The desire for homely things runs deep within the soul. We are rightly drawn in by the familiarity and warmth of home: that place which evokes the memory of old friends and the echoes of our innocent, younger selves. Home—at least in its most wholesome and proper expression—gifts us the comfortability found in the resonance of friendly sounds and smells, or the rituals and habits which orient our feet and give us confidence to venture out amidst the world. A home is to be treasured, and it is drastically different from a mere house.
Houses are the seedlings of homes. They are buildings which never ought to remain static, but rather be transformed, beautified, and enlivened. A house untransformed in such a way remains but a shell, performing only a utilitarian purpose. Evident in such cold and clinical language, houses are to be occupied by “occupants,” or resided in by “residents,” never that which is to be fostered by families, a stark and crucial difference.
A home is also more than simply a loved building, it is rather something painstakingly birthed through the work of homemakers who fill houses with character and life, adorning walls with portraits of loved ones and cultivating a place of nourishment, in the fullest sense, for those who live in its sacred space. Homes, therefore, fulfil a purpose beyond the simple provision of shelter, instead providing room to develop virtue, deepen relationships, and offering a place where life can be cherished and abundantly lived, for it is the site of the most fundamental of human endeavours: the marriage of husband and wife, the raising of children, and the participation in the glorious and holy mundanity of the ordinary.
It is a sad fact of the modern world that too few of us truly experience the gift of home. Our modern obsessions with the utilitarian, the maximally productive, and perpetual “progress” have created a world in which true homes have become rarer, and the confidence once had in the stability and strength derived from a home has waned. Yet I’d wager that the preference for homes over houses resonates still, in a primal way, within most people in a manner far more convincing than that which can be expressed in words or argued through logic. Such a fascination with home is embedded within everyday parlance. We speak of our hometown or homeland. In hostile places or times of loneliness we might regard ourselves homesick, and as we near the accomplishment of our goals we enter the homestretch.
Home is an anchor reminding us of that which is most important. Indeed, the eminent philosopher, Sir Roger Scruton, argued that:
“Human beings, in their settled condition, are animated by oikophilia: the love of the oikos [trans. home], which means not only the home but the people contained in it, and the surrounding settlements that endow that home with lasting contours and an enduring smile.”
So then, what has all this to do with migration?
It is hardly an original observation to note that controversy around migration and multiculturalism has thrown the western world into a period of chaos. While animating political discourse, debates about migration restrictions, deportations, repatriation, and the rights of native western populations to their land and culture have also spilled over into theological controversy.
However, such theological critiques are often shallow and premised upon the notion that the sole motivation for opposition to mass migration can be characterised as hatred. Rarely is the migration debate viewed through the paradigm of love-of-home. Said another way, too often the response to migration assumes the nation as a mere house capable of fulfilling the function of shelter, and thus ignores the possibility—or the truism as I argue—that our country is rather to be considered our home which demands a distinct set of responsibilities and obligations for those to whom this home belongs, as well as those who wish to visit.
If the nation were a mere house—a structure fulfilling only utilitarian functions—then the proponent of migration could argue that so long as there is a spare room, it ought to accommodate any person who arrives here. Putting aside the matter of whether there is indeed any spare room, the non-specific nature of houses renders such spaces continually open to occupants. Likewise, the nation-as-house would allow one to argue that there is no need to give priority to any particular family. People easily move from house to house as need demands, so too migration is a form of such interchangeable movement, only on a larger scale. Furthermore, because the stakes aren’t as high with houses, it becomes easier to excuse those who break laws or come uninvited, and removing such people could more easily be regarded as extreme.
Wielding the paradigm of home, however, how might this change? Firstly, since homes are not mere accommodation, their primary function is not constrained by the action of accommodating. Rather homes are supposed to nurture; families have a right to offer invitation and to gather people who will respect their home and enrich it. Secondly, privilege is given to the family whose home it belongs to. A father, acting in accordance with his role as head of the household, would be acting unjustly if he were to open the doors of his pantry for anyone and everyone to help themselves to if it meant his children would starve. A home’s homeliness is a consequence of the work of those who have the greatest stake in its flourishing, the family themselves. Thirdly, anyone who abuses the generosity of the home ought to leave or be removed. No home operates with a revolving door, allowing anyone to enter and remove furniture, put up their own pictures, tread mud into the carpets, or start their own renovation projects. It would be a serious moral failure, for the sake of the family’s dignity and safety, if home intruders or violent guests were tolerated, and the father or civil authorities failed to act to maintain the goodness and order of the home.
This framework feels intuitive to most of us, we realise at a fundamental level how precious a home is and what’s required to ensure its flourishing. Nevertheless, such principles have been articulated elsewhere in more concrete theological fashion, particularly in the concept of the ordo amoris, or “ordered loves.”
Such a schema provides a way of prioritising which expressions of love are more crucial when circumstances present competing demands: for instance, if a husband’s wife is in danger at the same time as his acquaintance, who ought he to aid first? St Augustine articulated these principles, writing that, while endeavouring to love liberally, “since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.” Augustine often emphasises the importance of extending charity to those in closest proximity to you, a helpful emphasis for our own time where we often neglect the health of our towns and neighbourhoods for more grandiose moral crusades.
St Thomas Aquinas developed these ideas pointing to the scriptural command to honour one’s parents in order to advance the view that “we ought out of charity to love those who are more closely united to us”. Expounding upon the different spheres of relationships, he writes: “Wherefore in matters pertaining to nature we should love our kindred most, in matters concerning relations between citizens, we should prefer our fellow-citizens, and on the battlefield our fellow-soldiers.”
Scripture also speaks to this principle, such as St Paul’s exhortation to Timothy that those who do not provide for their household are worse than unbelievers (1 Tim 5:8), or his instruction that a husband’s love for his wife must be characterised by a willingness to give up his life for hers (Eph 5:35). While not attempting to constrain charity, the ordo amoris seeks to articulate how to act virtuously when the demands of love are in competition.
While love of the stranger is an important Christian calling grounded in God’s own passionate love for the stranger (e.g. Ps 146:9), it is never a love which overrides all others. In fact, whenever Israel is commanded to welcome the stranger in the Old Testament, it is never at the expense of Israel’s cultural and religious integrity. Strangers were commanded to observe the Sabbath (Ex 20:10), could not worship foreign gods, and certain people groups were perpetually forbidden from joining the community on account of grievous acts of historic violence (Deut. 23:3-8). Thus, Israel was never required to surrender her home or her culture to accommodate strangers; rather we often see the reverse, such as Ruth the Moabite’s embrace of Israel’s people and God as her own (Ruth 1:16).
Far from being weaponised to justify hatred, the principles of ordered love are rightly drawn upon to advance love. They help us make sense of our obligations to our families and our communities, and therefore, properly enacted, they allow for homes to be preserved and to flourish.
Sadly, in today’s context, migration is a significant cause of increased crime and violence, the suppression of wages, and the dilution of heritage and culture. It is not the only factor—and I do not mean to imply that this renders all migrants culpable or evil—but it is certainly a significant one. Grave evil is committed against our kinsmen when migrants who have been allowed into our home turn to rape or murder, and this is an injustice that must be given maximal concern, for it is a betrayal of the very people whose home this is and who are entitled to dignity and safety while they live here.
Some argue that the parable of the Good Samaritan refutes the notion of hierarchical love and instead demands that we seek a kind of love “open to all, without exception.” However, putting aside the fact that our Lord’s parable is not primarily concerned with 21st century immigration policy, a closer inspection confirms that the principles of the ordo amoris are very much upheld.
Firstly, the force of this parable does not compel a kind of love which is open to all without exception. The parable, it must be pointed out, describes a foreigner (the Samaritan) providing charity to a native Judean who has been attacked by thieves. Our Lord commends his acts as neighbourly, however it does not follow that had the Judean responded with violence towards the Samaritan, that the Samaritan would have been compelled, nevertheless, to continue to build fraternity without exception.
Secondly, fact that the priest and the Levite fail to help their fellow Judean first, underscores the shocking nature of this parable. These two Judeans do not uphold their kinship duties and thus it falls upon a foreigner to deliver charity to the injured man. Therefore, the logic of the parable is built upon the premises of the ordo amoris which condemn the Judeans for their lack of brotherly charity even while our Lord also seeks to call us to as generous an expression of love as possible.
One may retort that the ordo amoris may be discerned in the parable, but it is not necessarily upheld as a doctrine to live by. But this only begs an even wider question about the accessibility of the parable’s principles in the first place. The call to love one’s neighbour is hard, perhaps impossible without the grace of God, such that any suggestion that these principles can simply be implemented by legislation makes a farce of the whole Gospel which calls each of us to a life of regeneration and salvation. Rather, we must seek, as Christians, to be transformed into those who love liberally, but such a liberal form of love does not negate our responsibility to uphold justice or to express love in different kinds as appropriate: the love shown to your wife must look different to the love shown to your colleague!
Whether we like it or not, the unprecedented levels of migration to western countries risks the integrity of our national home. It causes cultural dilution, it is bringing crime and violence, and those arriving to our home are definitionally estranged and unrooted from our kinsmen who have fostered and nurtured our heritage. The opposition to these drastic upheavals should not be hatred of the other, but it is proper, out of an abiding love of home and the people who belong to the home, to oppose the injustices which have been brought by migration and to stand alongside those whom we have responsibility to love and defend. Home is a blessing, and it can be a blessing to strangers only when it is allowed to remain, only when it can be managed properly, only when the family at its heart can dwell in safety so as to then exercise the virtues of generosity and hospitality. Now is not the time to throw away our home for the supposed cause of charity, when home is the very thing needed to foster such a life of love.
