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Essay
Christianity and Familial Piety
Why Scripture Commands Moral Discernment Over Blood Loyalty
Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26).
Christ’s jarring proposition undercuts a widespread Christian assumption: that unconditional loyalty to family represents one of the highest moral imperatives.
Yet Jesus’ incredible declaration — correctly understood not as literal hatred but as the subordination of every human tie to absolute truth — specifies a framework for a more discerning approach to family relationships than traditional Christianity typically allows. This framework finds refined theological development in Joseph Butler’s Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel.
In Sermon XI, “Upon the Love of Our Neighbor,” and again in Sermon XII of the same title, Butler shows how Leviticus 19:18’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself” actually frames — and limits — the duty to “honor your father and mother” (Exodus 20:12). This command to love one’s neighbor as oneself constitutes the overarching moral law within which all particular obligations must…