James Talarico

JD Vance and I are part of the body of Christ together.

And I think this is antithetical to the gospel.

The gospel is all about prioritizing those on the outside, those who are least lovable.

That's what's so revolutionary about it.

There are some strange passages in the New Testament, and one of them is when Jesus tells his followers that they have to hate their mother and father.

I don't think Jesus was speaking literally.

I don't know, but I don't think so, because I think we should love our moms and dads.

I love mine.

The 10 commandments require us to, and Jesus was a devout Jew the day he was born till the day he died.

But I think he's using shocking language

to teach us something, and that is that sometimes our little loves for our parents, for our friends, for our children, for our neighborhood, really important, crucial, beautiful, profound loves, sometimes those smaller loves can get in the way of the big love, the love for the stranger, the love for the outcast, the love for the foreigner.

And I should add,

Love for our enemies, the hardest love to achieve.

And so what J.D.

Vance is describing is the culture that we already live in.

That's the world.

And we Christians are called to see beyond the world.

And that's to a divine love, a God-like love.

Because, you know, as scripture says, the rains and the sun fall on the righteous and the unrighteous alike.

God loves all of us, no matter what we've done, no matter how good or how bad we are.