{"id":1596,"date":"2008-01-04T11:45:22","date_gmt":"2008-01-04T11:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/01\/dont-sell-denzels-faith-short.html"},"modified":"2008-01-04T11:45:22","modified_gmt":"2008-01-04T11:45:22","slug":"dont-sell-denzels-faith-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/01\/dont-sell-denzels-faith-short.html","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Sell Denzel’s Faith Short"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"greatdebaters2.jpg\"You hardly need to be told that Denzel Washington is the son of a minister\u2014it\u2019s in the booming authority of his voice, and in the sense we have, from his complete absence in the tabs, that he\u2019s a bit of square. In her interview <\/a>with Denzel on NPR this week, Terry Gross tries to connect these dots, but Denzel isn\u2019t interested in a dot-to-dot portrait of his faith. His career itself is a ministry, he says in the NPR interview, echoing the thoughts he shared with us last week in an interview with Beliefnet editor Michael Kress<\/a>, and he shows he\u2019s every bit as capable of giving a sermon as his father.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWhatever success I have is the direct result of my faith in God,\u201d he tells Gross. \u201dIt\u2019s not hanging out with the right people. It\u2019s not any studying or training. It\u2019s a gift from God. We all have it. The question is not what you have, but what you\u2019re going to do with what you have.\u201d
\nThis is all more than Gross bargained for. (Maybe she should have prepped by reading our Beliefnet interview with Denzel last month.) Denzel is comfortable discussing his exploration of Buddhism or how he came to appreciate his character Malcolm X\u2019s conversion to mainstream Islam, and so is Gross. But whenever she goes near his Christian faith, Gross gets a comeuppance, as when she asks if he still attends Church of God in Christ, his father\u2019s denomination. \u201cYes,\u201d he answers simply. \u201cIs that because it has special meaning because of your father?\u201d \u201cIt has meaning because it has meaning, as it does for thousands of other followers. I believe in the Scriptures.\u201d Gross responds with a station break.
\nThe interview is here. The spiritual talk begins about minute 27, but if you want to know the proper pronunciation of “Denzel,” start a few minutes earlier.
\nAnd don’t miss Michael Kress’s interview with this man of faith, along with audio soundbytes from Denzel himself, all available for your reading and listening pleasure here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You hardly need to be told that Denzel Washington is the son of a minister\u2014it\u2019s in the booming authority of his voice, and in the sense we have, from his complete absence in the tabs, that he\u2019s a bit of square. In her interview with Denzel on NPR this week, Terry Gross tries to connect…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrities"],"yoast_head":"\nDon't Sell Denzel's Faith Short<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/01\/dont-sell-denzels-faith-short.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Don't Sell Denzel's Faith Short\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You hardly need to be told that Denzel Washington is the son of a minister\u2014it\u2019s in the booming authority of his voice, and in the sense we have, from his complete absence in the tabs, that he\u2019s a bit of square. 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