Make no doubt about it — Vice President JD Vance is a Christian and is not afraid to say it.
Vance spoke of many topics, including religion, Wednesday at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), Fox Newsreported.
At the event, held in honor of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Vance said “a properly rooted Christian moral order” is important for the future of the U.S.
“I make no apologies for thinking that Christian values are an important foundation of this country,” Vance said after he was asked about the separation of church and state. “Anybody who’s telling you their view is neutral likely has an agenda to sell you. And I’m at least honest about the fact that I think the Christian foundation of this country is a good thing.”
Vance spoke after Kirk’s widow, Erika, and took questions from the audience, some of which surrounded Vance’s faith, including raising his children in a dual-religion home as his wife, Usha, is Hindu.
Vance said that when the couple met, he was not a Christian. When they started a family, they decided to raise their children Christian.
“Most Sundays she will come with me to church. As I’ve told her, and I’ve said publicly, and I’ll say now in front of 10,000 of my closest friends, ‘Do I hope eventually that she is somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved in by church? Yeah, I honestly, I do wish that.’ Because I believe in the Christian gospel and I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way. But if she doesn’t, then God says everybody has free will, and so that doesn’t cause a problem for me.”
Watch:
The vice president also spoke out against contemporary liberalism by saying it is a “perverted version of Christianity.”
“There’s nothing wrong, of course, with focusing on people who are disenfranchised, for example. That’s the focus of liberalism. But if you completely separate it from any religious duty or any civic virtue, then that can actually become, for example, an inducement to lawlessness,” Vance said. “You can’t just have compassion for the criminal. You also have to have justice too. Which is why I think that a properly rooted Christian moral order is such an important part of the future of our country.”
He continued by talking about religion and the U.S.
“Anybody who tells you it’s required by the Constitution is lying to you,” Vance said. “What happened, is, the Supreme Court interpreted ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion’ to effectively throw the church out of every public place at the federal, state and local level. I think it was a terrible mistake, and we’re still paying for the consequences of it today.”
He also spoke about the impact Kirk had on him — especially to be more vocal about his faith.
“This is another way in which Charlie has affected my life – I would say that I grew up again in a generation where even if people had very deep personal faith, they didn’t talk about their faith a whole lot,” Vance said.
“But the reason why I try to be the best husband I can be, the best father I can be, the reason why I care so much about all the issues that we’re going to talk about, is because I believe I’ve been placed in this position for a brief period of time to do the most amount of good for God and for the country that I love so much. And that’s the most important way that my faith influences me.”
