Prayers of a Superstar

Over at Beliefnet , Michael Kress has a coup of an interview —one that includes audio clips—with Denzel Washington, who starred in two films this year: American Gangster and the just-released The Great Debaters —both based on true stories.

Like all the Bnet interviews, which have included Q & A’s with Jane Fonda, Patricia Heaton, and Susan Sarandon, the questions focus on the spiritual pilgrimage of the interviewees.

Turns out that Washington is a member of the West Angeles Church of God in Christ , a 22,000-member evangelical and charismatic congregation.* The actor admits, though, to experimenting with Eastern philosophies and reading the Qur’an, finally returning to the faith in which he was reared.

I’m sure there are plenty of evangelicals who shake their heads at the likes of Washington, Christians who make R-rated films filled with four-letter words, violence, and/or nudity. But Washington approaches his film choices with an eye toward a bigger message than “keep it sanitized”—for example, “the wages of sin is death” in Training Day , the film for which he was awarded a much-deserved Best Actor Oscar.

Seems Washington prays through every decision when it comes to putting a film together, but if there is one theme in his prayer life, it’s apparently “A whole lot of thank you’s.”

(Check out the sidebar link to The Twelve Most Powerful Christians in Hollywood . Washington comes in at number two. One guess who reigns at number one.)

*Read the church’s Statement of Faith : The Blessed Hope is construed as the rapture, as opposed to the more traditional interpretation of Titus 2:13 as Christ’s Second Coming in glory signaling the final judgment and the end of history—not merely a millennial interlude. In dispensational/rapture theology, we have a second and a third coming—the second for the saved at the time of the “great tribulation” (pre-, mid-, or post-) and yet a third that will initiate the Great White Throne (final) judgment, just before the birth of a new heaven and a new earth. John Nelson Darby , call your office . . .