Gaining traction in 2001 from her role in thriller TV series Alias, Jennifer Garner has continued as a leading lady for almost two decades. While she hasn’t always been open about her religion, multiple paparazzi clips and photos showing her attend church more frequently have got us wondering about her faith.
Jennifer Garner’s religion is Christianity. She used to attend church each Sunday with her family when she was young, until moving to Los Angeles in 1997 where she took a break from regular visits. Following her appearance in a Christian drama film, she discovered a newfound dedication to her faith.
Why the sudden revelation? Keep reading to find out what film changed her perspective on Christianity, and where she often goes to church.
Regaining Her Faith
Even though she had practiced her faith by going to church growing up, Garner stopped attending church when she arrived in LA as a budding actress.
In 2007, she was spotted in New York City on the Upper East Side exiting Rutgers Presbyterian Church with her then 2-year-old daughter Violet. But she wasn’t seen attending regular services much after that.
It wasn’t until she got a role in a 2016 film called Miracles from Heaven that she started participating more strongly in her faith. This led her to recommence her routine visits to Sunday church with her children and now ex-husband Ben Affleck.
Miracles from Heaven follows a real-life story of a young girl who was fully healed of an incurable disease, after also experiencing a near-death experience of falling down a 30ft tree. Following the incident, she recounted that God had visited her and cured her.
The After-Effects of Miracles from Heaven
Jennifer played the role of the mother of the little girl, and immediately felt touched by the film, saying in an interview, “I grew up going to church every Sunday and, you know, Ben [Affleck] and I took our kids home to West Virginia to be baptized in my family’s church.”
The church she’s talking about is Christ Church United Methodist, where her son Samuel was baptized at 16 months old.
Tying it back into the film, she added, “and the thing about this film was it kind of encouraged me to reengage in participating and not just believing, but actually participating in raising my children so that they had the same background that my parents gave my sisters and me.”
Watch her full 2016 interview speaking on the impact that Miracles from Heaven had on her faith below:
She spoke further about the film’s influence on her religionin another interview, stating:
“There was something about doing this film and talking to my kids about it and realizing that they were looking for the structure of church every Sunday.”
She continued, “so it was a great gift of this film that it took us back to finding our local Methodist church and going every Sunday. It’s really sweet.”
Leading Up to Los Angeles
Born in 1972 on the 17th of April, Garner lived in Houston, Texas briefly before moving to Charleston in West Virginia at 3 years old.
She grew up with a conservative father and a “quietly blue” mother, where she and her two sisters “didn’t have our ears pierced; none of us ever had layers in our hair or a perm or color. We were the Garner Girls, and we were very “appropriate” at all times.”
As well as going to the United Methodist Church that was in their local area, Garner attended Vacation Bible School, which was dedicated to religious education.
After acting in theater and graduating with a Bachelor in Fine Arts, she went to live in New York City in 1995. Several acting pursuits followed on the small screen before she decided to move to Los Angeles in 1997.