To understand the reasons for this transformation, I sat down with JD Vance, the young senator from Ohio and author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, in his senate office. He is perhaps the most eloquent champion of a new Christian approach to politics—one that is less conventionally conservative, and more populist.
Vance’s populism has two major influences. One is the commonsense outlook of his Mamaw, a central figure in his memoir. She wasn’t a liberal, but she was turned off by what she saw as the preachiness and narrowness of the religious right. “When the moral majority was more powerful, my Mamaw had a certain scorn for it,” Vance says. The other is his understanding of Christian politics. “When we think about Christian conservatism, we think of sanctity of marriage, sanctity of life,” he tells me. “Of course these things are important and I certainly believe the Church’s teachings on all of these things. And yet, there’s an entire Christian moral and economic worldview that is completely cut out of modern American politics, and I think it’s important to try to bring that back.”
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