A television star has become vocal about his faith, saying in a recently released online testimony that he has become a Seventh-day Adventist (SDA). He also stirred up a little controversy when he decided to pit his faith against the morals taught on the show he has basically grown up on.
Actor Angus T. Jones, star of the CBS sitcom “Two and a Half Men,” was featured in a video where he said he loathed the “filth” in his TV show.
“You cannot be a true God-fearing person and be on a television show like that,” said Jones, 19, in a video posted online by Forerunner Chronicles in late November.
Just a short time after his remarks were released, the teenage star issued an apology. In the Nov. 27 statement Jones did not address his faith but said he considers the cast and crew he has worked with for the past 10 years “an extension of my family.”
“I apologize if my remarks reflect me showing indifference to and disrespect of my colleagues and a lack of appreciation of the extraordinary opportunity [with] which I have been blessed,” he said in the statement.
In the video, and in another posted in October by the California
-based Adventist Media Center, Jones describes his spiritual journey. He takes evangelism classes and observes the Sabbath, like other Adventists, on Saturday.
The SDA Church said Jones joined a congregation in California’s San Fernando Valley in June and was recently baptized.
“We are happy that Angus has joined the Seventh-day Adventist family and has found a place in which he feels comfortable to worship and grow his faith,” George Johnson, communication director for the SDA Church in North America, said in a statement.
Johnson added that the young actor’s views of his show “are of a personal nature, reflecting his views after having undergone changes during his spiritual journey.”
Johnson also distanced his church from Christopher Hudson, who posted Jones’ testimony online. Hudson, who operates the video-based ministry Forerunner Chronicles, is not an SDA minister, Johnson said.
With one year left on his “Two and a Half Men” contract, Jones hinted at his spiritual crisis in an October interview with Christianity Today, which the magazine posted on its website Nov. 27.
“I know I am there for a reason, but at the same time I have this strange twist of being a hypocrite: a paid hypocrite,” he said. “Even though it’s my job to be an actor, I have given my life to God.”
(RNS, TAB)
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