WATCH: Mark Wahlberg won’t ‘deny’ his faith, says it’s ‘not popular in my industry’
Julia Johnson
Video Embed
Mark Wahlberg shared on Ash Wednesday why he won’t “deny” his faith despite it being relatively unpopular in Hollywood.
Featuring ashes on his forehead, the actor told host Savannah Guthrie on Today that he has always been open about his Catholic faith, but “I don’t want to jam it down anybody’s throat.”
“But I do not deny my faith,” he explained. “That’s an even bigger sin.”
“You know, it’s not popular in my industry, but I cannot deny my faith. It’s important for me to share that with people. But, I have friends from all walks of life and all different types of faiths and religions, so it’s important to respect and honor them as well,” Wahlberg said.
WATCH: SUNNY HOSTIN SAYS FOX NEWS SHOULD CHANGE NAME, DUBS TUCKER CARLSON ‘FAKE NEWS’
iFrame Object
The Father Stu star talked about working with prayer app Hallow during the Lenten season to narrate for users and described what fasting can look like for different people.
According to Wahlberg, “There are many different elements to fasting, and I think the important thing to understand is — and first of all, if you have issues with food, there are other things — God knows the things that he wants you to detach from.”
“You know, we all know those things that make us feel guilty, don’t make us feel as good as we should, so being able to detach from those things and focus on, you know, good habits as opposed to bad habits. So there are challenges for fasting, like today, I won’t have any meat, I’ll have one meal today and I will do that every Friday throughout Lent and Good Friday — but just challenging people to be better versions of themselves,” he told Guthrie.
As a part of Hallow’s Pray40, Wahlberg will lead listeners through prayer during Lent. He joins several other “world-famous Christians,” such as Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus in the series The Chosen, Jim Caviezel, who starred as Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, the Rev. Mike Schmitz, who hosts the No. 1 Christian podcast, Bible in a Year, and Immaculee Ilibagiza, who is a Rwandan genocide survivor and bestselling author of Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.
“I just think it gives me — discipline has always been important for me in life. Once I started getting in movies and transitioned from music, I realized I needed a lot of discipline in my life, and that discipline has afforded me so many other things, and I have been rewarded for it so much, and I want to share that with people,” Wahlberg said.
“So, whether that’s with fasting, working out more, detaching from other things, and just spending more time with God in prayer or in thoughtful reflection, and those things are important,” he added.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“We want to bring people together,” especially after everyone has struggled through the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected the ability of people to worship and churches to operate.
With his children, the actor said, “I don’t force it on them.”
He claimed he doesn’t want to do things that “create some resentment.”
“I want them to gravitate to it in a very natural way. I want them to understand that dad has to start the day by getting on his hands and his knees, and no matter where I am, the priority on Sunday is to go to church, so to be able to do those things and just see them, hopefully, they will say, ‘Well, OK, there’s got to be something there,’ and let them do it on their own,” Wahlberg said.