Early in G.K. Chesterton’s “The Vampire of the Village”—the concluding story in his fifth and final Father Brown collection The Scandal of Father Brown—the titular crime-solving Catholic priest casually notes in dinner conversation that “People who lose all their charity generally lose all their logic.” It’s a testament to Chesterton’s preternatural ability to turn a phrase that he could drop such a stunning bon mot—one that most writers would commit cold-blooded murder to produce—in a throw-away murder-mystery. Seriously, the rest of the story isn’t anywhere near as memorable as that one line, which like all the best lines has such a perfect way of clarifying everything.

Because it really is true, isn’t it! Those who lose their charity generally do lose their logic. Contrary to widespread assumption, logic and charity are not opponents, not opposites, but inextricably connected. We sometimes say cliches like “Do you think with your head or your heart?” but that’s a false dichotomy: It’s not either/or, it’s both/and. You think with both simultaneously. Your head and your heart are not competitors, but partners in your decision making process. Hence, to lose one is to lose the other. Such, in fact, is the root of bigotry: every species of bigotry one can name is breathtakingly bereft of both charity and logic. Indeed, a bigot’s lack of charity is why they are illogical in the first place.

A famous example of this principle is provided by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. In his widely-quoted 1944 study Anti-Semite and Jew (written just after the liberation of Paris but before the discovery of the Death Camps),^[1]And yes, I am aware of the accusations of antisemitism against Chesterton, despite him being adamantly pro-Zionism, anti-Nazi, and anti-eugenics; it’s a very complex accusation that is beyond the … Continue reading Sartre notes how anti-Semites will claim they hate Jews because they are all greedy and conniving; if you then respond that you personally know some Jews who are among the most honest people you know, as well as some self-styled “gentiles” who are dishonest scoundrels, the anti-Semite never concedes the point, because they never had a point to begin with. As Sartre himself famously explains:

”Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

Each of an anti-Semite’s reasons for despising Jews are only Post Hoc, after the fact; they hated Jews first, then rationalized the reasons why later. It ultimately does not matter to them how flimsy, frivolous, or easily-disprovable their reasons are, because their reasons were always just a pretext, a game, a joke at the expense of their opponents. They argue with you not to persuade you or prove themselves right, but to intimidate you, or at least make you sound as unserious as them. For in the final tally, anti-Semites hate Jews not for anything they supposedly did, but simply for who they are—and for no other reason than that they needed someone to hate. “If the Jew did not exist,” writes Sartre in parody of Voltaire, “The anti-Semite would need to invent him.” You cannot argue logically with anti-Semites anymore than you can argue with them charitably, because they lack both.

Repeat this exercise with racists, misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, Islamophobes, anti-Mormons, etc., etc. A more recent example: There has been for years now a distressingly large movement in the United States to mass-deport millions of “illegal” Latin American immigrants once and for all—a sort of “Final Solution” if you will (and preferably won’t). Advocates for these immigrants have repeatedly and rightfully pointed out that, far from being free-loaders and drains on our welfare systems as they are often accused, these immigrants in fact contribute immensely to both the tax base and the GDP of this country; that far from bringing in criminality, they verifiably have lower rates of violent crime than native-born Americans; that far from stealing jobs, they alone work the terrible low-wage jobs that most Americans won’t; that they harvest the food we literally need to survive; that objectively, we are the ones exploiting them, not them us; that by current standards, the super-majority of Americans came here “illegally” too; that breaking up families is vicious and cruel; that it would in fact immensely damage this country’s economy to deport so many workers at once, since it would radically deplete the labor pool further, drive up labor and new-hire costs, and thereby worsen inflation.

These are all very logical reasons to not deport millions of people; they are also beside the point. Like anti-Semites in Europe, U.S. xenophobes do not hate Latin Americans for anything they supposedly do, but simply for who they are. They frankly don’t care if deporting Hispanic immigrants winds up hurting themselves as well, just so long as it first hurts Hispanic immigrants. It’s why they supported the vicious child separation policy at the border: they simply wanted to hurt them more. They have no charity for the immigrant; consequently, they have no logic, either.

The reason why they lack both logic and charity is in all cases identical: they are afraid. Prejudice is ultimately rooted in weakness and cowardice. Recall for example the apoplectic ravings of the anti-immigrant crowd a few years back when a starving, bedraggled caravan of maybe 7,000 Central American refugees–barely the size of a small town–was making its way towards the border. Did they respond to these poor migrants’ plight with Christ-like charity and kindness? No, nor did they respond with logic: They lambasted a small, helpless group of asylum seekers as though they were an invading military force. The anti-immigrant crowd are not courageous people.

That doesn’t mean prejudice isn’t dangerous, on the contrary: few things are more destructive than weakness—especially weakness that crudely masquerades as strength. A building constructed from weak foundations is doomed to collapse. This is why both Paul and Mormon are emphatic that if ye have not charity, ye are nothing. It takes strength to love everyone. This is also why both John and Mormon are just as emphatic that “perfect love casteth out all fear,” because the corollary is also true: imperfect love lets in all fear. Anytime we exclude any group of people from our love for any reason, our love is by definition imperfect; in those moments, we have lost our charity and likewise our logic, and so live only in blind fear.

There is an old Superman comic, incidentally, wherein his evil nemesis Lex Luthor uses kryptonite to suck away all of Superman’s powers into himself. His dastardly scheme is about to come to completion, when he suddenly finds himself overwhelmed with all of Superman’s super-senses as well. In an instant, Lex Luthor comprehends that all life on earth, from the largest animal to the smallest bacteria, is connected together in a massive web of interdependency, that we cannot harm one organism without ultimately harming ourselves, that in fact the only logical, rational way to live life is through radical compassion for all creatures. At last he understands why Superman, with all his near-godlike powers, had dedicated his life not to dominating others, but serving them.

Superman then somehow punches Lex Luther while he’s distracted and gets his powers back (it was still a comic book, after all), but the story illustrates Chesterton’s point: that charity is the only logical way to live, because charity and logic are one and the same.

This is all relevant to us as Latter-day Saints, because, again, both Paul and Mormon are emphatic that if ye have not charity, ye are nothing. Mormon ups the ante by showing us that his civilization entire was destroyed because they lacked charity (such, I dare say, is the overriding thesis of the Book of Mormon). They also lacked logic: Recall that the Nephites in Mormon’s time were numerically outnumbered by the Lamanites–they had in fact always been numerically outnumbered, since the days of Lehi–but still chose to wage a war of final extermination against them: “And they did swear by the heavens, and also by the throne of God, that they would go up to battle against their enemies, and would cut them off from the face of the land” (Mormon 3:10). Abandoning the strictly defensive posture of previous generations, the Nephites decided to go on the offensive against a foe that “were not numbered because of the greatness of their number”, until they predictably “began to be swept off by them even as the dew before the sun” (Mormon 4:17-18). Their strategy backfired in the worst way possible, and resulted in their own extermination instead. But what else did they expect? The late-Nephites’ war strategy was completely illogical; it was also completely uncharitable, an utter failure to follow Christ’s admonition to love your enemies.

And they had indeed lost all their charity completely: “And notwithstanding this great abomination of the Lamanites, it doth not exceed that of our people,” Mormon writes in Moroni 9:9, describing in stomach-churning detail the rape, torture, and other assorted war crimes committed by his men; “But O my son, how can a people like this, whose delight is in so much abomination—How can we expect that God will stay his hand in judgment against us?” laments Mormon. The Nephites had become as vicious and cruel as they were illogical. As G.K. Chesterton might again note, these twin failures were one and the same: people who lose all their charity generally lose all their logic. The last Nephites were thinking with neither their head nor their heart.

This is why Mormon in Moroni 7:48 is equally emphatic that we must pray for charity first and foremost above all else: it precedes all logic. Indeed, you cannot truly be logical without first being charitable. If we begin with charity, then logic and reason will naturally follow, “without compulsory means.” If, however, we refuse to be charitable, then we will also behave without any logic or reason whatsoever—that is, self destructively, like the Nephites of old—no matter how we might try to convince ourselves otherwise. Let us remember this going forward, because according to Mormon and Moroni, the stakes could not possibly be higher.