{"id":6087,"date":"2023-03-17T14:17:34","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T18:17:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=6087"},"modified":"2023-03-17T14:17:34","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T18:17:34","slug":"actor-max-ehrich-is-baptized-on-set-of-southern-gospel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/03\/actor-max-ehrich-is-baptized-on-set-of-southern-gospel.html","title":{"rendered":"Actor Max Ehrich is Baptized on Set of \u201cSouthern Gospel\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_6093\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6093\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6093\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/03\/Max-Ehrich_credit-DFree-Shutterstock-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"576\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6093\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">DFree \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The film \u201c<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.southerngospel-tickets.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Southern Gospel<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u201d came out on March 10th after being filmed in 2020, and the film has already had a significant impact on one person\u2019s life- Max Ehrich, who plays the film\u2019s lead, Samuel Allen. The film tells the real-life story of 1960s rock and roll singer Allen\u2019s struggles with imprisonment, church, and addiction. The film shows Allen being thrown in jail for a drug charge, but \u201cIn a moment of divine intervention, the judge dismisses drug charges against him under the pretense that Samuel speaks to local schools and churches about the dangers of drugs. Given a second chance, he follows in his father\u2019s footsteps to become a preacher, overcoming the influence of a powerful church leader with a personal vendetta against his family,\u201d according to a press release from the film.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Speaking with <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/southern-gospel-star-shares-faith-films-message-redemption-changed-life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Fox News Digital<\/span><\/em><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, Ehrich revealed, \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m the same person that I am now that I was before [I made the movie].\u201d He shared that studying for the role involved delving deeper into the scriptures, which opened up his faith. \u201cIt was a very demanding role. My character goes through a lot, a range of emotions that really challenged me, which is exactly what I love. Those are the kind of projects that I\u2019m always keen to want to be a part of.\u201d Despite Allen\u2019s struggles with the church, Ehrich stated the message of the film is forgiveness. \u201cWhat [Allen] really stands for is we\u2019re all sinners, we all have our flaws, but the grace of God is really about forgiveness and about love towards ourselves, towards others, not judgment,\u201d he said. The film also allowed Ehrich to use his talents as a musician as he sang and played original songs throughout the film. He stated that he was grateful that the music was being used for a positive impact.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The film came at a time of personal struggle for Ehrich as his relationship with actress and singer Demi Lovato fell apart. The two broke off their engagement the very day Ehrich was filming a scene of Allen getting baptized. However, rather than fall apart, he clung to faith and decided to get baptized as well. \u201cIt was very public, and people were very intrusive about it. I just felt like I needed the protection of God and Jesus during that time, and I\u2019d say that was one of the many reasons why I [got baptized],\u201d he told<\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.faithwire.com\/2023\/03\/09\/tv-star-finds-faith-is-baptized-while-filming-scene-for-new-movie-southern-gospel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Faithwire<\/span><\/em><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">. He said to\u00a0<\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Faithwire<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0that his faith carried him through the hard times. \u201cI don\u2019t think that things happen just out of nowhere; I think there\u2019s a reason why and I think that because I got to work on this project, and I have a character that\u2019s overcoming so many things and has an emotional arc, I was able to use [my personal experience] for the film, actually,\u201d he said. He also told\u00a0<\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Fox News Digital\u00a0<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">that he believes shows like \u201cThe Chosen\u201d and the success of \u201cThe Jesus Revolution\u201d show that there is a hunger for faith-based films after the impact of the pandemic. \u201cI do think that we\u2019re in a time right now where people want that hope, and people want to be inspired. So I do think now is the perfect time for projects like \u2018Southern Gospel\u2019 and \u2018Jesus Revolution\u2019 to be coming out,\u201d he said. \u201cSouthern Gospel\u201d currently has a 98 percent audience score on\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/southern_gospel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Rotten Tomatoes<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The film \u201cSouthern Gospel\u201d came out on March 10th after being filmed in 2020, and the film has already had a significant impact on one person\u2019s life- Max Ehrich, who plays the film\u2019s lead, Samuel Allen. The film tells the real-life story of 1960s rock and roll singer Allen\u2019s struggles with imprisonment, church, and addiction.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":6093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Actor Max Ehrich is Baptized on Set of \u201cSouthern Gospel\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Max Ehrich opens up about his baptism on the set of his new movie &quot;Southern Gospel.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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