The actor Kevin Bacon has been on our screens for over 40 years, but what religion, if any, does he practice?
Having been brought up as Catholic, Kevin Bacon is now openly atheist. He is married to the Jewish actress Kyra Sedgwick, although she has admitted that she does not practice the faith regularly.
Read more about the religious beliefs of Kevin Bacon and his wife, Kyra Sedgwick.
Kevin Bacon’s Religious Views
Kevin Bacon and his five siblings were raised as Chatholic by their parents Edmund Bacon and Ruth Hilda Bacon (née Holmes) in Philadelphia.
Despite his catholic upbringing, Bacon is now open about being an atheist, having told The Times in 2005 “I don’t believe in God”. However, he made it clear in an interview with Fox News that he is not anti-religion.
Although he may not be against religion itself, Bacon does advocate for greater separation between church and state, having also told The Times “I think there is a puritanical wind that is blowing. I have never seen such a lack of separation between church and state in America.”
Bacon and his older brother, Michael, who perform as The Bacon Brothers, helped promote the separation of church and state by participating in a First Freedom First event in 2008 organised by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and The Interfaith Alliance Foundation.
As part of this event, The Bacon Brothers appeared in the film “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Separation of Church and State (But Were Afraid to Ask)”, performing their song “Children”, which deals with the negative effects of religious violence on children.
Speaking about the song in the same interview with Fox News, Bacon said “It has to do with God and war and how they get jumbled up sometimes, and how a lot of times it is the children that suffer from the combination of those two things”.
Kyra Sedgwick’s religious views
Kyra Sedgwick was brought up in Manhattan by her upper-class Christian father, Henry Dwight Sedgwick V, and her Jewish mother, Patricia Sedgwick (née Rosenwald).
In the book “Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish” by Abigail Pogrebin, Sedgwick revealed that neither of her parents were very religious, saying that her mother was an “anti-Semitic Jew” and her father only went to church “every blue moon when he thought he was dying.”
In the same book, Sedgwick explains that it was her step-father, Ben Heller, who helped her to embrace her Jewish identity, saying “he often talked to me about what it meant to be a Jew, especially around Passover and it moved me”.
Kevin Bacon married Kyra Sedgwick in 1988 after they met on the set of the television film Lemon Sky. The couple opted to tie the knot in a civil ceremony, with Sedgwick explaining “I didn’t want religion involved in any way [in the wedding] because I don’t know who God is for me”.
Although Sedgwick participates in Passover seders every year, she does not practice the faith fully, saying “I would feel hypocritical to suddenly start [practicing Judaism]”.
Regarding Bacon and Sedgwick’s two children, Travis and Sosie, Sedgwick has said “I don’t really know how to pass on any kind of feelings of what it means to be a Jew to my children”.
Despite this, the Bacon children did participate in Passover seders with their mother as youngsters, with Sedgwick saying “I think that they get some meaning from that”.
Although she may not be devoted to the faith, Sedgwick has said that Judaism gave her a sense of responsibility to the world, which she expresses through involvement in volunteer organizations.
Religion in the Bacon Household
It seems that the Bacon household is not an overly religious one, with Kevin Bacon being openly atheist and his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, being unsure of certain aspects of her Jewish faith.