I wanted to understand the candidate J. D. Vance. Who is he? What makes him tick? Then I found out that there was a memoir of his life. It covers his childhood to his early 30s and the post-Yale Law School period very briefly. It is call the Hillbilly Elegy. I am trying to discern what God is saying. I am also trying to be discerning of all the prophetic voices, and some not too trustworthy. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all the media prophets would be accountable to a real eldership and would post where their accountability is? I am trying to discern. With the positives and negatives of Donald Trump, if God really desires him to be President, he will win. Surely this would fit the classic old hymn, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way His Wonders to Perform.” My interest is seeking the sense of God’s working in all of this to hope that it could be part of an outpouring of revival in America. This is the most important thing.
But now back to Vance. The Hillbilly Elegy is one of the most amazing books I have ever read. Vance grew up in the Hillbilly area of Kentucky. He grew up poor. The book is raw in honesty and sometimes coarse in language. He pulls no punches in describing his family members and their terrible dysfunctions. The drug addiction of his mother, the many men in her life, and the instability. He lived in so many places. His grandparents were separated though they lived near each other. They provided stability for his life between and in the midst of the upheavals. His older sister came out well and an aunt and uncle. He himself lived out several dysfunctions, rage, anger, and reactions, doing poorly in school for a season. In later high school, things began to turn around. He spent some time with his biological father who became a Fundamentalist Pentecostal. For a season he went to church with him and read the Bible from time to time. Finally, he joined the Marines seeking a a step forward. He served in Iraq. Interestingly, he describes the white underclass of the Hillbilly community as very similar to the Black underclass. Despite the claim that he is a white supremacist, it is clear that he empathizes with the black underclass. After the Marines, he did Ohio State’s 4-year program in two years and then went to Yale Law School. This had never happened to any in his community. Then he married an Indian classmate after graduation. He credits much of his growth and maturing in the years at Yale and after to her. He therefore is in an interracial marriage with interracial children.
Vance came to see that no amount of welfare can make up for a stable family and that this is the key to the way out of poverty. Many have argued this though today’s crucial race theory denies this. He therefore became a conservative. His identity is the working class and his heart is with the working class. He sees how the policies of the government have destroyed the economy of these poor areas, and they are economically hollowed out. In the afterward, he attributes his success to those who imparted to him. His gratitude to them is amazing. His forgiveness for his most dysfunctional family members is noteworthy. I teared up reading this.
Finally, after wrestling with Christianity and the many denominations, after writing this book he became a Catholic.
The Democrats now paint him as anti-woman due to an unfortunate statement about some of the single miserable women in the elite as cat ladies (women who cannot find acceptance in marriage and family and thus adopt cats. Amazing. We used this term when I was a kid. I wonder if this is a term in the Hillbilly community. But he is not anti-single women and attributes so much of his success to his grandmother.
The book is so honest, raw, and coarse. Ron Howard made it into a Netflix movie. So, Donald Trump picks a Hillbilly who graduated from Yale as his V. P. He is today a man interested in Christianity in a serious way. His heart is with the underclass.
I see the story as an amazing testimony to the grace of God. Can we look at such an unusual story of overcoming without seeing the hand of God in his life? J. D. Vance is unlike any politician in history, an overcomer from the greatest dysfunctionality who admits his ongoing battles with some of his inherited demons. I am convinced that God has his hand on him but cannot say what this will lead to. But I am convinced by his book that he is no racist, no white supremacist, and loves the underclass, black and white, and the working class. He desires policies that really help. He does see that some government help is beneficial but some programs are destructive. His identification with the underclass poor and the working class could be a revolution for the Republican Party, a significant re-alignment.
At any rate, I was moved by this book. May he find God’s power at new levels and may he come into such a place with his beautiful Indian wife that they could contribute to a revival in America. That is my prayer. I also note that he is pro-Israel. I heartily recommend reading the book.