Source: Noam Galai / Getty
Denzel Washington was baptized over the weekend at a church in New York City, also receiving a minister’s license.
The Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington took a major step on his journey of faith over the weekend. Last Saturday (Dec. 21), Washington was baptized at the Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ which is located in Harlem, New York. The ceremony was livestreamed through the Facebook account of the First Jurisdiction Church of God In Christ Eastern New York, which showed the moments when Washington was baptized. They also showed the actor receiving a license to minister, allowing him to become ordained in the future. He can officiate weddings and other minor religious services. “In one week, I turn 70,” he said while addressing those gathered in the congregation. “It took a while, but I’m here.”
The Gladiator II star went on to share a story from when he was 20 years old about meeting a woman named Ruth Green at his mother’s beauty parlor who told him about the faith journey he was destined for. “She said, ‘Boy, you are going to travel the world and preach to millions of people,’” he remembered. “She wouldn’t even spell the word prophecy. My mother wrote the word prophecy…50 years later, look at God. If He can do this for me, there’s nothing He can’t do for you. The sky literally is the limit and there’s no limit to the sky.”
Washington would express his thanks for his “loving, faithful wife” Pauletta Washington, who was in the audience. “To God be the glory. Hallelujah!” he added to the crowd’s delight. “Anything I can do, I will do for this church, the Almighty. I just want to be in that number when the saints go marching in.”
The 69-year-old actor has been more outspoken about his faith recently, discussing it at length in an expansive essay for Esquire, which was published last month. “You can’t talk like that and win Oscars. You can’t talk like that and party,” he said about discussing his faith with others in the industry. “You can’t say that in this town … It’s not talked about in this town. It’s not talked about … It’s not fashionable. It’s not sexy. But that doesn’t mean people in Hollywood don’t believe.”
