Actor Denzel Washington, an avowed Christian, recalled an experience in which he was reportedly “filled with the Holy Ghost” during a church service in the 1980s.
Speaking with pastor A.R. Benard of the Christian Cultural Center during an Instagram Live session, the two-time Academy Award-winning actor recalled being frightened when he gave his life to Jesus during a church service that filled him with the Holy Spirit.
“I was filled with the Holy Ghost and it scared me. I said, ‘Wait a minute, I didn’t want to go this deep, I want to party,’” Washington said, as reported by Fox News.
The supernatural moment allegedly occurred at Bishop Charles E. Blake’s West Angeles Church of God in Christ.
“I went to church with Robert Townsend and when it came time to come down to the altar I said, ‘You know this time, I’m just going to go down there and give it up and see what happens.’ I went in the prayer room and gave it up and let go and experienced something I’ve never experienced in my life,” he continued.
After the service, Washington described his experience to his mother and said, “I felt like I was going up in the air, and my cheeks were filled.”
“Oh no, that’s the devil you’re purging,” his mother reportedly said in response.
Washington described it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience that he was not quite ready to live with back then.
“It was a supernatural, once in this lifetime experience that I couldn’t completely understand at the time,” he said. “It kept me grounded in spite of myself; I mean, I accepted it, I definitely experienced it, but I wasn’t ready to live it. I don’t know how old I was then but I wasn’t ready to live it then. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s gone through that kind of experience.”
Denzel Washington has been quite outspoken about his Christian beliefs for several years and has even credited his success to the grace of God.
“My father, my earthly father, Denzel Washington Sr. was a pastor for the Church of God in Christ for 60 years. I know he’s smiling in heaven, seeing his son doing the best I can do today, by the grace of God,” he told the St. Louis American.
After his parents got a divorce at the age of 14, Denzel Washington fell into trouble, prompting his mother to send him to a military academy to straighten him out. While there, he recalled a moment in which a woman told him to go and preach to the world.
“I had flunked out of college. I had a 1.7-grade point average. I had no future… I was sitting looking in the mirror and I see a woman behind me sitting under the dryer. Of course, the voice of God always comes from under a dryer. She said, ‘Young man, you are going to travel the world and speak to people.’ Now mind you, I was 20 years old, with a 1.7-grade point average and had flunked out of school. She said, ‘you are going to preach,’” Denzel said
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