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Ahead of celebrating his 70th birthday this week (December 28), Denzel Washington gave himself what could possibly be the greatest birthday gift—turning his life over to God.
This past Saturday (December 21), Washington was baptized and officially received his ministry license at the Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ (COGIC) in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. The ministry license gives him the ability to become an ordained minister in the future.
The famed actor is no stranger to Christianity. He grew up with a father who served as a Pentecostal minister and is currently a member of the West Angeles Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles that he attends with fellow actor and director Robert Townsend.
He’s also publicly spoken about his faith in the past. Earlier this month during an interview on BBC’s Radio 1Xtra, he spoke about seeing God’s face while he was on a yacht. Then in a November essay for Esquire, Washington reflected on while he grew up going to church and witnessing people be filled with the Holy Spirit and being saved, he didn’t quite have a personal connection to it all.
“Things I said about God when I was a little boy, just reciting them in church along with everybody else, I know now,” he wrote in the essay. “God is real. God is love. God is the only way. God is the true way. God blesses.”
In a speech after his baptism, Washington called it his “greatest accomplishment.” He also shared a story about meeting a woman named Ruth Green at his mother beauty shop when he was 20, who told him he would be walking this path.
“She said, ‘Boy, you are going to travel the world and preach to millions of people,’” he recalled. “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 encouraged others to pursue their spiritual paths passionately.
“This world and its fame & riches will fade away, but only what you do for Christ will last,” he said.
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