JD Vance suggests that religious freedom worldwide is a priority for the second Trump administration.
JD Vance suggests that religious freedom worldwide is a priority for the second Trump administration.
Washington, D.C. — “You shouldn’t have to leave your faith at the door of your people’s government, and under President Trump’s leadership, you won’t have to.” That was the money quote from Vice President JD Vance’s speech to the fifth annual International Religious Freedom Summit.
“In recent years, too often, our nation’s international engagement on religious liberty issues has been corrupted and distorted to the point of absurdity,” Vance continued. “Think about it: How did America get to the point where we’re sending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars abroad to NGOs that are dedicated to spreading atheism all over the globe? That is not what leadership on protecting the rights of the faithful looks like, and it ends with this administration.”
That was the elephant in the room where religious freedom advocates had gathered to ask Congress and the Donald Trump administration to remember those persecuted for their faith. Leaders, including the indefatigable Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey, met in the auditorium of the Capitol Visitor Center just hours after news broke that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is no more — at least as we know it.
Billionaire Elon Musk, via the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, is directing a White House wrecking ball toward wasteful foreign aid, fraud, and abuse. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has pointed out some of the standout outrages it would seem people of goodwill could agree shouldn’t be U.S. government business: “$1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia’s workplaces, $70,000 for a production of a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.”
“USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die,” Musk posted on X.
Vance, at the International Religious Freedom Summit, said the appropriate things about religious liberty, calling it “the bedrock of civil society in the United States of America and across the world.”
“We know in America, faith nurtures our communities,” Vance continued. “At home and abroad it fosters a love for one’s neighbors, it inspires generosity and service. it calls us to treat one another with dignity, to lift up those in need, and to build nations grounded in moral principle.” He said religious freedom
is also about fostering a culture in which faith can thrive so that men and women can fully appreciate and respect the God-given rights of their fellow citizens. Because one of the wonderful apparent paradoxes of religion is that in connecting us to the sacred and to the universal, it deepens our commitment to the particular, to our neighbors, to our obligations to one another, to the individual communities that all of us call home.
The warm welcome Vance received at the summit suggested some respect — even support — for what the White House has been trying to do, such as focus U.S. foreign aid on those with true need — those to whom Americans owe some moral responsibility first and foremost. I detected sighs of relief among the audience when Vance mentioned at least one population:
Part of our protecting religious freedom initiatives means recognizing, in our foreign policy, the difference between regimes that respect religious freedom and those that do not. The United States must be able to make that distinction. We must be able to look at the catastrophes like the plight of Iraq’s Christians over the past three decades and possess the moral clarity to act when something has gone wrong.
“Now this administration stands ready to do so,” Vance said, suggesting a continued commitment to a community that is doing the work to rebuild Iraq after a genocide perpetrated by Islamists under political circumstances that U.S. foreign policy inadvertently contributed to.
The vice president also talked about the early Church Fathers and the founding of the United States. He quoted generously from Tertullian of Carthage:
It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion — to which free will and not force should lead us.
John Adams, Vance suggested, also referenced Church Fathers in his writings, and Thomas Jefferson owned a marked-up copy of Tertullian’s collected works. Our Founders knew that we didn’t start the fire of religious freedom. “This is the legacy that has guided America’s political principles from the Founding to this very day,” Vance emphasized. He seemed a sentence away from quoting Tertullian on the blood of the martyrs as the seed of the church: “As often as we are mown down by you, the more we grow in numbers,” the Church Father had said. Vance didn’t repeat it, but other speakers testified to its truth.
A new animated film, The 21, was shown the day before in the same D.C. ballroom. According to its website, the 13-minute short was influenced by neo-Coptic iconography. It is a tribute to 21 Coptic Christians (as well as one Muslim, who was murdered with his brothers in solidarity) beheaded by ISIS in 2015. That showing of The 21 was attended by a nephew of three of the laborers murdered that day — ten years ago this February 15. Abanoub, himself a Coptic Christian, was understandably emotional when talking about his family’s and people’s loss. “By the grace of God we survive,” he said. “My uncles may not be here to fight for religious freedom, but through their sacrifice I am proud to stand here alongside my Coptic brothers and sisters and tell you we will always survive and never give up our right to bring glory to Christ’s name.” Copts endure “simply because the cross we carry is stronger than the swords raised against us,” he explained. “Today, I ask you to remember the 21 not as victims but as martyrs. Not as names on a list but as witnesses of faith and warriors for religious freedom.”
The IRF Summit obviously involves much of what Beltway events tend to involve: words and networking. But it could also be a reckoning. Does making America great again mean being good stewards of and loving one’s neighbor? Vance seems to get that it must. May voices like Abanoub’s prevent the U.S. from forgetting the martyrs and those who today stand ready for the same earthly death — if it means standing up for the love of our Creator.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.