“Personally I think love actual love is a radical practice,” says actor Zachary Levy who just came out with a new book, Radical Love: Learning to Accept Yourself and Others.
Levy may be best known for his acting on Shazam, and most recently playing Kirk Warner in the faith-filled film, American Underdog, but it’s his professed Judeo-Christian spiritual lineage that has given him a message to share with the world at a time our country is battling division and anger.
“I grew up in a Judeo-Christian spiritual lineage,” Levy told CBN News. “Love is a radical thing. Love is to radically accept someone else exactly as they are, exactly where they’re from, exactly what they’ve done in this world and in this life. Some of those things we are really not happy about I mean these are our enemies, these are our persecutors.
Levy opened up about his own battle with mental health and depression, something that he believed he battled since he was a young boy.
“In my mental health journey and coming to the end of myself and recognizing that I didn’t actually love myself and I didn’t love myself because I never learned how to love myself from my parents who never learned how to love themselves, it took me a lot of healing and a lot of forgiveness to get to the point where I could forgive and love.”
Levy shared that at 37, just 5 years ago, he came to the end of himself and fell into such a depression, he even consider suicide. Thankfully for his friends and family and some therapy he reconnected with his roots, his faith, and his identity. Now he is teaching others about grace and love.
“To love someone doesn’t mean you agree with them or have no boundaries, it’s recognizing the God qualities and the miracle of God’s creation in each individual we encounter.”
True love is what everyone is looking for but we need to understand what love looks like. Levi is trying to teach the world that it starts with you and me.
“Loving someone does not mean I don’t have boundaries. Loving someone, by the way, doesn’t mean you have to even like them. It has been kind of mistaken in our culture that love is just like graduated like. It’s not like it’s liking a lot.”
Levy went on to share that love starts with seeing people as God does – miracles.
“Love is simply to acknowledge that there is a miracle in this other person.”
While Levy didn’t touch on his plans as an actor, he just might be able to pass as an up-and-coming preacher.
