Sheen: Appealing to almighty God

November 14, 2003

In the Bruder­hof mag­a­zine, an “inter­view with actor Mar­tin Sheen”:www.bruderhof.com/articles/sheen.htm?source=DailyDig. It’s a pro­file that focus­es not only on his act­ing fame or activist caus­es but on his reli­gious faith and how it under­pins the rest of his life. Read, for instance, Sheen on civ­il disobedience:
bq. It is one of the only tools that is avail­able to us where you can express a deeply per­son­al, deeply moral opin­ion and be held account­able. You have to be pre­pared for the con­se­quences. I hon­est­ly do not know if civ­il dis­obe­di­ence has any effect on the gov­ern­ment. I can promise you it has a great effect on the per­son who choos­es to do it.
Sheen’s rad­i­cal Catholic faith is not a super­fi­cial con­fes­sion that pro­vides him with a place to go on Sun­day morn­ing, and it’s not pas­sive iden­ti­ty from which to do polit­i­cal orga­niz­ing. Rather, it’s a rela­tion­ship with God and truth that demands wit­ness and sac­ri­fice and suf­fer­ing. It’s the faith of some­one who has per­son­al­ly gone through the depths of spir­i­tu­al hedo­nism, and who has watched his coun­try become the “most con­fused, warped, addict­ed soci­ety,” and who has found only God left standing:
bq. God has not aban­doned us. I don’t know what oth­er force to appeal to oth­er than almighty God, I real­ly don’t.
I could quote him for hours, but read the interview.