• Faith: Christian
• Career: Politician
• Birthday:  August 29, 1936
• Date of Death:  August 25, 2018

John McCain was a politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until he died in 2018. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was the Republican nominee for president of the United States in the 2008 election. McCain was the son of Admiral John S. McCain Jr. and grandson of Admiral John S. McCain Sr. In 1958, he graduated from the United States Naval Academy and received a commission in the United States Navy. He became a naval aviator and flew ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, McCain almost died in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire.

While on a bombing mission during Operation Rolling Thunder over Hanoi in Oct. 1967, McCain was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese, where he remained a prisoner of war until 1973. He experienced episodes of torture and refused an out-of-sequence early release. During the war, McCain sustained wounds that left him with lifelong physical disabilities. In 1981, he retired from the Navy as a captain and moved to Arizona. In 1982, McCain was elected to the United States House of Representatives, where he served two terms. In 1986, he was elected to the United States Senate, where he served six terms. While typically adhering to conservative principles, McCain also gained a reputation as a “maverick” for his willingness to break from his party on certain issues, including gun regulations, LGBT rights, and campaign finance reform.

McCain was investigated and largely exonerated in a political influence scandal of the 1980s as one of the Keating Five; he then made regulating the financing of political campaigns one of his signature concerns, which eventually resulted in the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002. He was also known for his work in the 1990s to restore diplomatic relations with Vietnam. He chaired the Senate Commerce Committee from 1997 to 2001 and from 2004 to 2005, where he opposed pork barrel spending and earmarks. In 2000, McCain entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination but lost a heated primary season contest to George W. Bush. He secured the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, beating fellow candidates Mick Romney and Mick Huckabee, though he lost the general election to Barack Obama.

McCain subsequently adopted more orthodox conservative stances and attitudes and largely opposed the actions of the Obama administration, especially with regard to foreign policy matters. In 2015, he became chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and refused to support then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the 2016 election. He later became a vocal critic of the Trump administration. While McCain opposed the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, he cast the deciding vote against the ACA-repealing American Health Care Act of 2017. After being diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2017, he reduced his role in the Senate to focus on treatment. Sadly, he died from the disease in 2018.

What religion was John McCain?

McCain identified as a Christian but rarely spoke about his beliefs. He was raised Episcopalian but later attended a Phoenix Baptist Church with his family. The only time McCain discussed his faith was when he spoke about his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. While speaking with Rick Warren, the pastor asked McCain what it meant to be a Christian and what role faith played in his everyday life. He said, “It means I’m saved and forgiven. And we’re talking about the world. Our faith encompasses not just the United States of America, but the world.”