What to Know
As a very liberal and non-religious mother, I have no idea what I would do if my teenage son came home and told me that he suddenly became a devout Christian. We don’t have anyone close to us who identifies that way, so it would be totally jarring.
But now, if it ever happened, I could follow actress and mom Anna Faris as an example. Faris shares her 14-year-old son, Jack, with ex-husband Chris Pratt. Pratt has been very vocal about his devout Christianity since their relationship ended. And while she didn’t call Pratt out for his beliefs, many online are making the association.
It’s still a touchy subject for her.
Faris appeared on Chelsea Handler’s Dear Chelsea podcast on August 20, and the conversation about her son came up about halfway through. Handler asked her about her home life, and Faris called the boy “solid as a tugboat, emotionally.”
“He just doesn’t get easily jarred — he handles situations really well,” she admitted. “He is…religious,” Faris added, with audible discomfort.
Handler asked if Faris herself was religious.
“No, I didn’t grow up with religion,” she replied. “He’s asked me to accept Jesus Christ—”
“—As your savior?” Handler interjected.
“Uh huh,” Faris said. “And I told him I would do anything for him, including this, but it’s gonna take a whole lot of long conversations.”
She’s really making an effort to have rational conversations about the topic.
Anna Faris gave more insight into what the “long conversations” entail. They are mainly discussions where she challenges the way right-wing politics tend to show themselves in certain Christian groups. She revealed that Jack is often “impressive” with his answers to her comments.
“I try to challenge him. I’m like, ‘Do you think it’s a luxury that you get to be pro-life?’ …He’s like, ‘Maybe,’” she shared as one example.
“Or I’ll say, ‘So, what do you think of this mega pastor that’s kind of a grifter?’ He’s like, ‘Oh, mega pastors are the worst.’”
“So it’s like, OK… we’re getting there,” Faris shared.
But ultimately, she says she is “appreciative that he’s examining religion the way he is in terms of recognizing hypocrisy.”
“And I’m appreciative we can have these long conversations,” she added.
Anna Faris is being praised for the way she is handling these difficult conversations.
Her comments made their way over to Reddit, where people appreciated her forcing her son to think deeply.
“Honestly, her ‘do you think it’s a luxury that you get to be pro-life?’ question is solid AF,” one person wrote.
“All parents should be doing this, imo. Kids need to be taught how to think, not what to think,” someone else wrote.
“This is depressing. Chris Pratt seems like a prick IRL vs what he portrays on screen. The right always talks about indoctrinating kids but they’re the biggest culprit. Projection at its finest,” another user wrote.
“It’s good that she’s challenging him on those things, hopefully he listens and really thinks on it. I grew up with conservative parents and I’m grateful to have had progressive online spaces to learn from.”
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