Actor David Henrie says he “lost everyone” in his inner circle after becoming a Christian in Hollywood but later made new friends who helped build up his faith in Christ.
The 37-year-old Henrie, who rose to fame as a teen star in “Wizards of Waverly Place,” appeared on an episode of “The Bryce Crawford Podcast” that aired Monday and appears to have been recorded last month. The conversation refers to actress Hayden Panettiere’s death as having happened “last night.” Panettiere died Aug. 16.
Henrie shared his experience as an outspoken Christian in Hollywood and what led him to embrace Christianity over a decade ago in his 20s. He said his newfound faith affected his career, including the loss of his agents and his decision to turn down roles that would “disrespect” his new beliefs.
“I kind of was stripped of everyone, everyone […] that I would call a friend,” he said. “I lost everyone.”
But his faith journey also brought new friends into his life, guys he “respected” who “were building me up in Christ.” He said friends are like elevators; they can bring a person “up or down.”
“[They] gave me great books to read and helped form me in my faith and led to meeting my wife, my best friend,” he said.
Though Henrie lost some longtime friends shortly after coming to Christ, he expressed gratitude that “Some of those people who have left have now come back into the picture” after “they’ve gotten older” and “changed the way that they think.” He said that in some cases, people who cut him off because of his faith later texted him to say, “I went to church this Sunday.”
Henrie said he first found God during a “philosophy night” while working on the set of the 2015 faith-based film “Little Boy.” The group discussed whether the solar system has “an infinite regression or a finite regression” — or, more simply, “is there a beginning?”
Henrie first concluded that the solar system “had to be infinite” because it goes “on and on and on.” But then he wondered, “If it’s infinite, then why are things expanding?” He changed his view, concluding that “it couldn’t have been an infinite regression” because “there had to have been some finite cause.”
“Everything came […] from something because something can’t come from nothing,” Henrie said. “That’s curious. So something started everything.”
After his “mind got thinking, right, about that concept,” Henrie began to consider how “everything seems to be really finely tuned,” specifically citing “math in the universe” and “gravitational rules and constants.”
“If you change any of it by like .00000001 degrees, none of us are here,” he said.
“It gets to this point where I realize this thing is God,” he added, describing God as “this all-powerful thing that created everything, that put intelligence into the universe, that created rational beings that can think and choose.”
Henrie had once credited the good things in his life to luck, but that changed.
“In this moment, I realized I was not lucky. God put me here. I have purpose,” he said.
That realization led the actor to “completely change the way” he lives. He ended a relationship with a girl who “didn’t want to” go on “the journey” with him, and he cut back on partying.
Though Henrie believed there was a God, he wasn’t immediately sure which religion to embrace but eventually found truth in Christ.
“Is it […] the God of the Hindus, the Muslims, the Jews, the Christians?” he asked. “The doctrine of the fall and a Savior was just so beautiful.”
Henrie said “the fall and Christ saving us and how all of the Old Testament prefigurements come together perfectly in Christ,” which “sold” him on Christianity.
Now a practicing Catholic, he says he favored a “meritorious redemptive view […] of suffering that […] the process of salvation is a daily thing.”
Asked what his life would look like had he not found God, Henrie believes he would probably be “divorced.” He also said he would suffer from more severe “anxiety” and “depression.”
“Christ gives you a purpose and a drive and a mission,” he said.
Without his faith, Henrie said his acting career “would have petered out” and left him without a purpose.
His faith journey deepened when fellow actor Kevin James, also a practicing Catholic, took him to a monastery, where he spent two hours in confession. He described the feeling afterward simply: “I’m free.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
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