Jennifer Garner took a long break from acting to ensure she spent as much time with her kids as possible. While raising them, however, she felt she’d become pretty lax on when it came to developing their values. But this was something she quickly hoped to rectify.
Jennifer Garner wanted her kids to be more in touch with religion
In 2016, Miracles From Heaven was one of the many films Garner did during her return to acting. The feature was based on the memoir of the same name, which told the story of a mom whose daughter had a near-death experience. Garner would play the mother in the film, whose child told her she went to heaven after a near-fatal accident. The actor confided that the script stayed with her after she read it.
“I stayed up all night reading the script with a knot in my stomach,” Garner said in a 2016 interview with USA Today.
Garner’s involvement in the movie brought up conversations about her own faith. It was noted that she and her family were very religious as well. She and Affleck even baptized her children at the same Methodist church she used to go to. Overtime, however, she felt she’d lost her sense of religious tradition when it came to her children.
“I think I had become complacent in raising my children, almost as though [I thought] they were going to receive the ground beneath their feet that heaven had given me through osmosis,” she said.
Garner didn’t have to force her kids to go to church, however. She was excited when she saw that her children already wanted to go themselves.
“We went there next Sunday, and it turned out to be the perfect environment. We’ve gotten so much from it; it’s like a gift Christy gave me,” she said.
She credited Miracles From Heaven for bringing her closer to her faith than she might’ve been in years
“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 once told Good Morning Texas (via HuffPost). “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.”
Jennifer Garner might’ve become a minister if she didn’t become an actor
In an interview with Allure, Garner delved a little deeper into her religious upbringing. Her faith was so strong that if she hadn’t become an actor, she might’ve chosen a much different occupation.
“I would have really liked being a minister,” she said. “My mom thinks I still will be.”
Becoming a minister would’ve made sense for Garner, but not only because of her passion for religion. She further confided that there were many aspects about going to church that reminded her of acting.
“What I like about the study of religion, it reminds me of the study of theater — it’s really a liberal arts education. You have to understand history, geography, literature. It’s art, it’s everything. I don’t know anything about Hinduism, Islam, so many other religions, and I wish I did. That feels like a sign of respect,” she said.
Religion was such a big part of Garner’s life that she was even recall a particular moment from her childhood years.
“As a kid, my family and I, we always referenced this one beautiful sermon,” Garner added. “Where our minister talked about taking something hard that had happened and imagining yourself going down to the banks of the river and fashioning a beautiful box out of what you find there and placing this hurt carefully in the box and watching it float down the river. The power of letting go. Don’t carry it. Just let it go.”
