I’m thankful for a lot of things; some are obvious – like Cheri’s willingness to go for 54+ years of marriage with a knucklehead, and my God-given victory over leukemia, and an amazing downline of kids/grands who are honoring God with their lives – but others are less so. Here’s one: I was never notable enough to be under attack in the modern digital battlefield. Example of a broadside aimed at America’s Vice President: “Pressuring one’s spouse to convert or even hoping they would convert is not a good basis for a successful marriage.” What brought that on?

Those words from Susan Katz Miller, author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family, go to the heart of a controversy stirred up when Vice President JD Vance told a college audience that he hoped his Hindu wife might one day embrace Christianity.

Vance, who converted to Catholicism five years into his marriage with Usha Chilukuri Vance, shared his hopes for her conversion at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi. A woman asked how he and his wife raise their children without giving them the sense that his religion supersedes her beliefs.

“Regardless, I’ll continue to love and support her and talk to her about faith and life and everything else, because she’s my wife. Yes, Christians have beliefs. And yes, those beliefs have many consequences, one of which is that we want to share them with other people. That is a completely normal thing, and anyone who’s telling you otherwise has an agenda.”

Here’s a BFO (that’s a Blinding Flash of the Obvious): life is about more than politics, or – as an adjunct – the need to be PC (politically correct). Vance’s unfiltered comment at the U of M – in response to the question – was born out of spiritual sincerity rather than political savvy. 

As a young man, he was raised in proximity to his father’s evangelical church, but in his young adulthood, he “identified as an atheist” (his description). As he navigated through his Marine service years, then into college and law school, he began to reconcile his intellectual pursuits and historic Christian thought. In 2019, he converted to Catholicism and linked to the teaching of St Augustine as a source of purpose and faith.

Here’s the thing: Jesus didn’t intend to present the opportunity for personal relationship with the Creator who is the Almighty God of the Universe as an optional add-on to an otherwise typical life. Membership in the Christian community is not a club connection that gets preferred seating in the Sunday morning meet-ups: instead, it opens the door of Heaven when mortal life ends and eternal life emerges. 

Are the claims of the Christian Gospel simply one of the plethora of religious options available to the international human population? Does it ultimately matter what dogma or doctrine you choose to embrace during your journey between birth and death? Are JD and Usha heading to the same ultimate outcome despite the differences between her life as a Hindu and his as a Christian?

The Apostle John made the uniqueness of the Christian faith absolutely clear:

“And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:11-13).

Vance answered the question as any Christian should: understanding and embracing the claims of Jesus and His offered gifts of forgiveness and life are the most important gifts we have to offer to those we love, and to the world He loves. Anything less is heartless…

— Bob Shank

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