By Tatiana Tenreyro | The Hollywood Reporter
Denzel Washington Ivan Romano/Getty Images
The 69-year-old actor was baptized and received his minister's license in New York City's historic Kelly Temple.
Denzel Washington has become a minister after claiming that actors “can’t talk” about religion in Hollywood.
On Saturday, Dec. 21, the 69-year-old was baptized and received his minister’s license in New York City’s Kelly Temple. The news was confirmed by Archbishop Christopher Bryant in a Facebook post.
“We celebrate the addition of Minister Denzel Washington into the clergy, having received his minister’s license in the Church of God in Christ today, in a truly uplifting moment,” wrote Bryant. The archbishop noted that the Oscar-winning actor donned a white robe because “in the same service, he received water baptism.”
Bryant added that the Kelly Temple is “a place close to [Washington’s] heart” as he “attended the church as a child and testified to being filled with the Holy Spirit after visiting another church” with Richard Townsend in the 1980s.
“It took a while, but I’m finally here,” Washington said during the ceremony, according to Bryant. “If [God] can do this for me, there’s nothing He can’t do for you. The sky literally is the limit.”
We celebrate the addition of Minister Denzel Washington into the clergy, having received his minister's license in the Church of God in Christ today, in a truly uplifting moment.
He is dressed that way because, in the same service, he received water baptism. Both the baptism and the licensing took place at the Historic Kelly Temple in NYC, a place close to his heart. Denzel Washington attended this church as a child and testified to being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Washington previously told Esquire in November that going to the West Angeles church with Townsend was a “powerful” experience. He recalled that at the end of the sermon, the church offered a “call to the altar,” asking those who want to be “saved” to go up. Washington shared that he was taken “into a back room somewhere,” where they “prayed for” him.
“I’m thinking, I’m just gonna give it up to God today, whatever that means,” he said. “And I got back there, and they were praying and telling it to us. I’m hallelujah-ing. I was just feeling. It felt like I was getting lifted up. It felt like my back was arched, and I had my eyes closed. Not that I was going up in the air, but—I can’t exactly describe it. And I was blabbering, and kept blabbering because I was filled with the Holy Spirit.”
The actor explained that this experience connected him with his religion more than ever before while no longer having the fear of having to hide this aspect of himself. “When you see me, you see the best I could do with what I’ve been given by my lord and savior,” he told the outlet. “I’m unafraid. I don’t care what anyone thinks. See, talking about the fear part of it—you can’t talk like that and win Oscars. You can’t talk like that and party. You can’t say that in this town.”
To Washington, religion is “not talked about” in Hollywood because it’s “not fashionable, not sexy.” He added that, however, that “doesn’t mean people in Hollywood don’t believe.”
