Two articles on the Front Porch Forum discuss Augustine’s notion of the ordo amoris, the ordering of our loves.
Dennis Uhlman (March 4, 2025) applies the concept to the avoidance of burnout. He explains, “The idea of ‘ordered love’ is implicitly baked into the human experience. Augustine’s ‘ordo amoris’ articulates how a limited individual can operate responsibly in a world where a myriad of duties and relationships fight for attention.” We must learn to manage our affections, to learn to love the right and most important things and to let the rest fall to the side.
When the heart is disordered—when we’re loving too many things—we create stress and the feeling of always running behind and losing ground on important matters. This can lead to burnout. Burnout is “at a record high” in our day and disordered affections are to blame. “The ordering of loves will look different for different people in different stages of life.” That much seems obvious, but keeping it in mind can allow us to focus on our calling without comparing ourselves with others.
But everyone needs to take this discipline seriously and work hard at becoming adept at it. “The end of burnout culture begins with a heart that is rightly ordered. Only then can attention and passion be directed in the most life-giving ways and only then can a healthy culture emerge from a disconnected and attenuated one.”
Logan Hoffman (March 12, 2025) applies ordo amoris to the immigration confusion and crisis currently wracking our country. Christians can bring more sanity to this crisis by simply learning to practice ordo amoris and loving our neighbors, including those immigrants in our neighborhood or community.
The divisive nature of this issue makes it important that some be involved who will salt some love into the growing bitterness. Hoffman acknowledges the common sense need to control the borders and bring law breakers to justice, and he makes three important observations.
First, Christians are called to love all people equally and to show that love by starting with those closest to us. Thus, proximity has a claim on our affections.
Second, Christians may disagree on immigration policy, but they should agree on the telos of those policies—loving our neighbors and helping them to flourish in this country. He cites passages from the Law of God in making this point.
Third, policy and practice should flow from relationships with our neighbors. We need to get to know them and show the love of Jesus in as many ways as we can.
Hoffman concludes, “If each of us would follow Augustine in loving those around us more deeply, perhaps we would see the truth in Berry’s suggestion that ‘it is impossible, for instance, to conceive that a man could … love his own place in the world and yet deal destructively with other places.’”
