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Vice President JD Vance sparked a debate about faith politics on Wednesday night, telling a crowd at the University of Mississippi that he is raising his three children as Christians and hopes his wife, Usha, who was raised Hindu, will one day embrace his faith. The comments came during a Q&A session hosted by Turning Point USA’s Erika Kirk. Vance spoke candidly about the couple’s interfaith marriage, describing how their family balances differing beliefs. “Now most Sundays Usha will come with me to church,” he said in the clip. “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 by in 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.” He explained that when they met, neither of them was deeply religious. “I think it’s fair to say that she grew up in a Hindu family, but not a particularly religious family in either direction,” Vance said. “When I met my wife, I would consider myself an agnostic or an atheist, and that’s what I think she would have considered herself as well.” The vice president emphasized that faith in their household comes through open conversation and mutual respect. “Everybody has to come to their own arrangement here,” he said. “The way that we’ve come to our arrangement is, she’s my best friend, we talk to each other about this stuff.” He added that they decided to raise their children as Christians, explaining, “Our two oldest kids who go to school, they go to a Christian school. Our 8-year-old did his first communion about a year ago.” The Ole Miss audience responded with cheers as Vance shared a lighthearted detail: “My son Ewan is very proud of his First Communion. Thank you, guys. I’ll tell him that Ole Miss wishes him the best.” Vance also reflected on the bigger challenges of interfaith marriages, noting, “You just gotta talk to the person that God has put you with, and you’ve gotta make those decisions as a family unit. For us, it works out.” When asked if the difference in religion causes strain, he replied, “It doesn’t cause a problem for me. That’s something you work out with your friends, with your family, with the person that you love. One of the most important Christian principles is that you respect free will.” Vance even joked that “Usha’s closer to the priest who baptized me than maybe I am. They talk about this stuff.” He ended by saying, “My attitude is you figure this stuff out as a family, you trust in God to have a plan, and you try to follow it as best as you can.” His remarks, while warmly received by the audience, have sparked an online debate about interfaith relationships and whether it was appropriate for the vice president to publicly express hope that his wife would convert.
