While Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate between Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was a notably civil and issue-focused affair, Christian supporters rallied online for their preferred candidates and, more often, attacked the opposing candidate.
The debate touched on a number of issues of concern for Christians, from abortion — an animating issue for evangelical voters — to war, immigration and health care. However, there were only two explicit references to Christian faith from the candidates.
The first was from Walz in an exchange about immigration, in which the Minnesota governor said the rhetoric around immigrants in the country, and specifically toward Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, was dehumanizing.
Republican vice presidential nominee U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) speaks at a campaign rally at Radford University on July 22, 2024, in Radford, Va. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“This is what happens when you don’t want to solve it. You demonize it,” Walz said. “I don’t talk about my faith a lot but Matthew 25:40 talks about ‘To the least amongst us you do unto me.’ I think that’s true of most Americans. They simply want order to it,” he concluded, referring to the immigration process.
The second reference came from Vance when the debate turned to abortion. The Ohio senator claimed a Minnesota law signed by Walz did not require a doctor to provide “lifesaving care” to a baby who survives a “botched, late-term abortion.”
“That is fundamentally barbaric,” Vance charged. He then turned the issue to Walz. “Do you want to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their will? Because Kamala Harris has supported suing Catholic nuns to violate their freedom of conscience.”
Vance’s assertions about the 2023 law are “misleading,” according to a fact check from CBS. “Previously, the law required medical professionals to take all reasonable measures to ‘preserve the life and health of the born alive infant.’ After the update, medical personnel are required to take all reasonable measures to ‘care for the infant who is born alive’ — a change advocates say allows parents of infants not expected to survive to forgo extraordinary and futile interventions,” CBS reported.
Christians on both sides were ready to express their thoughts throughout the debate, hitting on abortion, the candidates’ performance and personality and the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Mark Driscoll
Mark Driscoll, the controversial megachurch pastor who now leads Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Ariz., was tweeting throughout the debate and took particular issue with Walz’s quoting of Scripture and support of abortion. “Tim Walz is a diabolical and demonic man. Any man who quotes the Lord Jesus Christ and supports abortion up till birth is disgusting and disgraceful,” he tweeted to his 456,000 followers.
In a livestream response on YouTube after the debate, Driscoll went on to call the Minnesota governor an “apostate” and said the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the denomination he is a part of, is an “abomination.
Sean Feucht, an extreme right-wing Christian dominionist personality, sings at a gathering of evangelical zionists on April 25, 2024. (Photo by John Rudoff/Sipa USA via AP Images)
Former President Donald Trump supporter and musician Sean Feucht, who came to prominence for holding a series of outdoor revivals during the COVID-19 pandemic, also honed in on abortion, although he took issue with both vice presidential candidates. “Millions of beautiful babies & dreams of God murdered on the altar of convenience every year in America. Tim Walz’s response: ‘Just mind your own business!” Feucht decried. “TIME TO END ABORTION!” he concluded in all caps.
While Feucht celebrated Vance’s debate performance, he also admonished the Republican for his response on abortion. “JD has absolutely crushed this debate minus the weird, apologetic and weak response on abortion,” he said on X.
Vance followed a tack similar to Trump on abortion policy, saying he wanted to “let the individual states make their abortion policy” and shying away from a national abortion ban. “I never supported a national ban,” Vance said. “I did, when I was running for Senate in 2022, talk about setting some minimal national standard.”
“For example,” he continued, “we have a partial abortion ban in place in this country at the federal level. I don’t think anybody’s trying to get rid of that, or at least, I hope not.”
According to reporting from the Independent, Vance said he would “certainly like abortion to be illegal nationally,” in a 2022 interview on the “Very Fine People” podcast.
Lance Wallnau
Evangelical preacher and televangelist Lance Wallnau, who last weekend hosted Vance at a stop of his Courage Tour aimed at rallying Christian supporters in swing states, shared his thoughts on performance and personality, rather than the issues discussed in the debate.
In a video, Wallnau said, “Obviously JD Vance shattered the idea that he’s weird or he’s not to be trusted. If anything, he absolutely helped Trump with voters that were looking for a reason to vote for Trump but don’t like Trump. They could say ‘Well, I like JD Vance,’ and that has a certain measure of impact.”
“He outperformed the expectations of a lot of people and he established who he is. This debate was really his coming out party,” Wallnau concluded.
On the Walz side, Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, senior director of policy and advocacy at Interfaith Alliance, summed up the faith element of the debate succinctly while adding his own view: “Religion so far tonight #VPDebate: ✅ @Tim_Walz cites Matthew 25:40 talking about concern for immigrants X JD Vance cites Catholic opposition to denying reproductive health care for women.”
Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons
“Christian Americans: the choice is clear!” he declared.
William J. Barber II, president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, denounced Vance’s continued blaming of immigrants for the country’s woes. “Vance blames immigrants for housing costs. He blames immigrants for jobs lost. Vance blames immigrants for economic issues. And yet his facts on immigration are lies and distortions,” he wrote to his 316,000 followers.
William Barber preaches at Wild Goose 2019. (Photo courtesy of Wild Goose Festival)
What appeared to galvanize those on the left the most, however, was the debate’s final exchange over the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and Trump’s refusal to acknowledge he lost the 2020 election.
“Did he (Trump) lose the 2020 election?” Walz asked Vance bluntly during the interaction. “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance responded, refusing to answer the question directly.
It’s that refusal that Christians supporting the Democratic ticket find a disqualifying issue. “What future?” asked Jen Butler, head of faith outreach for the Harris-Walz campaign and a Presbyterian minister. “If we can’t face this, this democracy doesn’t have a future.”
“Tonight, JD Vance made it clear he would pick Trump over democracy. We can’t give him the chance.” Graves-Fitzsimmons asserted.
For popular author and preacher John Pavlovitz, who co-hosted a “Christians for Harris” virtual fundraiser in August, Vance’s response makes the election a binary choice. “Undecided voters only need to decide if they want a democracy or not,” he said.
Vance again refused to say who he believed won the 2020 presidential election at a rally in Michigan on Wednesday, the day after the debate. “The media’s obsessed with talking about the election of four years ago. I’m focused on the election of 33 days from now,” he said, according to the Associated Press.
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