“The Chosen” actor Jonathan Roumie admitted that he hesitated when he was asked to speak at the March for Life in Washington, D.C.
Other actors have lost job opportunities after expressing their pro-life views, and Roumie told the Catholic News Agency that some of his advisors warned him against it.
But Roumie, who stars as Jesus in the popular Bible-based TV series, said yes anyway because he felt God calling him to speak out against abortion.
“… that’s what God asked me to do,” he told CNA in a new interview. “I didn’t want to do it,” but “it was a surrender moment for me.”
A Catholic, Roumie said he started to worry when he received the invitation to speak last year.
“I didn’t want to dip my toe into that pool. I thought, ‘What’s going to happen?’” he told CNA. “And it was like worst-case scenarios in my mind and that was the fear talking and that was the enemy trying to get in my head.”
When he asked for advice, Roumie said people warned him that speaking out for unborn babies’ right to life could hurt him professionally. Practically, he said they were right, but he decided that his choice had to be based on what God wanted, not what he thought was best for his acting career.
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Eventually, he agreed and, in January, spoke to hundreds of thousands of pro-life advocates during the March for Life rally in Washington, D.C.
In his speech, Roumie encouraged pro-lifers to persevere in the fight for life because Satan is “doubling down” in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned.
“Just as God is real, Satan is also real,” he said, later continuing: “In fact, he’s doubling down because, guess what? His time is limited. So, he’s throwing everything he has at the world and all of us in it. And countless are being deceived as a result.”
One of Satan’s big lies is that “abortion does not harm us individually and as a society,” Roumie told the crowd. “So, please, I beg of you, pray for those who do not have the faith, the strength, the clarity of purpose that you here do.”
Speaking afterward with CNA, Roumie said he chose to trust God with the situation.
“It was an uncomfortable thing for me to do,” he told CNA. “But, as usual, God’s got my back and he’s walking me through every moment that I do something that feels a little unusual for me. And it ends up being much better than I ever could have imagined — a much better decision than I ever could have predicted.”
Watch Roumie’s March for Life speech on YouTube. More than 1 million people have watched it online.
This January marked the 50th year since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Roe and forced states to legalize the killing of unborn babies in abortions. Research by NRLC estimates the number of unborn babies lost to abortion under Roe was 64.4 million.
In June, the high court reversed its infamous ruling and began allowing states to protect unborn babies’ lives again. Now, 14 states protect unborn babies from abortion and more are expected to do so this year. Pro-life advocates estimate tens of thousands of babies already have been saved from abortion since June.
