Vice President JD Vance spoke at length during a large Turning Point USA gathering at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in honor of Charlie Kirk, during which he shared the slain conservative activist’s impact on his faith and told students that ‘a properly rooted Christian moral order’ is key to the future of the country.
After the audience heard from Kirk’s widow, Erika, Vance took the stage and spoke for a brief time before taking questions from the audience on a range of issues from immigration to National Guard deployments and the Second Amendment. But several of the questions revolved around Vance’s faith and the impact it has had on how he governs as Vice President. Some asked about his views on religious liberty while another questioned how he was raising his family in a dual-religion household where his wife is Hindu.
‘I make no apologies for thinking that Christian values are an important foundation of this country,’ Vance said when responding to a question 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.’
Meanwhile, Vance railed against contemporary liberalism in his comments about faith Wednesday night, calling it 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 while responding to a questioner. ‘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.’
Vance went on to say that he does not think God must be kicked out of the public square, adding he did not believe that is what the founders intended.
‘Anybody who tells you it’s required by the Constitution is lying to you,’ Vance argued. ‘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.’
In addition to taking tough policy-oriented questions about faith and religion, Vance was also asked at one point about living in an interfaith household. Vance’s wife is Hindu.
Vance noted how when the pair met he was not a Christian, but over time he and his wife, Usha, decided to raise their boys Christian. Vance said open communication and respect for each other’s beliefs played a part in his marriage and his family’s decision to raise their kids 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.’
Vance also spoke about the impact Kirk has had on his faith during the Wednesday night event honoring the slain activist. Vance said that, at least in part, Kirk moved him 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 told the crowd while remembering his late friend.
‘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.’