Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential candidate, went on a journey from atheist law student to devout Christian. In a speech to the Faith & Family Coalition, he talked about being raised mostly by his grandmother, who regularly prayed and read the Bible.
“I went off to the military, to college, to law school,” he said. “Somewhere along the way, that faith that had developed and was germinating sort of evaporated. And so, by the time that I was in law school, I started to call myself an atheist.”
Marrying his Hindu wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, whom he had met at Yale Law School, brought him back to the Christian faith. The couple wed in 2014.
“Thinking about what was required of me as a husband and as a father, the more that I thought about those deeper questions, the more that I thought there was wisdom in the Christian faith that I had completely discarded and completely ignored,” Vance said.
He began attending church when his first child was born in 2017. He recalled how his wife observed that “there’s something about becoming Christian that is really good for you. There’s something about thinking about the Christian faith, there’s something about practicing the Christian faith, that makes you more patient with our son and makes you a little bit more forgiving when I’m grumpy after a long day.”
Vance realized at that moment that his wife was describing grace, adding that he did not believe grace happens instantaneously but over a lifetime. “In ways big and small, if you practice your faith, if you pray, if you think about what it requires of you, then God makes you a little bit better each and every single day,” he said.
In 2019, Vance converted to Roman Catholicism, saying that he never had a strong attachment to any denomination growing up. The vice presidential nominee said he loves being part of a faith community, taking his kids to church every Sunday and answering the questions his children ask about Christian faith. “One of the really deep beliefs I have is that there all of these small little miracles,” Vance said. “And if you look for them, you actually see them.”
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice