Here's what Vice President JD Vance just told believers about Trump's religious freedom plans

Yahoo

05-02-2025

Vice President JD Vance promised Wednesday that President Donald Trump's second administration will vigorously defend religious freedom, saying it already is expanding on the achievements of the first administration.
'You shouldn't have to leave your faith at the door of your people's government, and under President Trump's leadership, you won't have to,' Vance said to cheers and applause at the fifth annual IRF Summit in Washington, D.C. He is the highest-ranking American government figure to ever address the international religious freedom conference.
Vance arrived to a standing ovation and cheers from more than 1,000 people in the ballroom at the Washington Hilton, a mile-and-a-half from the White House. He received another standing ovation after a 12-minute speech, during which he called religious freedom 'the bedrock of civil society in the United States of America.'
'This administration is intent on not just restoring but on expanding the achievements of the first four years,' Vance said. 'In this short period, the president has issued orders ending the weaponization of the federal government against religious Americans, pardoned pro-life protesters who were unjustly imprisoned under the last administration and, importantly, stopped the federal censorship used to prevent Americans from speaking their conscience and speaking their mind, whether it's in their communities or online.'
Vance's speech was followed immediately by addresses by former 'The Office' star Rainn Wilson and Brett Scharffs, director of BYU's International Center for Law and Religion Studies. The prime minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, spoke later in the same session.
Vance also addressed an elephant in the room, the blanket freeze of funds that affected a significant portion of the groups attending the international religious freedom summit.
Vance said the Trump's first term was a new high water mark for religious Americans.
'He took decisive action to defend religious liberty, combat antisemitism and preserve the conscience rights of hospital workers and faith-based Ministries as they provide care to their fellow Americans, and to remove barriers from religious organizations and businesses to contract with the federal government,' the vice president said.
He also said Trump emphasized the role of religious freedom in foreign policy from China to the Middle East, Europe and Africa.
'The first Trump administration took critical steps to protect the rights of the faithful, whether that was by rescuing pastors who were persecuted by foreign regimes or bringing relief to the Yazidis, Christians and other faith communities facing genocidal terror from ISIS.'
He said that will continue in the next four years.
'Part of our protecting religious freedom initiatives means recognizing, in our foreign policy, the difference between regimes that respect religious freedom and those that do not,' Vance said. 'The United States must be able to make that distinction. We must be able to look at the catastrophes like the plight of Iraq's Christians over the past three decades, and possess the moral clarity to act when something has gone wrong.
'Now this administration stands ready to do so.'
IRF co-chair Katrina Lantos Swett, a Democrat, expressed gratitude for Vance's visit.
'I think it's a reflection of the respect and support, really, for what this movement is about, that even in the very early days of the administration, the vice president made time to join us and spoke so eloquently about the cause we're engaged in,' she said.
The IRF Summit is a major bipartisan, multifaith international religious freedom conference that draws religious leaders, academics, nonprofit organizers and government leaders from dozens of countries. Last year, 1,500 people joined the summit from 41 countries.
'Thank you all for convening and participating in this summit, which is upon a topic whose importance unfortunately grows with each passing moment and hopefully our administration can help,' Vance said.
A year ago, former Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the IRF Summit, where he said those working for the cause of freedom of religions are making God's work on Earth their own.
Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles attended Vance's speech. Elder Soares spoke at the summit's opening reception on Monday night, when he said that protecting human rights is pivotal to peacemaking, an essential focus of all religions.
Elder Soares is scheduled to address the summit again later today representing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Vance defended Trump's move to freeze funds to nongovernmental organizations a day after the administration shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, which controlled more than $40 billion in government spending in fiscal year 2023. One of USAID's portfolios was to promote religious freedom and advance it as a major, bipartisan foreign policy priority of the United States.
Vance said the administration moved to stop the misuse of some funds.
'In recent years, too often, our nation's international engagement on religious liberty issues has been corrupted and distorted to the point of absurdity,' he said. '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?
'That is not what leadership on protecting the rights of the faithful looks like, and it ends with this administration.'
The message resonated with Gordon Klingenschmitt of Pray in Jesus Name Ministries. He called the talk a 'home run.'
'This is one of the first big conferences in Washington after the new Congress and new administration are sworn in, and the people who organized this had this kind of energy in mind, and the crowd is jazzed. The crowd is fired up. We're ready to win, and we can't get enough of it,' Klingenschmitt said.
He supported Trump's blanket funding freeze.
'I agree with pausing all of it until Marco Rubio, who's now acting director of USAID, sorts it out,' Klingenschmitt said. 'He is the right person for that job. He's a person of personal faith. He has the wisdom and insight to see which are real development projects ... and which ones are just wasting our money.'
Vance praised Trump for nominating Rubio as secretary of state.
'I believe he is one of the great living champions of religious liberty across the globe, a person whose dedication to religious liberty flows from his faith in the same way that mine does,' Vance said.
Vance said the guiding principle will be that the source of religious liberty is a recognition that all are equal under the rights and laws of God.
'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,' he said.
The vice president said he grew up in a family that did not attend church regularly but recalled the deep impact it made on him when it did.
'The church was a place, it still is, where people of different races, different backgrounds, different walks of life came together in commitment to their shared communities and forcing commitment to their God,' he said. 'It was a place where the CEO of a company and the worker of a company stood equal before their worship of God. It was a place where people united, not just in the pews, but in acts of service, on mission trips, charity drives and in rallying around one another in times of sickness or grief or, of course, in celebration of new life.
'Are these not the kinds of bonds and virtues [that] lawmakers today should strive to cultivate? Well, I'm pleased to say that they certainly were in the first Trump administration, and they will be even more so in the second.'
Vance said religious liberty is about more than legal safeguards.
'It is also about fostering a culture in which faith can thrive, so that men and women can fully appreciate and respect the God-given rights of their fellow citizens.'
He said religious liberty calls people to kindness.
'We know in America, faith nurtures our communities,' he said. 'At home and abroad, it fosters a love for one's neighbors, it inspires generosity and purpose, it calls us to treat one another with dignity, to lift up those in need, and to build nations grounded in moral principle.'
Vance called for unified work for religious liberty.
'I pray that together, we will be able to better protect the dignity of all peoples, as well as the rights of all believers to practice their faith according to the dictates of their confidence,' he said.
'So thank you all for your work in preserving religious liberty. Thank you for safeguarding the rights of faith communities across the globe, and thank you most of all for believing, because we know that the source of religious liberty is the recognition that all of us are equal under the rights and laws of God, and that principle will guide us in the years to come.'