Faith and politics

Every U.S. president for nearly 250 years has claimed to be Christian—a streak that will remain unbroken no matter who wins in November. Former President Donald Trump calls himself a nondenominational Christian. His running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, is Catholic. Sitting Vice President Kamala Harris identifies as Baptist, while her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is Lutheran.

Each candidate’s faith is a deeply personal matter, and their policy positions may spring from sincere belief. But the candidates differ wildly, often diametrically, on how their faith informs their policies, despite claims of a shared religion.

Mark Caleb Smith, a political science professor at Cedarville University, says that’s because the label “Christian” doesn’t mean much anymore, at least when it comes to politics: “While a majority [of candidates] claim to be Christian, defining what that means is complicated.”

Smith believes candidates’ faith doesn’t matter as much in this election as it did in years past. America’s religious diversity and increasing secularism mean that “partisanship, ideology, and likability are far more important” than faith in determining a candidate’s success, he said.

But faith claims still shape candidates’ appeals to voters—just as what they believe drives their policy positions.

Of the four, Harris has been the most tight-lipped about her spiritual beliefs. The vice president was raised by a Christian father and a Hindu mother before marrying a Jewish lawyer, Doug Emhoff. Harris grew up attending both church and a Hindu temple. She softly referenced the parable of the good Samaritan while campaigning in 2019, and quoted Nehemiah at the 2022 National Prayer Breakfast.

Rev. Amos Brown has known Harris for 30 years. He leads the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco, where Harris holds active membership. When asked to describe Harris’ convictions, Brown simply said she has “good religion.”

“Any faith or religious belief that does not join people together is bad religion,” he said. “Her religion is good because she’s not a divider, she’s a uniter.”

Brown cited Harris’ belief in universal healthcare and free education as examples of her faith in action. He also defended Harris’ support for legal and broadly accessible abortion: “No one else should rob you or me of the freedom to do what you wish with your own body, as long as you’re not bothering anyone else.”

By choosing Walz as her running mate, Harris could hope to draw support from the evangelical voting pool. Walz describes himself as a “Minnesota Lutheran” and attends Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul. The church is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a liberal denomination that ordains openly gay members as clergy and performs same-sex marriages.

Walz often alludes loosely to the golden rule and an ethos of neighbor­liness as a basis for Democratic Party initiatives. But the governor came under fire in 2020 for barring churches in Minnesota from gathering in-person during the pandemic. In 2023, Walz signed a law allowing minors to receive transgender procedures against their parents’ wishes.

“Tim Walz is no friend of religious liberty, the rights of the unborn, and the welfare of young people,” the Catholic League said in a statement after he joined the Democratic ticket.

Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance had a nominally evangelical upbringing but spent his college and early adult years calling himself an atheist. In 2019, shortly before entering politics, Vance converted to Catholicism.

In a 2020 essay for The Lamp, a Catholic journal, Vance said his atheism stemmed from “a desire for social acceptance among American elites” who surrounded him in college and at Yale Law School. But after hearing a talk by venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who describes himself as a Christian but is married to another man, Vance said he realized success alone could neither satisfy his desire for personal character growth nor fix societal problems. He credits Thiel with sparking his renewed interest in faith.

Vance spent several years reading Catholic moral philosophers and studying under a Dominican friar before joining the church, with the support of his wife Usha, who is Hindu.

But his stance on key issues important to Catholics has softened significantly since he first took office. Vance said he wanted to eliminate abortion when he ran for Ohio’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2021, but he’s followed Trump’s lead on abortion policy since receiving the vice-­presidential nomination. During an NBC interview in early July, Vance said he supports a recent Supreme Court decision that, in his own words, determined that “the American people should have access” to abortion pills. “Donald Trump has supported that opinion. I support that opinion,” he said. The drug is used in about 63 percent of U.S. abortions.

Michael Pakaluk, professor of political economy at The Catholic University of America, called Vance’s comments “discouraging.” But he sees Vance’s shift as part of the Republican Party’s overall move away from Christianity, signaled by the removal of formerly strong pro-life language from its platform. In an unusual contrast, Trump struck a more reverent tone at the convention, following the failed attempt to assassinate him at a Pennsylvania rally.

“I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” he told delegates. “I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God. And watching the reports over the last few days, many people say it was a providential moment. Probably was.”

Trump, who was confirmed in a Presbyterian church as a child, has continued his strategy of making broad faith-based statements in an effort to appeal to evangelicals. The former president maintains close ties with evangelical leaders who supported his previous campaigns, including Pentecostal megachurch pastor Paula White, Dallas First Baptist Church pastor Robert Jeffress, and Tim Clinton, president of the American Association of Christian Counselors.

At a June 22 Faith and Freedom Coalition conference, Trump promised to defend religious liberty but suggested Christians weren’t upholding their end of the political bargain. He said evangelicals “go to church every Sunday, but …don’t vote that much.” If they did, he said, they could have much more influence over politics: “Do you know how much power you could have?”

Trump’s changed stance on abortion hasn’t dented the support from his base, at least not yet. But Pakaluk warns the Republican slide away from traditional conservative positions on social issues, including abortion, may eventually hurt the ticket. Social conservatives who saw Trump and Vance as the “lesser of two evils” may choose to stay home or vote third-party instead. “A lot of people are saying this is just two evils now,” Pakaluk said.

Smith, the Cedarville political science professor, said candidates’ statements about their faith and convictions may continue to shift leading up to November, as they attempt to reel in more support: “I think for most politicians, their policy preferences are most influenced by the people who vote for them.”