RNS: Amid Criticism from Religious Detractors, Vance Speaks at Religious Freedom Summit
Religion News Service (RNS) is reporting that today (February 5), Vice President JD Vance addressed a group of religious leaders at the International Religious Freedom Summit, arguing that President Donald Trump will prioritize the right to worship freely abroad — even as his administration faces lawsuits accusing him of infringing on religious freedom at home and criticism from faith groups whose funding has been affected by the president’s actions.
According to the RNS report, Vance told the crowd gathered at the Washington Hilton that “Our Founding Fathers rightly recognized this, listing freedom of religion first among the liberties enshrined in our great Constitution.” He then went on to dedicate a significant portion of his address to framing religious liberty as a product of Christianity. According to the Vice President, “Religious freedom flows from concepts central to the Christian faith, in particular the free will of human beings and the essential dignity of all peoples.” Thereafter, he went on to insist that it is the “Church fathers of classical Christianity to which we owe the very notion of religious liberty.”
Referring to the United States, Vice President Vance stated: “We remain the world’s largest majority-Christian country, and the right to religious freedom is protected by the people for everybody, whether you’re a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim or no faith at all.”
Near the end of his remarks, he pivoted to a discussion of international policy. Said he:
In recent years, too often has our nation’s international engagement on religious liberty issues been corrupted and distorted to the point of absurdity. Think about this: 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?
RNS opines that the question appeared to be a reference to a conservative argument criticizing work done by the U.S. State Department to promote a version of religious freedom that includes protecting the rights of nonreligious people. Recently, Republican leaders have listed the argument alongside criticism of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration has aggressively gutted in recent days and placed under the leadership of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
According to RNS,
Vance’s speech was met with hearty applause, with several summit attendees celebrating his remarks. The Rev. Greg McBrayer, an Anglican Church in North America priest and a presenter at the conference, said he was “absolutely thrilled” with Vance’s speech, calling it “very encouraging.”
“There’s an administration in place right now that will give us the opportunity to continue to grow as a people and grow our faith,” McBrayer said, adding that he hopes the U.S. will be “used as a global instrument to promote that kind of growth and receptivity around the world.”
However, RNS reports that
[T]here was also disagreement in the room. Shortly after Vance finished, an attendee walked quickly past where [members of the] press were gathered and said in a loud voice, “That was gaslighting!”
The Rev. Mae Elise Cannon, head of Churches for Middle East Peace, one of the sponsors of the conference, also expressed frustration with the address.
In an email statement after the address, she wrote:
Vice President Vance gave lip service to international religious freedom and liberty for all. However, the subtext of his message included deeply disturbing assumptions about the superiority of Christianity and the idea that only the ‘right kind of people’ should have complete freedom and human rights. As a follower of Jesus, the idea that America is a ‘Christian nation’ ignores the multi-faceted, complex, and often oppressive history of the United States.
The RNS report continues:
Cannon also wrote that Vance “did not say that our churches and Christians are protected when we seek to live out our faith by ‘welcoming the stranger’ and protecting the undocumented,” a possible reference to the Trump administration’s decision to rescind the sensitive locations policy — an internal government policy created in 2011 that discourages immigration raids at schools, hospitals and churches. The decision is currently the subject of a lawsuit filed against the administration by Quaker groups who argue the government’s actions violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. At least one immigrant was reportedly arrested while attending worship at a church in Atlanta last week.
Cannon, whose group has long advocated for Palestinians, also criticized Vance for not mentioning that “the rights of Palestinian Muslims and Christians have been violated in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas” or “the ways Jewish people have been suffering from increased antisemitism around the world because of being unilaterally associated with the unjust policies of the State of Israel.”
Interestingly, Vance’s speech came the morning after Trump proposed that the U.S. “take over” the Gaza Strip and relocate Palestinians displaced by the Israel-Hamas war elsewhere.
It appears that the struggle for religious liberty has a rocky road ahead.
Vaughn E. James