Actor Denzel Washington was baptized and presented with a minister license, which allows him to become ordained in the future, during a Facebook livestream on Saturday.
The event occurred at Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ located in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City.
At one point, Washington took the microphone to reflect on what being baptized meant to him. “In one week I turn 70,” he said, per Today. “It took a while, but I’m here.”
Later on, he told a story about meeting a woman at his mother’s beauty parlor when he was 20.
“She said, ‘Boy, you are going to travel the world and preach to millions of people,’” the “Gladiator II” star said. “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 also said he was thankful for his “loving, faithful wife,” Pauletta Washington. The pair has been married since 1983.
“To God be the glory. Hallelujah!” he continued. “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.”
Archbishop Christopher Bryant also shared photos of the event in a Facebook post.
“We celebrate the addition of Minister Denzel Washington into the clergy, having received his minister’s license in the Church of God in Christ today, in a truly uplifting moment,” the post said.
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“He is dressed that way because, in the same service, he received water baptism,” the post went on. “Both the baptism and the licensing took place at the Historic Kelly Temple in NYC, a place close to his heart. Denzel Washington attended this church as a child and testified to being filled with the Holy Spirit after visiting another church with actor Robert Townsend in the 80’s.”
“Denzel Washington’s recent commitment to faith and service is truly inspiring,” Bryant wrote in a follow-up Facebook post. “His baptism and licensing to preach is the culmination of a life of faith.”
The actor had spoken about faith before. “If you don’t have a spiritual anchor you’ll be easily blown by the wind and you’ll be led to depression,” he said in 2021, as The Daily Wire previously reported.
“I’m a God-fearing man,” Washington said at the time. “I try not to worry. Fear is contaminated faith.”
