Republican vice presidential nominee, James David (JD) Vance has narrated how he moved from atheist law student to Christianity.
Speaking recently at a breakfast meeting organised by Faith & Freedom Coalition, a conservative Christian advocacy group, during the Republican Convention, Vance said he was raised by his grandmother, who regularly prayed and read the Bible, and only attended church services once or twice a month.
The 40-year-old-Ohio senator, who is married to a former Hindu, Usha Chilukuri Vance, said growing up “there was something a little shallow” about his faith, and that, “like a lot of kids,” his religious views disappeared while growing up.
He said, “I went off to the military, to college, to law school. 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.”
The vice presidential nominee said ‘there was a certain arrogance,” adding that “there was this idea that I was smart and wise and I knew things that my grandma never knew.”
Vance said marrying Usha, whom he met at Yale Law School, brought him back to Christianity. They married in 2014.
The politician, who started attending church services when their first child was born in 2017, recounted that his wife once observed that “there is something about becoming Christian that is really good for you.”
“There is something about thinking about the Christian faith, there is 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,” she quoted his wife as saying.
Vance converted to Roman Catholicism in 2019. He once said in a media interview that he never had a super strong attachment to any denomination growing up.
Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, picked Vance as his running mate on Monday July 15.
Trump, American former president, said on his social media platform Truth Social that he had picked Vance after “lengthy deliberation and thought.”
He said, “J.D. honorably served our country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years. Summa Cum Laude, and is a Yale Law School Graduate, where he was Editor of The Yale Law Journal, and President of the Yale Law Veterans Association.
“J.D. has a very successful business career in Technology and Finance, and now, during the Campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond.”
Vance accepted his nomination during the Republican National Convention, saying “Trump represents America’s best hope to restore what, if lost, may never be found again.”