Vivek Ramaswamy was questioned on his faith during a speech at an evangelical conference Friday as he tried to pitch himself to the pivotal conservative voter bloc.
“Who’s your God?” an attendee called out while the upstart Republican presidential hopeful spoke at the Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand Summit in Washington, D.C.
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It is unclear whether Ramaswamy, a former biotech CEO, heard the question or not, but he did not react to it.
His competitor Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) spoke before him at the event, and former President Donald Trump is scheduled to be the night’s closer.
While Ramaswamy didn’t respond to the heckler’s question, he did make religion the focus of his remarks, albeit vaguely. “God is real,” he said at one point.
The Republican candidate, whose parents emigrated from India, is a follower of Hinduism. This isn’t the first time his faith has been questioned. He has faced similar prompts after invoking God on the campaign trail.
Recently, he was asked about his faith by an Iowa voter. He responded, explaining, “I’m a Hindu. I was raised Hindu. We raised our kids in the same tradition as well.”
Ramaswamy repeatedly emphasized the importance of faith without getting into specifics during his speech. He explained that “secular cults” are growing in the United States, pointing to various “cults” of “racial wokeism,” gender ideology, and climate activism.
“What the heck is going on in our country?” he asked the audience.
He added, “We’re in the middle of a national identity crisis right now.”
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“Faith, patriotism, hard work, family. These things have disappeared, and that leaves a moral vacuum,” he told the crowd.
Ramaswamy, who entered the Republican field earlier this year relatively unknown, has shot to popularity within the party. In recent polls, he’s threatened DeSantis’s second-place standing, beating him in some cases. Trump, however, has only expanded his lead over the rest of the field.
