“My grandmother, who raised me, she was a person who prayed, she was a person of very deep faith,” he said. “But I was never actually that rooted in any particular church, in any particular community of members.”

Recalling when a pastor involved in prison ministry told him that the friendships one cultivates can determine a person’s spiritual trajectory, Vance said he strayed as he found himself surrounded by friends who didn’t take religion seriously.

“I, unfortunately, had a lot of friends who were not people of faith,” he said. “I had a lot of people who just did not, I think, properly support me in my own faith journey, and so … I kind of just lost it.”

Vance, who noted his spiritual drift was gradual, suggested that many other young people raised religiously often find themselves in a similar situation because of a weak church community, which is later supplanted by something that offers stronger bonds.

“There wasn’t any particular moment. It’s not like I had this particular fissure with my own Christian faith,” he said. “But I think, for a lot of kids, they look at their faith — they maybe weren’t properly formed, they didn’t have a great church community when they were growing up — and then they get to the Marine Corps, they get to military, they get to college, and they realize their faith just doesn’t mean that much to them, and so it’s easy to discard.”

“And that was certainly the case for me. It didn’t mean that much to me, and so it was easy to discard, and in a lot of ways, the story of this book is how I realized how powerful and important that faith could be. So I came back to it, but it was a long and winding road, as they say,” he added.

Vance, a Roman Catholic, published an excerpt from his forthcoming book in The Wall Street Journal last Friday. The passage detailed how the late conservative political activist and TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk influenced Vance’s views on faith, fatherhood and the importance of community among Christians.

In another excerpt of the book shared by publisher HarperCollins in April, Vance wrote: “The story of how I regained my faith, of course, only happened because I had lost it to begin with.”

“The interesting question that hangs over this book, and over my mind, is why I ever strayed from the path. Why the Christian faith of my youth failed to properly take root. I’m glad I found my way back to the Church,” he added.

“I learned much along the way. But if you believe as I do, you know I’ve been fortunate and touched by God’s grace. To summarize this book: I’m a Christian, and I became a Christian because I believe that Jesus Christ’s teachings are true.”

Vance expressed hope that “by sharing my journey I might be helpful to others — Catholic, Protestant or otherwise — who are seeking reconciliation with God.”

Before entering politics, Vance rose to national prominence for his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which recounted his upbringing in a working-class family in Middletown, Ohio. The book, which later became a Netflix movie in 2020, tells the story of how his Christian grandmother played a major role in raising him while his mother battled addiction.

Vance’s mother, Beverly Vance, ultimately overcame addiction and was brought to tears as her son honored her at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She later celebrated a decade of sobriety with a small ceremony at the White House.