Vice President JD Vance had critics raising their eyebrows after he said during an interview with Christian conservative personality Bryce Crawford that he's "okay" with his attempts at doing "God's work" directly leading to the "end times."
Vance is currently promoting his new book about converting to Catholicism that HarperCollins has marketed as "a spiritual exploration of what it means to be a Christian in all the seasons of life JD Vance has experienced—as a child, a young man, a husband, a father, and a leader."
However, The Bulwark’s national political reporter Joe Perticone pointed out that the cover image—showing a rural Appalachian-style chapel—actually depicts Mount Zion Church in Elk Creek, Virginia, a United Methodist church rather than a Catholic one. Naturally, all of this has fueled renewed questions about the sincerity of Vance's religious conversion.
Many evangelicals and Christian nationalists have described the end times as a period of intense global turmoil culminating in the return of Jesus Christ. Vance told Crawford he has always "been fascinated by end-times prophecy and theology." He said he would not be surprised if the Antichrist were "walking among us" today or if the world were already living through the end times.
At the same time, Vance said his Catholic faith compels him to work toward shaping the world according to what he believes God wants:
“What I’m trying to focus on is doing as much of God’s work as possible right now, and if that leads to the end times, okay. And if that leads to, you know, us building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I’m gone, that’s great, too.”
You can hear what he said in the video below.
People don't think this is the sort of thing the vice president should be commenting on in the middle of an affordability crisis and with a war going on.
Vance has made headlines more than once for odd things he's said on the conservative podcast circuit.
Earlier this year, Vance told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that UFO sightings are actually "demons," adding that he'd entertained the notion of traveling to Area 51 to conduct his own investigation.
Vance said he is "more curious than anybody" about whether life exists on other planets, but offered his own Christian conspiracy theorist twist on the subject when asked about President Donald Trump's order to different agencies to "begin the process of identifying and releasing government files on aliens and extraterrestrial life."
He claimed that all major religions have "understood that there are weird things out there, and there are things that are very difficult to explain." He added that "when I hear about, sort of, extra-natural phenomenon — that's where I go to is the Christian understanding that, you know, there's a lotta good out there, but there's also some evil out there."
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