{"id":3728,"date":"2019-02-01T17:51:28","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T22:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?p=3728"},"modified":"2019-02-01T17:51:28","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T22:51:28","slug":"unified-empire-christians-celebrities-rally-behind-jussie-smollett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/02\/unified-empire-christians-celebrities-rally-behind-jussie-smollett.html","title":{"rendered":"A Unified “Empire:” Christians and Celebrities Rally Behind Jussie Smollett"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Wikimedia<\/a>
Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hollywood stars and evangelical leaders rarely manage to agree on much. They have, however, united behind Jussie Smollett after the \u201cEmpire\u201d star was hospitalized on Tuesday, January 29, 2019. According to police reports, two unidentified attackers shouted homophobic and racial slurs at the actor, physically attacked him, put a rope around his neck and poured an \u201cunknown chemical substance\u201d on him. Evidence indicates it may have been bleach. Smollett managed to get himself to Northwestern Hospital in Chicago after the attack. He is supposedly in good condition, but his representatives have not yet responded to the news.<\/p>\n

After the attack on Smollett, there was an outpouring of support from Hollywood stars, Christian celebrities and evangelical leaders. Smollett\u2019s costar Taraji P. Henson said, \u201cI wish what happened to [Smollett] was just one big bad joke, but it wasn\u2019t\u2026We all feel his pain right now.\u201d Sherri Shepherd tweeted, \u201cShocked and horrified at the brutal beating of Jessie Smollett\u2026We\u2019ve never met Jussie, but I am praying for [him] and [his] family, and praying these evil men are brought to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christian celebrities also added their voices to the deluge of social media posts hoping for Smollett\u2019s recovery. Actress Candace Cemeron Bure wrote, \u201cJussie Smollett we love you and are praying for complete and total healing. This breaks my heart.\u201d Worship leader Israel Houghton asked for people to pray for Smollett. \u201cPrayers up for Jussie Smollett and his family,\u201d Houghton wrote on Instagram. \u201cPraying for Justice. Praying for America. Praying that love triumphs over hate and fear.\u201d Reverend Samuel Rodriquez, President Trump\u2019s evangelical adviser, also spoke out in support of Smollett and against his attackers. \u201cUnacceptable! We are all created in God\u2019s image. All vestiges of hatred must be confronted and as Christians, we must lead the way,\u201d Rodriquez said. \u201cLet us push back the darkness of hatred and intolerance\u2026Silence is not an option. Join me and pray for Jussie Smollett and his family.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a time when some people see those that disagree with them on political issues as evil enemies, it is heartening to see such different groups of people coming together in support of a single cause. It is saddening that it took an unprovoked attack on an innocent man to achieve that unity, but at least there is a silver lining in this tragedy. One can only hope that the clouds clear entirely with Smollett recovering and his attackers being brought to justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hollywood stars and evangelical leaders rarely manage to agree on much. They have, however, united behind Jussie Smollett after the \u201cEmpire\u201d star was hospitalized on Tuesday, January 29, 2019. According to police reports, two unidentified attackers shouted homophobic and racial slurs at the actor, physically attacked him, put a rope around his neck and poured…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":616,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,876],"tags":[656,942,941],"class_list":["post-3728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiring-people","category-politics","tag-america","tag-celebrity","tag-unity"],"yoast_head":"\nA Unified "Empire:" Christians and Celebrities Rally Behind Jussie Smollett<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Hollywood stars and evangelical leaders alike have rallied behind Jussie Smollett after he was attacked on Tuesday, January 29, 2019.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Unified "Empire:" Christians and Celebrities Rally Behind Jussie Smollett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hollywood stars and evangelical leaders alike have rallied behind Jussie Smollett after he was attacked on Tuesday, January 29, 2019.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/02\/unified-empire-christians-celebrities-rally-behind-jussie-smollett.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inspiration Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-02-01T22:51:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Stephanie Hertzenberg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/files\/2019\/02\/Jussie_Smollett_2018-300x158.png\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Unified \"Empire:\" Christians and Celebrities Rally Behind Jussie Smollett","description":"Hollywood stars and evangelical leaders alike have rallied behind Jussie Smollett after he was attacked on Tuesday, January 29, 2019.","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Unified \"Empire:\" Christians and Celebrities Rally Behind Jussie Smollett","og_description":"Hollywood stars and evangelical leaders alike have rallied behind Jussie Smollett after he was attacked on Tuesday, January 29, 2019.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/02\/unified-empire-christians-celebrities-rally-behind-jussie-smollett.html","og_site_name":"Inspiration Report","article_published_time":"2019-02-01T22:51:28+00:00","author":"Stephanie Hertzenberg","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_image":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/files\/2019\/02\/Jussie_Smollett_2018-300x158.png","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/02\/unified-empire-christians-celebrities-rally-behind-jussie-smollett.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/02\/unified-empire-christians-celebrities-rally-behind-jussie-smollett.html","name":"A Unified \"Empire:\" Christians and Celebrities Rally Behind Jussie Smollett","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/02\/unified-empire-christians-celebrities-rally-behind-jussie-smollett.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/02\/unified-empire-christians-celebrities-rally-behind-jussie-smollett.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/files\/2019\/02\/Jussie_Smollett_2018-300x158.png","datePublished":"2019-02-01T22:51:28+00:00","dateModified":"2019-02-01T22:51:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#\/schema\/person\/2accd57241ae3de281b15e255b66b126"},"description":"Hollywood stars and evangelical leaders alike have rallied behind Jussie Smollett after he was attacked on Tuesday, January 29, 2019.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/02\/unified-empire-christians-celebrities-rally-behind-jussie-smollett.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/02\/unified-empire-christians-celebrities-rally-behind-jussie-smollett.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/02\/unified-empire-christians-celebrities-rally-behind-jussie-smollett.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/files\/2019\/02\/Jussie_Smollett_2018-300x158.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/files\/2019\/02\/Jussie_Smollett_2018-300x158.png"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2019\/02\/unified-empire-christians-celebrities-rally-behind-jussie-smollett.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Unified “Empire:” Christians and Celebrities Rally Behind Jussie Smollett"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/","name":"Inspiration Report","description":"Inspiration News, Life Advice and Emotional Wellness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#\/schema\/person\/2accd57241ae3de281b15e255b66b126","name":"Stephanie Hertzenberg","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/080\/080e3b9c5b3764a74a7323d03c0bfb80x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/080\/080e3b9c5b3764a74a7323d03c0bfb80x96.jpg","caption":"Stephanie Hertzenberg"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/authors\/s\/stephanie-hertzenberg.aspx"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/author\/shertzenberg"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/616"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3728"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3732,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3728\/revisions\/3732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}