The A-List Celebs With A-List Faith

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It’s not often you come across religion in Hollywood, much less among the celebrity elite. Yet, hidden within the hearts of a handful of our most beloved stars, the Christian faith flourishes. These faithful celebrities are, or were at one time, the best of the best; they’re the A-Listers.

For these powerful people, fame and fortune haven’t drowned out belief.

Balancing faith and fame isn’t an easy task. When Christ spoke of how difficult it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God, He knew what He was talking about. While money and fame aren’t inherently bad things, they give us something that can destroy faith: the power of choice.

With near-unlimited resources, a celebrity can live any lifestyle, go anywhere, or do anything. When you’re this famous, there’s little need to rely on God, and the constant affirmation and attention from fans and admirers can inflate an ego to epic proportions.

But these celebrities made it through with faith intact, and with that faith comes balance and restraint— you won’t see many of the celebrities on this list--with a few notable exceptions, of course—embroiled in controversy.

When faith and star power combine, great role models are made, and so these celebs are people you’ll actually want to emulate. When the rest of Hollywood is descending into bad example after bad example, you can rest assured that these few will stand out in the best way.

Now, let’s take a look at these a-list celebrities with A-List faith.

Denzel Washington

Denzel, the star of globally-recognized films like Training Day, Glory, and Malcolm X, is one of the most respected actors in Hollywood.

He’s also one of the most vocal about his Christian faith.

Although he isn’t a fan of organized religion, and refrains from condemning others for their belief or non-belief, his faith in God is strong.

"I believe that Jesus is the Son of God," he told Christianity Today in a 2010 interview. “I’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit. I know it’s real.”

Denzel’s faith was especially strengthened during his third read-through of the Bible, when he came across a passage about wisdom in Proverbs 4 that made him consider his life. He was at the height of his fame, but when he read this passage, he realized something essential: we can’t take anything with us when we die.

“I can't get any more successful. But I can get better. I can learn to love more,” he said of this realization.

And since then, he’s been doing his best to live a life marked by Christ-like behavior, “bending,” as he says, role he plays to convey a positive, scripture-tinged message.

Few stars have combined faith and fame better than Denzel Washington, and his knack for using his platform to convey scriptural ideals may just be unmatched.

Mel Gibson

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Let’s be honest for a moment. Mel Gibson is a troubled man. Most notably he was caught on tape saying some abusive, anti-Semitic, and just plain awful things.

On a recent appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Gibson attributes this burst of foul behavior to a drinking problem, made worse by a divorce, and expressed the desire to tell his younger self to just shut up and not get so caught up “in the little things.”

Gibson’s Catholic faith is a bit of a puzzle—despite the above career-ruining slew of screaming, F-bombs, and rage, he still claims to be a Christian. But while the sense of entitlement that comes with being a celebrity may have obscured the way his faith is expressed in his daily life, that faith is expertly expressed in his films.

Gibson has long been Hollywood’s leading faith-based filmmaker, having directed the wildly successful The Passion of the Christ and the more recent hit Hacksaw Ridge. No director, perhaps, has done a better job of positively portraying Christianity on film, giving people everywhere excellent fictional Christian role models.

While Gibson may struggle with being a Christian role model himself, no one else in Hollywood is better at putting faith on the big screen in a way that truly reaches people.

Tom Hanks

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Tom Hanks is one of those legendary figures who will go down as one of cinemas most legendary figures. His films are diverse, award-winning, and in many cases, cultural icons. But unlike many uber-famous celebs, Hanks is also known as an incredibly humble, down-to-earth nice guy with a strong, quiet faith.

The Forest Gump star was raised in a faith-filled environment and exposed to a variety of denominations from Mormonism, to Catholicism, to Evangelicalism. But it was Greek Orthodoxy that Hanks finally settled on as his faith matured.

Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, are open about the fact that they include God in everything their family does, and a brush with cancer strengthened that faith more than ever. Rita suffered from breast cancer, and after much prayer and a successful surgery, she overcame and was announced cancer-free.

Today, the faith of both Tom and his wife is still going strong, and this quiet example of a kind, supportive, Christian celebrity is one to look up to.

Stephen Colbert

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What do Stephen Colbert and his favorite author, J.R.R. Tolkien, have in common? A strong Catholic faith!

Colbert is hilarious, and his over-the-top persona on The Colbert Report entertains millions. But beneath this façade, he’s also an extremely intelligent man who takes his faith seriously.

His first years of faith stemmed from tragedy, when his father and two brothers died in a plane crash. IN the ensuing years, it was the faith of Colbert’s mother that helped him process the tragedy, teaching him to be grateful for life regardless of what was going on.

One of the greatest testaments to Colbert’s faith surfaced when he interviewed Philip Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect. Zimbardo tried to suggest that God created evil, and Colbert wasn’t having it.

Breaking character for a moment, Colbert embarrassed the outclassed Zimbardo, giving him an impromptu theology lesson.

“Evil exists because of the disobedience of Satan. God gave Satan, and the angels, and man free will. Satan used his free will and abused it by not obeying authority. Hell was created by Satan’s disobedience to God, and his purposeful removal from God’s love, which is what Hell is—removing yourself from God’s love.”

There wasn’t much Zimbardo could say to intelligently-conveyed faith like that.

Hugh Jackman

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You might know Hugh Jackman as the fast-healing mutant who slices up his enemies with adamantium claws, but the man behind Wolverine is a devout Christian.

He’s normally pretty quiet about his beliefs, but in a 2015 interview with Parade Magazine, he opened up, saying that “I’m a Christian. I was brought up very religious. I used to go to different evangelists’ tents all the time. When I was about 13, I had a weird premonition that I was going to be onstage, like the preachers I saw.”

He went on , saying that “Before I go onstage every night, I pause and dedicate the performance to God, in the sense of ‘Allow me to surrender.’”

Jackman’s last foray as Wolverine in the recent, critically-acclaimed Logan might have been his last as the titular X-Man, but his faith is here to stay, infusing itself into his art.

In fact, he’s set to play the Apostle Paul in an upcoming film about Paul’s conversion, so keep an eye out for Jackman’s faith-filled return.