Says JD Vance, quoted in "JD Vance on the Morality of the Trump Administration/I asked the vice president what is Christian about this White House" (NYT).
Truth = what works.
June 18, 2026
"It was just like: I want to win the social competition. I want to be better than other people. And I wanted to go to the best school..."
"... so I got into Yale Law School. And I wanted the best jobs, and I wanted to make the most money. But the thing I realized is that this kind of striving had made me pretty hollow. It had made me less interesting than some of the Christians that I know who seemed to have things figured out much better than the 'elites' that I had surrounded myself with. And I just started searching for something that answered the more important questions, like: How do you be a good father? How do you be a good husband? So one way that I would put this is, and this goes back to the personal relationship thing, is, yes, I do think religion serves a socially useful role. I think the evidence is quite clear that people and families that are raised with some sort of institutionalized faith are happier and healthier and more well-adjusted. But I also think: Isn’t that evidence that there’s something about Christianity that’s particularly true? That if these people who believe these things and practice the faith in these ways — I come back to this phrase, I think it’s from the Book of Matthew: 'By your fruits you shall know them.'"
Says JD Vance, quoted in "JD Vance on the Morality of the Trump Administration/I asked the vice president what is Christian about this White House" (NYT).
Says JD Vance, quoted in "JD Vance on the Morality of the Trump Administration/I asked the vice president what is Christian about this White House" (NYT).
Posts
116 comments:
What is Christian about this White House? It’s the most pro life administration in my lifetime. Roe has been rolled back to a states’ issue. The side effects and moral hazards of mifepristone are being disseminated. Discrimination on the basis of skin color has ended. The once ubiquitous and overbearing pride rainbow is on the wane. A culture of marriage is implicitly being nourished. The apparatus of the state is no longer being used against Christians as “extremists”. The cabinet often openly prays and frequently acknowledges God. The pushback against transing the kids has been effective. Things like civic order, duty, responsibility are valued again in public discourse. A robust defense of the west as Christendom is underway.
Look at you, Mr. Vice-President… you’re all unburdened by what has been!
It’s just an excerpt but of course the question in the link is never answered. More astonishing to me is why the NYT never asks the Muslims to defend their actions or explain “what is Islamic about” their platform. But I do wonder. Is it the institutional Jew hatred? The desire to overthrow our government for theocracy? Subjugated women? The way Islamists are the most destructive colonizers on earth?
But no, only Christians must answer publicly to the heathen press.
Wasn’t that Elle Woods’ graduation speech from “Legally Blonde”?
What was Christian about Obama?
Where was the grilling and obsession from the Soviet(D) media?
Asusual, the comments over there are LIT!
Obama Claimed he was a Christian. Pelosi a good pro-abortion Catholic.
Where is the grilling? The questions?
To Soviets(D) - all morality flows from the lies & half-truths of their chosen religion. An all powerful one-party state.
NYT - the same people who cherish the almighty Islamic Supremacist Theocracy.
And the atheistic stalin
I was a very confused man when I met my late wife, Myrna. I was steeped in 60s hippie ideology and determined to live up to it. She astonished me one day by saying: “Why don’t you do things the way people have always done them?” That was the beginning of my return to the Catholic Church.
When any non-leftist cultist or elitist talks openly about anything - they are mocked by the Soviet left (D).
news at 11.
JD Vance just wrote a book on his return to faith. Questions about practical applications of his faith are relevant.
It would be interesting to hear politicians talk about how their Islamic faith influences how they do their job.
"Truth = what works."
Jeremy Bentham has entered the chat.
It's "By THEIR fruits you shall know them."
Like showing a cross to a vampire
“ It's "By THEIR fruits you shall know them."
The metaphor is that a tree is known by the fruit it produces. Likewise, a person’s true character, beliefs, or intentions are revealed by the results of their actions rather than merely by their words or claims.
Scripture often speaks to the general and the particular. Vance is noting that he judges himself by his own actions and claims. As most Christians do.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZBY1NHDKFB/
You know my name
Look, look, look up the number
You know my name
That's right, look up the number
You, you know, you know my name
You, you know, you know my name
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Look up the number
You know my name
That's right, look up the number
The press asks a politician an interesting question about a profound subject and the politician responds in an interesting, profound way. Why would Althouse’s dopey commenters be butthurt about that?
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Proll - what profound question?
"Truth = what works."
Kind of harsh, Ann.
I said it’s an interesting question that received a profound response. The question is right there in the Times headline. For a believing Christian it’s a softball right down the middle of the plate.
Because the questioner favors the old ones
I love how non-Christians at the NYTs and in the Democrat party love to pass judgement on Christians about what is and isn't Christian.
"Judge not lest ye be judged." - Matthew 7:1
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." Matthew 7: 3-5
“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” - Matthew 22:21
What is Christian about the New York Times?
Truth = what works
While that's not completely true (in most cases Newtonian mechanics works perfectly to our ability to determine), because "what works" isn't always "the truth, it IS true that "what doesn't work" == "not true".
For example: socialism
If X has failed every time it's tried, and your answer is "that wasn't real X". the real answer is "it's not possible for humans to do real X, and therefore you're lying when you say you expect a good outcome this time."
All I care about, and all I want to judge is the fruits, but the world keeps getting distracted by everything else.
"Truth = what works"?
That snark does not follow from Vance's remarks.
Gusty Winds said...
I love how non-Christians at the NYTs and in the Democrat party love to pass judgement on Christians about what is and isn't Christian.
Mechanics aren't machines, engineers are not bridges, geologists are not rocks. What offends you is that nagging feeling of being watched, judged and categorized by Jane Goodall.
Best law school?
JD didn't attend Wisconsin or Creighton.
"I love how non-Christians at the NYTs and in the Democrat party love to pass judgement on Christians about what is and isn't Christian."
Literally le meme. They're all so tiresome.
Depends on how you interpret Althouse’s formula, truth = what works. Do you read left to right and see “truth is what works” or do you read backwards and conclude it says “whatever works is the truth”?
Guy walking through the Pearly Gates: "Well whatdya know...It worked!"
Joy Behar April 26, 2026 on The View, “Jesus himself did not run around saying, ‘I’m the Messiah, I’m the Messiah.’ ... Jesus was not narcissistic like this guy.”
Actually, that's exactly what Jesus did.
John 4: 25-26
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you. I am he.”
Are we supposed to take the NYTs, liberal atheists, and Joy Behar seriously when they lecture us about Jesus Christ?
The lie is what works. The truth can't even get it's pants on.
and he had been prophesied in isiah 51, 400 years before , does Joy know anything,
“Mechanics aren't machines, engineers are not bridges, geologists are not rocks. What offends you is that nagging feeling of being watched, judged and categorized by Jane Goodall.”
Lol. Bad example. Goodall was famously amazed when her chimps turned out not to be the animals she had made so many wrong assumptions about.
The Israelites expected a secular warrior as messiah who would lead a revolution against the occupying Romans. Jesus Christ defeated the Romans, just not in the way the Jews wanted.
Point is there was a bit of separation between "salvation" and state.
Jesus was born in Bethlehem as prophesied, but the catalyst that took Joseph, Mary, and Jesus to Bethlehem was the call for a Census by Cesar Augustus. They obeyed the Roman census.
The best thing about atheists is that you get to lecture Christians about their religion. Because even as you lecture, in your heart you know they’re Christians and won’t be issuing any fatwas against you.
and that was what infuriated many, even among his followers,
now the sicarii got their long awaited revolt and we know how that ended, Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24
now the passage about 'the poor will be with us' is not about poverty, but the availability of the Word,
Liberals want to noodle whip everyone with "Christianity" in order to keep borders open in the western world so they can import voters. To deport these illegal voters, or control the border is "un-Christian."
But a blind eye is turned on aborted babies, poison vaccines, drag shows for first graders, bearing false witness about voter fraud, the current suicidal compassion for Islam, and their satanic thug squad ANTIFA. I could almost throw the teachers union in there.
Nobody is without sin. The GOPe is full of shit. And we ALL KNOW Trump's sins. That nation was allowed to pass judgement on him, and elected him twice. The second victory saved him from all the false prosecutions, and us from Hillary and Kamala Harris.
600,000 Americans died during the Civil War under Abraham Lincoln in order to put an end to slavery.
That was horribly Christian.
Truman dropped the bomb and killed 250K in order to save and estimated 1 million Allied casualties, and another 2 million Japanese casualties.
That too was horribly Christian.
Failure is our default setting; from Adam's Paradise to Frodo's LOTR.
In Jesus, however; "Jordan Peterson views the story of Jesus as the ultimate archetype of the innocent individual confronting the absolute suffering of the world. He interprets Christ's journey as a psychological roadmap for how humans must voluntarily face chaos, embrace their "cross," and undergo necessary sacrifice to achieve renewal and meaning."
JD didn't attend Wisconsin or Creighton.
Wisconsin Law burned out Helen Dugan. You’d think the faculty would be ashamed of themselves.
@Gusty Winds, 240,000 of those 600,000 were Confederates, fighting to preserve the South’s “Peculiar Institution.”
“… turned out …” not “… burned out …”
@Althouse, are you and Meade ever going to get a blogging tool that works with Firefox and Safari? Or at least restore the PREVIEW function?
P U This guy reeks of phoniness!
I agree with those who note that Althouse has it precisely backwards — it’s what works that equals truth,
This is the second Althouse post about Vance’s Christianity n two days. Why does his faith bother you so much, Professor.
douthat is the definition of a Pharisaic type
…let the shitting on 2028 JD begin.
“This is the second Althouse post about Vance’s Christianity n two days. Why does his faith bother you so much, Professor..”
Oddly, I thought this (“truth = what works”) was Althouse’s endorsement of Christianity.
“Truth=what works.” Was that in there somewhere?
Proll - what profound question?
Oh I can answer that- the anti-christian reporter wants to know how a man who claims christian faith, how that man can claim to be a Christian when he works for literally Satan? Orange Hitler Satan…
Prole - help me out - what is the NYT question asked?
Truth doesn't exist. It's a singularity. Is Christianity a well functioning operating system? Sure, as long as the Christians are actually pagans whom continue to celebrate our most cherished pagan holidays.
You need to stop day drinking, April.
"I asked the vice president what is Christian about this White House" (NYT).
Big Mike said...
@Gusty Winds, 240,000 of those 600,000 were Confederates, fighting to preserve the South’s “Peculiar Institution.”
Sure. But history still counts them as "American". Yes they were the belligerents, but they were American before the war, and after. Although on the wrong side, they were Americans who were were directly involved in settling the question.
Howard said...What offends you is that nagging feeling of being watched, judged and categorized by Jane Goodall.
and...Truth doesn't exist. It's a singularity. Is Christianity a well functioning operating system? Sure, as long as the Christians are actually pagans whom continue to celebrate our most cherished pagan holidays.
1) You have not idea what offends me. You don't offend me. You're just kind of annoying.
2) It's too bad you believe Christians are pagans. You'd be better off believing in Jesus Christ. It might make you less annoying.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously to weaken the law restricting gun ownership to drug users.
I don't have a problem with the decision, but it's interesting what things get them all on the same page.
"You'd be better off believing in Jesus Christ. It might make you less annoying."
What do you say, Howard? It's worth a shot.
Thank you Howard. You helped me out.
I missed the question at the bottom. very bottom.
"Truth is what works" is the old American idea of pragmatism. There's the vulgar pragmatism of truth is what works for me -- what betters my condition and gives me wealth and power -- but it was also a more subtle and less crude philosophical movement. In an age of increasing unbelief William James justified religious belief because of its ability (AI says) "to foster moral energy, courage, and a sense of meaningful connection" (note the similarities and differences to Pascal's wager centuries before).
The counterargument would be that religion's effects weren't all good and that religion's effects today say nothing about what actually happened millennia ago, but religions do have the ability to correct bad effects, and we will never really know whether what happened in biblical times was literally true.
Once there were prophets. Now there are bureaucrats. Eric Hoffer was right: "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." AI reminds us that his actual words were less sonorous and less decisive: "What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation." In any case, our world is more like Tom Wolfe's than Charles Dickens'. NGOs and government bureaus and programs are already in existence and have their own agendas that don't always coincide with simple notions of doing good.
I like being annoying. Stress testing is the fastest way to get to the root of any problem.
Flip question:: what is likeable in Islam?
“The best thing about atheists is that you get to lecture Christians about their religion. Because even as you lecture, in your heart you know they’re Christians and won’t be issuing any fatwas against you.”
We still have to guard against complacency. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
“And I just started searching for something that answered the more important questions, like: How do you be a good father?”
Maybe skip the Old Testament on that one.
the bizarre angles that the media takes to a publically affirming Christian
Howard - please pour me a drink. My cabinet is empty.
NYT Q: Mr. Obama - you tell us you are a Christian - "what is Christian about the White House?" ... "oh sorry I said "white".
"Truth = what works" is just summary of what Vance said. It's not my opinion. Quite the opposite.
we have been on a quest of unknowledge, trying to apply techniques that don't work, as opposed that which has been tried and true,
“I think the evidence is quite clear that people and families that are raised with some sort of institutionalized faith are happier and healthier and more well-adjusted. But I also think: Isn’t that evidence that there’s something about Christianity that’s particularly true?”
One could consider it evidence that ignorance is bliss.
pagans whom continue
How is anyone supposed to take this seriously?
“Truth = what works" is just [my interpretation] of what Vance said ….” There. Fixed.
"Why does his faith bother you so much, Professor."
Vance might become president one day. We might want to know him in advance.
Whether J.D. Vance went to Harvard or Yale, neither is sending us their best.
“What is Christian about the New York Times?”
Not a damn thing. They never “turn a cheek”, they spread their cheeks.
We already know a great deal about him. He wrote a book about himself. Not he got a big advance for a book, some political strategist ghost writer wrote a tongue bath and nobody bought it, a bona fide book that people purchased and read. Other people bought the movie rights. People watched the movie. He won’t need five introductions to voters the way Kamala did, though we all knew her story, too…
If a just God exists, then reality is God created. Truth works precisely because it embodies reality. Illusions and lies, however comforting, pull you away from God and ultimately don’t work.
God is Truth
“If a just God exists, then reality is God created. Truth works precisely because it embodies reality. Illusions and lies, however comforting, pull you away from God and ultimately don’t work.”
If.
"Illusions and lies, however comforting, pull you away from God and ultimately don’t work."
"Every lie makes you indebted to the truth, and that debt will eventually be paid." - Valery Legasov, IAEA investigator during Chernobyl incident
The Universe is always watching.
What is time again?
I wish JD had turned the question arounda and inquired what, exactly did the interviewer think was not Christian about "the White House." Once things got specific, a much more enlightening dialogue would have ensued. But it's never like that, is it? Christianity is always accused and on trial by the heathens who themselves wouldn't know a Bible verse from a Dr. Seuss poem, yet fancy themselves experts in theology.
Eva and IamDevo - spot on.
The correct interpretation of Vance's comments is that what works is evidence of what's true.
It is very common for people to wander from their religion in their teens and return with marriage and children.
When you look at Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and 1400 years of Islam it’s easy to see that Christianity exceeds Organized Atheism & Islam. Buddhism & Hinduism have value but the cultures tend toward lethargy.
Christianity comports with a vigorous society that promotes science & the arts.
Secular Humanism causes mental illness.
“I wanted the best jobs, and I wanted to make the most money. But the thing I realized is that this kind of striving had made me pretty hollow.”
Christianity as an anti-captitalist path to dropping out of the rate race.
“It had made me less interesting than some of the Christians that I know who seemed to have things figured out much better than the 'elites' that I had surrounded myself with.”
To put names to these hollow elites that were around Vance, the obvious candidates are Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Yeah lefty bank - your hollow democrats are superior to all of that.
Tell us about Newsum's 9 million dollar mansion.
Or Zuckerberg's massive mansions.
Lefty Bank -
Now do Wyss,
Zuckerberg, Reid Hoffman, Bloomberg, George Soros -
Musk creates jobs and makes millionaires.
Soros sucks them dry.
Vance spoke about Christianity because he is a Christian but I took his comments about the benefits of religion and religious practice more generally. I do the same for religions generally, except for Islam which demands supremacy and has a goal of world domination. Many Christians act that way too but I don't get that sense from Vance -- he's very respectful of his wife who is not a Christian.
Islam and Leftist Communism have a lot in common. "World Domination"
Christianity really pisses some people off.
Christianity really pisses some people off.
What I like about atheists is the absolute faith they have in their religion.
Peachy, isn’t Zuckerberg now on your team? In any case, I’m not the one calling Thiel and Musk hollow, that would be J.D. Vance. If he meant someone else, I’m very curious who. Or perhaps I’m being ungenerous in my reading of his remark, and the only person he thought hollow was himself.
Vance is an embarrassment. His duplicity is only matched by his lack of self awareness.
“Christianity comports with a vigorous society that promotes science & the arts.”
Galileo would like a word.
Christianity ruled Europe for a thousand years after the fall of Rome. That period is known as the Dark Ages.
The Dark Ages are 476 to 1000. The Hagia Sophia was built during The Dark Ages. Before Mohammed raped his first 9 year old.
The Canterbury Tales were written during your Dark Ages.
Galileo was born the same year as Shakespeare. He lived to be 77.
“Galileo was found guilty, and the sentence of the Inquisition, issued on 22 June 1633,[59] was in three essential parts:
Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy", namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to "abjure, curse, and detest" those opinions.[60]
He was sentenced to formal imprisonment at the pleasure of the Inquisition.[61] On the following day this was commuted to house arrest, which he remained under for the rest of his life.”
He died in 1642. The Church held off the Enlightenment as long as they could.
Islam (backwards) Malsl (reads in Spanish) Mal es el (trans into English) He's the bad one. 😲
So Galileo wasn’t executed. The Church isn’t The Nazis, Muslims, Bolsheviks and Maoists. Atheists and Muslims kill their detractors.
The Divine Comedy was also written during The Smiling Jack Dark Ages.
Are you Smiling because you are stupid?
The only reason we know anything about the ancients like Socrates and Aristotle and Ptolemy is because Christian monks went out in the world and searched out their works in order to preserve them.
The Dark Ages weren't the Dark Ages because of Christianity but because of the fractured nature of Europe at the time. Capernicus was a contemporary of Galileo.
Narciso at 9:58 a.m.
“does Joy know anything”
No. Absolutely nothing.
“So Galileo wasn’t executed. The Church isn’t The Nazis, Muslims, Bolsheviks and Maoists. Atheists and Muslims kill their detractors.”
The Christians did the best they could considering the limited weapons and population they had to work with.
“The European Wars of Religion wiped out roughly 6% to 11% of Europe's total population”
Not bad. By comparison,
“Around 7% to 8% of the entire European population died during World War II”
“The only reason we know anything about the ancients like Socrates and Aristotle and Ptolemy is because Christian monks went out in the world and searched out their works in order to preserve them.”
“While Muslims were translating and adding their own interpretations to Greek philosophies, the Latin West was still suspicious of pagan ideas. Leaders of the Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire also frowned upon philosophy, and the Empire had just gone through a period of plague, famine, and war.[44] Further west, several key figures in European history who came after Boethius had strengthened the overwhelming shift away from Hellenistic ideas. For centuries, Greek ideas in Europe were all but non-existent, until the Eastern part of the Roman Empire – Byzantium – was sacked during the Fourth Crusade unlocking a number of Ancient Greek texts.[45] Within Western Europe, only a few monasteries had Greek works, and even fewer of them copied these works.[22]”
Indeed, he hasn’t had to strive or compromise at all, which is why he changed so many positions, conveniently, around 2019.
Christianity was doing this, Jack, before Islam was invented.
Smilin' Jack,
Galileo ended up as he did, instead of like Copernicus, in large heart because he was an arrogant, belligerent asshole.
Meanwhile the Church's teaching about the solar system wasn't me only as rigid as you seem to think. Thomas Aquinas wrote in the Summa something along the lines of this, in the introduction to the section about the Ptolemeic model of the solar system (this is my years later recollection of someone else's translation):
"An account is given of eccentrics and epicycles on the grounds that these explain the visible motions of the planets. But this is not a strict proof, since for all we know the motions could be accounted for as wee by some other explanation."
Aquinas and his peers were not in any way moderns, but they were certainly devoted to a very strict application of logic.
"... in large PART..." (Geez, voice dictate, do I really mumble that badly?)
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