Many of Hollywood’s biggest stars are fully committed to their faith and very outspoken about their religious beliefs. Does Jessica Alba happen to be one of them and what religion does she practice?
Jessica Alba is Christian, but she’s not exactly an avid church-goer. The Golden Globe-nominated actress had a very complicated relationship with religion in her youth, which led to her leaving the church, but she’s still devoted to God in her own way.
Growing Up Catholic
Jessica Alba grew up in a religious Catholic family, and after her parents became born-again Christians, she followed suit. She was a devoted church-goer during her teenage years, and spent her days waking up at 5 a.m. so she could pray and hand out flyers with her youth group.
Alba was a born-again Christian for four years, but as the time went by she realized that the way the church treated women didn’t sit well with her personal beliefs.
“When older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn’t. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault, and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman,” Alba told Elle while discussing her approach to religion.
Strict regulations that the church imposed on her and other young girls and women made Alba uncomfortable in her own skin, and she gradually started questioning her devotion.
Leaving the Church
As she grew older and more set in her own beliefs, Jessica Alba started examining the way her church treated issues that were important to her. She came to conclusion their take on certain issues, such as premarital sex and homosexuality, didn’t match her own stance.
After getting her high school diploma, Alba started attending Atlantic Theater Company in Vermont, and used to be a regular at a local gay club. She discussed the experience with The Daily Beast, and recalled having a crush on one of the dancers, who made her doubt her church’s stance that “anybody who’s gay is going to hell”.
Real life experiences made it possible for Alba to form her own opinions about certain things that her church condemned. She eventually decided to distance herself from the church and practice spirituality on her own terms.
Avoiding Nude Scenes
Alba’s strict Catholic upbringing was part of the reason why she avoided doing nude scenes throughout her career. She made a pledge to herself to never strip for a movie role, and stuck to her guns even after cutting ties with the church.
Sin City actress was very open about the fact sex symbol status made her extremely uncomfortable in her youth, and it took her a lot of time to come to terms with it. Once that happened, she still didn’t want to do nude scenes because they made her anxious and felt unnecessary. Even her nude scene in Machete was a result of CGI, and she was wearing underwear during the actual shooting.
Keeping Her Faith Alive
Jessica Alba is no longer the hard-core Christian she used to be, but that doesn’t mean she completely turned her back on religion. She told Glamour that she still believes in God, and “that the reason to be here is to love” – just not in the way her church taught her.
“The further I got into it, it wasn’t for me. Church gave me that enlightenment, that there’s something bigger than yourself. I’m still connected to a spiritual thing, just not that,” explained the actress. Another thing that bothered her about Christianity was the lack of strong female role models in the Bible. She described the sacred text as “a nice guide”, but added it certainly wasn’t how she was going to live her life.
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