Chris Pratt says he's "not a religious person"

For many years now, Chris Pratt has been deemed by the internet as the worst of all the famous Chrises. In an attempt to answer the question, “Why are they coming after me?” Pratt “clarifies” his religious beliefs in a new interview, stating that he’s “not a religious person.”

“Religion has been oppressive as fuck for a long time,” he tells Men’s Health. “I didn’t know that I would kind of become the face of religion when really I’m not a religious person. I think there’s a distinction between being religious—adhering to the customs created by man, oftentimes appropriating the awe reserved for who I believe is a very real God—and using it to control people, to take money from people, to abuse children, to steal land, to justify hatred. Whatever it is. The evil that’s in the heart of every single man has glommed onto the back of religion and come along for the ride.” Despite his personal recognition of a “very real God,” Pratt does not identify as “spiritual” either.

It’s not a stretch for people to think Pratt is a religious person, though, you know considering he attends a Christian church, hangs out with his pastor, and in a 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards speech said, “God is real. God loves you. God wants the best for you.”

When asked about the speech, Pratt says, “Maybe it was hubris for me to stand up on the stage and say the things that I said. I’m not sure I touched anybody.”

And, what really landed the actor in hot water back in 2019 was his alleged associations with the problematic (to say the least) Hillsong Church.

At the time, Pratt issued the statement: “It has recently been suggested that I belong to a church which ‘hates a certain group of people’ and is ‘infamously anti-LGBTQ.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. I am a man who believes that everyone is entitled to love who they want free from the judgment of their fellow man.”

In the Men’s Health interview, Pratt goes on to clarify that he has never attended the Hillsong, but did not say this before in order to avoid what he calls “throw[ing] a church under the bus.”

“I never went to Hillsong,” Pratt says. “I’ve never actually been to Hillsong. I don’t know anyone from that church.” The actor did however confirm that he attends Zoe Church in Los Angeles, which has been called a “Hillsong affiliate.”

Pratt will soon appear in the Prime Video series Terminal List on July 1, and Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder, which opens in theaters on July 8.