{"id":846479,"date":"2026-09-13T15:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/846479\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T15:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:18:18","slug":"religious-vance-seeks-to-avoid-maga-schism-as-he-keeps-the-faith-for-2028-jd-vance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/846479\/","title":{"rendered":"Religious Vance seeks to avoid Maga schism as he keeps the faith for 2028 | JD Vance"},"content":{"rendered":"

US vice-president JD Vance has worn his religion on his sleeve since converting to the Catholicism<\/a> in 2019. He recently published a book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, and memorably met the late Pope Francis at the Vatican on Easter Sunday in 2025, a day before the pontiff died.<\/p>\n

But his religious identity could take on new weight as he positions himself for a presidential run in 2028, in which a successful campaign would make him only the third Catholic president in US history. Vance\u2019s winding spiritual path \u2013 combined with his avowed evangelical roots \u2013 have the potential to stymie him, as he seeks to retain the Christian nationalist voters that have sustained Donald Trump\u2019s Make America Great Again (Maga) movement while wooing fellow Catholics.<\/p>\n

His presidential ambitions and religious convictions were both on show in a keynote speech <\/a>to the Republicans\u2019 midterm convention in Dallas on Thursday evening, where he invoked scripture and the Apostle Paul in paying homage to the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in the city of man, not the city of God,\u201d Vance said. \u201cBut I believe that our founders built this nation on a promise that echoes our creator.\u201d<\/p>\n

The address amounted to \u201cthe beginning of 2028 Republican primary competition\u201d, according to Larry Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n

\u201cVance has thrown his hat in the ring,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the dimensions that JD Vance<\/a> is bringing to the Republican ticket is the white Christian nationalism. He is trying to put together a coalition that will support him, and he wants the white Christian nationalists to be a key part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

One impediment to that, some religious analysts say, is his conversion to Catholicism \u2013 something they believe could leave him with an identity crisis that alienates both evangelicals and Catholic voters.<\/p>\n

Both ways<\/p>\n

Vance expounded on his beliefs and the evangelical influences that shaped his upbringing in a recent interview with Bryce Crawford<\/a>, a 22-year-old Christian podcaster with 929,000 subscribers on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Commentators say his dilemma was crystallized when Crawford asked for his views on \u201cend times\u201d, an event signifying the second coming of Christ that is much discussed in evangelicalism, but much less so in Catholicism.<\/p>\n

Vance expressed a long-held fascination with \u201cend times\u201d beliefs \u2013 saying that he had owned a John Hagee bible<\/a>, which emphasizes end times teachings \u2013 before subtly trying to sidestep the issue.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWhat I\u2019m trying to focus on is doing as much of God\u2019s work as possible right now, and if that leads to the end times, OK. And if that leads to, you know, us building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I\u2019m gone, that\u2019s great too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think you\u2019ve got to kind of try to have an attitude of the end times may be coming. In fact, they are coming. It\u2019s just a question of whether they\u2019re coming thousands of years down the road, or a few months down the road, and we\u2019ve got a lot of work to do right now. I\u2018ve got to try to do the work I can right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The response showed Vance trying to \u201chave things both ways\u201d, suggested Robert Jones, president and founder of the Public Religion<\/a> Research Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reminded me of the kind of conversation that young evangelical men would have sitting around in their dorm room at university,\u201d argued Jones, who comes from an evangelical Christian background. \u201cHe\u2019s basically saying, \u2018I have no stake in the debate.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone schooled inside that evangelical debate would find that position either dismissive of theological of deep theological concerns, or deeply uninformed about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Pope Leo XIV criticized the Trump administration over the Iran war this year, Vance risked upsetting Catholic voters by telling the pontiff<\/a> to be \u201ccareful\u201d if he was \u201cgoing to opine on matters of theology\u201d.<\/p>\n

The exchange followed an earlier difference of opinion with Pope Francis, in February 2025, when Vance invoked the medieval Christian concept<\/a> of \u201cordo amoris\u201d \u2013 which translates from Latin as order of love \u2013 to justify the Trump administration\u2019s hardline policy of detaining and expelling undocumented people.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country,\u201d he wrote on social media. \u201cAnd then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The late pope wrote an open letter rejecting the idea and citing the parable of the Good Samaritan.<\/p>\n

\u2018A huge threat\u2019<\/p>\n

Daniel Hummel<\/a>, director of the Lumen Center, a Christian research group in Madison, Wisconsin, said Vance\u2019s public statements highlighted potential pitfalls as he tries to win over both evangelicals and Catholics.<\/p>\n

\u201cVance is a recent Catholic convert, and he still talks a lot like an evangelical,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That, in itself, could be sufficient to antagonize even conservative Catholics, warned Hummel. \u201cThere\u2019s a certain way that Catholics, even conservative Catholics, who might actually disagree with the pope \u2013 his view on the Iran war, or something \u2013 but respect the pope and would never speak ill of whatever he says, versus an evangelical tradition, where \u2026 it\u2019s fine to tell Christian leaders to stay in their lane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vance, who has said he drifted from his evangelical upbringing into atheism by the time he joined the US Marines Corps, may face a further barrier to his political ambitions through a lack of clarity around his religious views.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty clear to me that he understands himself to be a Christian, who is being driven into politics in part because of his Christian faith,\u201d said Hummel. \u201cBut it\u2019s unclear to me \u2013 even as someone who observes him regularly \u2013 what exactly is the content of that Christianity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unclear sort of where he\u2019s actually drawing his ideas from when it comes to political theology or how he understands the relationship between religion and politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s a huge threat to him, because he\u2019s with communities that have strong opinions on these things, and talk about them in very certain ways. So there\u2019s a danger he\u2019ll either commit too much to one side, or the other, and then alienate the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authenticity<\/p>\n

Jacobs, the University of Minnesota political scientist, said Vance \u2013 once a fierce critic of Trump, and warned that he could be \u201cAmerica\u2019s Hitler\u201d \u2013 could be derailed by less abstract factors than theological differences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge with Vance is authenticity,\u201d he said. \u201cThe thing with Trump is the guy resonated authenticity with a variety of Americans, even if the reality behind the scenes would suggest otherwise. He came off as someone who meant what he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut JD Vance too often comes off as someone who is playing the political game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones said Vance\u2019s appeal to Christian values was underpinned by demographic factors that showed self-identified Republicans to be \u201cmore than two-thirds white and Christian\u201d. \u201cA majority of them explicitly support this Christian nationalist movement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Vance\u2019s interview with Crawford revealed a further \u201cdeeply troubling\u201d trait in his religious beliefs, according to Jones, when the vice-president professed to seeing God\u2019s actions in small coincidences.<\/p>\n

The vice-president cited the failed assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024. Shots fired by a lone gunman left Trump with a grazed ear, but killed one rallygoer and critically injured two others.<\/p>\n

Vance appeared to attribute that to divine providence, noting that Trump had bowed his head slightly to look at a chart on immigration at the instant the bullet passed. If Trump had been killed, he argued, millions of Americans would not have accepted the election result, and the US would have been irreparably split.<\/p>\n

Jones said: \u201cA view like that, un-interrogated \u2013 especially from a leader as high up as he is \u2013 is quite dangerous, because it is always interpreted as the hand of providence when it is something that favors you.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Trump had been killed that day, he even says he would not have taken that as the hand of God. He would have taken that as a grand conspiracy. So that tells you right there that the hand of God will only be seen in things that benefit you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guardian contacted Vance\u2019s office for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US vice-president JD Vance has worn his religion on his sleeve since converting to the Catholicism in 2019.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-846479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}