Orlando Bloom was raised in the Canterbury, Kent section of England, a predominately Anglican area. The man he thought was his father, until he thirteen, was Jewish and from South Africa. His mother was born in India and also lived in Australia and Japan, where many people are Christian, before settling in Brittain. Is Orlando Bloom Christian?
It’s thought that Orlando isn’t Christian. Bloom was brought up in the Anglican Church of England and attended religious studies when he was younger. In 2004 he became a member of the Soka Gakkai International Buddhist Centre. He has also opened a Nichiren Buddhist-based center of his own.
Bloom and his fiance, Katy Perry, were recently seen at one of Kanye West’s Sunday church services. Bloom has not renounced Christianity and believes that having faith and spirituality is an important part of life.
Religious Definition
According to Merriam-Webster, leaders in definitions since 1828, religious is defined as “relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity”. For Jewish and Christians that is God, for Muslims it is Muhammad.
Still, others may feel that, to them, religion is something different altogether. Not all belief systems revolve around a deity, for some, it is just enough to have faith in faith itself, while not looking too deeply into the origin of that faith.
There is no right or wrong way to be religious or a Christian. Idris Elba is currently married to wife number three, and all of his weddings were Christian affairs, so some may feel that he belongs to the Christian religion.
Since he states that he is not religious, but spiritual, he falls under the category of Irreligion more than he does Christian, even if he does share in some beliefs and practices that Christians do.
Spirituality
Many people claim to be spiritual, but not religious. What does that mean exactly? One definition of spirituality is “The quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.”
Both Religion and Spirituality can mean different things to different people. And, you can be one and not the other, or you can be both or neither. It’s a complex world when you get right down to it.
In a broader sense of meaning, Religion is often thought of as outward and worldly, while Spirituality is more inward and self-focused, without necessarily holding a deity on high.
Buddhism
Buddhism is both a religion and a philosophy that was developed by Buddha between mid-6th and mid-4th BCE. It is currently number four on the most practiced religions in the world, behind Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.
There are three main areas that Buddhists believe:
- Three Universal Truths
- Four Noble Truths
- The Eightfold Path
Meditation is also a major part of Buddhism, forcing the practitioner to focus inwards on themselves. There are different sects of Buddhism but they all follow the same five beliefs:
- Do not harm or kill living things.
- Do not take things unless they are freely given.
- Lead a decent life.
- Do not speak unkindly or tell lies.
- Do not abuse drugs or drink alcohol.
Orlando Bloom certainly has done a lot of good things and is leading a decent life. He is very vocal about people being treated equally, no matter their race, religion, preference, or background. He’s a self-proclaimed feminist and fights for women’s rights as well.
He has been an advocate of the environmental company Global Green since the early 2000s. Bloom has also been a part of UNICEF since 2007, and in 2009 was named one of their UN Goodwill Ambassadors.
His role as a Goodwill Ambassador has taken him to many countries throughout the world where he supports sanitation and education programs. He’s also visited Australia to help with the wildfires there in 2009. And in 2016 he visited Ukraine to speak of the crisis with children amongst the conflict with Russia.