Rock ‘n’ roll, pop, soul, R&B icon Prince has died at age 57. His
life and career were often shrouded in mystery; he used a symbol instead
of a name to become “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince,” and he was
cagey about his sexuality. But he was clearly and undoubtedly a man of
faith. Here are five faith facts about Prince Rogers Nelson, musician,
who died April 21.
1. He grew up a Seventh-day Adventist.
When he was a child, he often suffered epileptic seizures. One day he
told his mother he wasn’t going to have them anymore. She asked why, and
he responded, “Because an angel told me so.”
2. As an adult, he became a Jehovah’s Witness.
In 2001, after two years of consideration, Prince became a Jehovah’s Witness. In an interview with The New Yorker,
he said: “I don’t see it really as a conversion. More, you know, it’s a
realization. It’s like Morpheus and Neo in ‘The Matrix.’”
3. Prince proselytized door-to-door for the Witnesses.
In 2003, a Minneapolis newspaper carried a story about a couple who
answered their door to find Prince offering a copy of The Watchtower,
the Witness magazine.
“Though they were Orthodox Jews, and it was Yom Kippur, they were also Prince fans,” Sean O’Hagan of The Observer wrote of the incident.
“They welcomed him into the house where, with his friend Larry Graham,
erstwhile member of Sly & the Family Stone, one of Prince’s core
influences, he spread the word of Jehovah for 20 minutes before moving
on to the next house.”
4. Prince’s songs were sometimes mini-sermons.
In 2013, the writer Touré wrote “I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon.” In it, he explored the Christianity he found at the root of much of Prince’s music.
“The amount of discussion of sex is this much,” Touré said during an interview with The Observer,
holding his hands a foot apart, “and the amount of discussion of
religion and spirituality and God and Jesus is this much” — doubling the
space between his hands.
In the book, Prince’s guitarist Dez Dickerson describes Prince as a
“guy who really is thoughtful and introspective and holds religious
considerations close to his heart and ponders those questions sincerely
and genuinely and deeply.”
5. An original in music, Prince was also an original in his religious thinking.
In an undated interview with V Magazine’s Vanessa Grigoriadis,
Prince discussed — reluctantly — the relationship between his sometimes
racy lyrics and his faith: “We are sensual beings, the way God created
us, when you take the shame and taboo away from it,” he said, and then
described religion as “like a force, an electro-magnetic one or like
gravity, that puts things in motion.”
The things Prince put in motion — in music and beyond — will last long after his death.
Courtesy: Religion News Service
Photo:Singer Prince performs in a surprise appearance on the
"American Idol" television show finale at the Kodak Theater in
Hollywood, California in this May 24, 2006
Photo courtesy: REUTERS/Chris Pizzelo
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