There is the zeal of the convert, and then there is whatever J. D. Vance is feeling in Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith ... Communicates little of spiritual hunger, of crises of faith, of temptation or redemption or awe, or whatever else one might want or expect from a conversion tale. Often, the strongest emotion Vance seems able to express in Communion is his distaste for the tenets and rituals of the faith he has elected to join ... Adds relatively little to the available record of how Vance’s dormant faith was reignited.
JD Vance’s intellectual evolution continues apace ... Straw men populate the book’s later chapters, particularly on economic questions. He equates the free-market outlook with amoral indifference to anything apart from abstract economic-growth numbers ... Mr. Vance attempts to express his own 'Christian approach to economics,' which amounts to little more than the prescription that economic actors should exercise kindness, mercy and generosity ... Typifies the low regard he has for people who profess views he dislikes.
For its first 177 pages, J.D. Vance’s new book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, is a thoughtful read ... And then you hit the moment where he stops thinking as a writer ... From that point on, Communion, which came out on Tuesday, is a stiff and unimaginative political memoir. It deploys an eye-roll-worthy staff of straw men as it defends Trump’s policies ... Offers a window into just how much the thoughtful boy in Hillbilly Elegy allowed himself to be corrupted by politics.
On its face, Communion has all the hallmarks of the standard Politician Book: the kind of thing one writes in preparation for a presidential run ... And yet. There is something deeply the matter here with JD Vance, and with this book ... In order to make sense of this book, one must be able to pitch one’s mind into a world where the Donald Trump of the past six years somehow doesn’t exist, a world where Christianity is somehow an entirely different religion than is generally manifested in American culture and politics, and a world where JD Vance himself is another person entirely ... A memoir in which the most significant moments of a person’s career fly by as nonevents makes for a truly baffling read.
I got a colonoscopy on Friday. If only that were the least pleasant experience of my last week. But no, that would be when I pulled an all-nighter on Monday reading Communion, J.D. Vance’s new book ... Communion and Hillbilly Elegy are the same story: A lousy man gets saved. In Hillbilly Elegy, J.D.’s grandmother saved him. And, sort of, his wife. In Communion, Christianity saved him ... Vance’s hypocrisy alone makes Communion nearly unreadable. You don’t need me to tell you this, but he is not a good Catholic.
