Vice President JD Vance spoke at length during a large Turning Point USA gathering at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) held in honor of Charlie Kirk. He reflected on the slain conservative activist’s influence on his faith and told students that “a properly rooted Christian moral order” is essential for the nation’s future.
After an introduction by Kirk’s widow, Erika, Vance addressed the audience briefly before taking questions on topics ranging from immigration to National Guard deployments and the Second Amendment. Several questions focused on Vance’s faith and its impact on his role as vice president, including his stance on religious liberty and how he approaches raising his children in a dual-religion household with his Hindu wife.
“I make no apologies for thinking that Christian values are an important foundation of this country,” Vance said when 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.”
Meanwhile, Vance criticized aspects of modern liberalism in his comments on faith, calling it a “perverted version of Christianity.”
“There’s nothing wrong, of course, with focusing on people who are disenfranchised. That’s the focus of liberalism. But if you completely separate it from any religious duty or civic virtue, then that can actually become, for example, an inducement to lawlessness,” he explained. “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 added that he does not believe God should be excluded from the public sphere, arguing that this was not the intent of America’s founders.
“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.”
In addition to discussing faith and public policy, Vance was asked about living in an interfaith household. He explained that when he and his wife, Usha, met, he was not yet a Christian, but they ultimately chose to raise their children in the Christian faith. He emphasized that mutual respect and open communication are central to their marriage and family decisions.
“Most Sundays she will come with me to church,” Vance shared. “As I’ve told her — 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 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 how Charlie Kirk influenced his faith, saying that Kirk inspired him to be more open about his beliefs.
“This is another way in which Charlie has affected my life,” Vance said. “I grew up in a generation where even if people had very deep personal faith, they didn’t talk about it much. But the reason I try to be the best husband and father I can be, the reason I care so much about all the issues 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 good for God and for the country that I love so much. And that’s the most important way that my faith influences me.”
