It’s not everyday that we get to hear from Oscar and Emmy-nominated actress Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, but she’s opening up like never before in an all-new interview. This time, she’s sharing her thoughts and viewpoints about her faith journey and how she views God and the Bible. And trust us when we say, it’s a perspective that just might surprise you.
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Ellis-Taylor, who’s been in notable projects like “King Richard,” “Origin” and “Nickel Boys,” sat down with Ts Madison for the latest episode of her “Outlaws Podcast.” During their chat, they touched on their respective faith walks and where their beliefs lie now. For context, Madison is a Black transgender woman while Ellis-Taylor identifies as bisexual and “queer,” though she doesn’t often talk about it much publicly.
Seeing as how religion—specifically Christianity in this instance— and the LGBTQIA+ community have a rocky relationship, its no wonder why those who are apart of it would have reservations, frustrations or other complicated feelings towards the God described by that faith. Taking that into consideration, the “Lovecraft Country” actress was honest with Madison when asked about where she is in her faith walk and how she views God and his Holy Book.
Ellis-Taylor explained that when she wrote the foreword to the 2024 book “The Day God Saw Me as Black,” written by D. Danyelle Thomas, she asserted that it was Black people who made the image of God beautiful in contrast to the image of Him that was “stuffed down our throats” by enslavers. She also said that she couldn’t put her belief in a God who would keep Black folks battered and downtrodden and put in serious work to gain a new and different understanding of who God was to her.
“I can’t believe in that God. So I had to have another understanding about what God—not just what Jesus is, not just where the geography of Jesus’ path [was]. I’m talking ’bout God. What God looked like, right?” Ellis-Taylor said. “So I said Black people make God beautiful. White people make you fear God, Black folks make God beautiful. So that was the God I was believing in. But the way things are right now, I don’t know.”
Then, the “61st Street” star revealed another personal tidbit, noting that she doesn’t believe in the Bible and described it as the playbook for genocide. After Madison said that while she believes in God but not religion or today’s interpretation of what a “Christian” is and doesn’t identify as one, that’s when Ellis-Taylor explained her stance.
“I don’t believe in the Bible. I don’t believe in the Bible…I mean, think about is Ts. It’s the blueprint, it was used as the blueprint for enslavement. The blueprint! The blueprint for violence against women, violence against queer people. It’s the blueprint!” she said.
She continued: “It’s the blueprint for genocide. It’s the blueprint from it! So that can’t be my evidence from God.”
Naturally, once her words began making the rounds on social media, listeners had mixed reactions.
“Wow this is a shocker to me. She did a great job though playing a holy ghost filled woman in a faith based biopic. This is good,” wrote one user on Instagram referring to Ellis-Taylor’s role as gospel great Mattie Moss Clark in the 2020 Lifetime movie, “The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel.”
“Baby these Bible thumpers about to come in here windmilling!!! Do ya hear me!!!” joked another.
“This interview just made me an even bigger fan of Aunjanue,” said one other user.
Added another in part: “Just lost and wrong smh. Anything can be used to manipulate, Read it for yourself and then decide.”
One other person asserted: “The blueprint for the proof of God is your experience with Him. Everything else can be shaken, your experience can not.”
On TikTok, one person explained: “This is deep, this is a conversation that needs to be had and said.”
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