the wider world), we must fight against depression and anxiety. Since current events and a constant barrage of news contribute to hopelessness,¹⁴ we must turn off the news. We must focus on family.

I must be the dad and husband my family needs—showing up, bringing my A-game, every day.

“But wait,” you say. “Isn’t this exactly what Vance called for? Aren’t you ordering your love and prioritizing family to the detriment of others?”

I don’t believe so. I’m saying this is my conclusion, my current conviction. I would love to hear your conviction/conclusion in the comments.

If we look back at Augustine, his first specific note about who we are to love are those near us by an “accident of location.” My current location is a husband and father of three in the Midwest, working as a substitute teacher, and trying to maintain an online presence as a blogger/rapper. Our finances are stretched thin, so my main focus must be loving my household well (1 Timothy 5:8). If we end up with extra at the end of the month, that’s when we can pray about rightly loving others beyond our immediate family circle.

Conclusion

There is a time for news, but there’s a reason why we used to get newspapers delivered each morning. You spent an hour at breakfast or an hour before bed digesting the latest news, and then you went about your day. You weren’t ignoring the world, but you also weren’t hyperfocused on it. This is the mentality we need to make normative again.

Will you join me in turning down the news and turning up presence in our families? We aren’t breaking generational cycles if we choose social media where our parents chose workaholism.

Let’s truly change for the best, not just exchange one vice for another.

Let’s love others well, making the world a better place for all.

In this with you.

Thanks for reading.

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Notes and References

1. Remember, Christian love is not a feeling or an affection. It is tangible. It is practical. It is present. As John said, “We must love in deed, not words” (1 John 3:18). ↩︎
2. Augustine of Hippo, “Christian Instruction,” in Writings of Saint Augustine, vol. 4, ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari, trans. John J. Gavigan, FC (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1947), 47. ↩︎
3. Augustine of Hippo, “Christian Instruction,” 48. ↩︎
4. Augustine admittedly struggled with this himself, since he eventually succumbed to allowing state forces to coerce the schismatic Donatists back to the Church, citing “compel” in Luke 14:23 as justification. ↩︎
5. Now, it is possible this is where we got the idea “hate the sin, love the sinner,” but even that sentiment is problematic. And Augustine doesn’t word it like that here. He makes it clear that a person’s humanity is worthy of love even if their choices are not to be loved. ↩︎
6. One of these occurs in 1.29, and one in a title before 1.23: de amoris ordine (“About the order of love”). ↩︎
7. See I.27 above. ↩︎
8. To say nothing about Vance’s twisting of Scripture, theology, and God to justify harming foreign nations, like Iran. The love Jesus called for is a peacemaking love (Matthew 5:9), and we cannot call our country a “Christian nation” as long as we are waging wars—especially unprovoked wars—with other nations. ↩︎
9. Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky, The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You’ve Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2021), 158: “But love is not love if it’s forced.” R. Zachary Manis, Thinking through the Problem of Hell: The Divine Presence Model (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024), 23–28, discusses “the problem of coercion” as it relates to hell (Chapter 4). ↩︎
10. I’m working toward this point in my series through 1 John. Paid subscribers also get access to a portion dedicated to assessing and discussing Augustine’s perspective on that section of text, since he preached his homilies on 1 John with the Donatists in mind. ↩︎
11. Though at the end of our lives, we will answer to God. ↩︎
12. This connection is discussed in Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (New York: Penguin Press, 2024), 113–142; 173–198. ↩︎
13. See Matt Fradd, The Porn Myth: Exposing the Reality Behind the Fantasy of Pornography (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2017), 70–77; 84–90; 106–116 (chapters 8, 10–11, 14). ↩︎
14. Haidt, Anxious Generation, 217: “The phone-based life, in contrast, is a never-ending series of notifications, alerts, and distractions, fragmenting consciousness and training us to fill every moment of consciousness with something from our phones.” ↩︎

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