Actor Chris Pratt has never been one to be shy about his faith. From sharing Bible verses on his Instagram posts to boldly encouraging youth to follow God at the Teen Choice Awards, Pratt uses just about any chance he can to spread the word of the gospel.
“I want to thank God. I always do that when I’m up on a big platform in front of a bunch of young faces,” Pratt charged the Teen Choice audience back in 2018. “I say ‘I love God, that’s my thing, I love him! And you should too!’”
In an interview with the Associated Press, Pratt opened up about why sharing religious messages with his fans is so important to him:
“It is an authentic thing for me, and that kind of a message, it may not be for everybody, but there is a group of people for whom that message is designed. And nothing fills my soul more than to think that maybe some kid watching that might say, ‘Hey, I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve been thinking about praying. Let me try that out.’”
But Pratt’s openness about his faith has often put him under fire from the liberal masses who have called him “homophobic,” “bigoted,” and more.
What happened this weekend on Twitter is a prime example.
On Saturday night, TV writer Amy Berg staged a little game on the social media platform. Featuring a quadrant with pictures of Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Chris Pine, and Chris Pratt, Berg wrote “One has to go.”
The post launched an onslaught of cruel attacks against Pratt for his faith values, church affiliations, and political stances—so much so, that his name started trending on Twitter, with over 55,000 tweets being generated.
The cutting remarks spanned from Pratt being an anti-LGBTQ Trump supporter to him “radiating a homophobic white Christian supremacist energy”:
While Pratt has always been vocal about being a Christian, he’s not been overtly political, which makes that category of criticism towards him seem even more out of place:
“I don’t feel represented by either side. I really feel there’s common ground out there that’s missed because we focus on the things that separate us, ” said Pratt in a 2017 interview with Men’s Fitness.
This certainly isn’t the first time Pratt’s been slammed for his conservative values on Twitter. In February of 2019, Ellen Page tweeted that Pratt’s church is “infamously LBGTQ.”
“It has recently been suggested that I belong to a church which ‘hates a certain group of people’ and is ‘infamously anti –LGBTQ,'” Pratt responded on Instagram after receiving thousands of hateful comments. “Nothing could be further from the truth. I go to a church that opens their doors to absolutely everyone.”
“My faith is important to me but no church defines me or my life and I am not spokesman for any church or any group of people,” Pratt later added. “My values define who I am. We need less hate in this world, not more. I am a man who believes that everyone is entitled to love who they want free from the judgment of their fellow man. Jesus said, ‘I give you a new command, love one another.’ This is what guides me in my life. He is a God of Love, Acceptance and Forgiveness. Hate has no place in my or this world.”
