00:00Find out why Mariah Carey is the most evangelical pop diva of all.
00:04Mariah Carey is the diva who most brought evangelical spirituality and the gospel
00:09genre into mainstream pop music. But few people know the reason for that.
00:14Mariah Carey's paternal family led a Methodist Pentecostal church.
00:19Nana Reese, her great aunt, was an evangelist in the church.
00:23It was through her that Mariah had an experience with the Holy Spirit at the age of four.
00:28On a day when her father and her brother had a serious fight,
00:32Nana Reese prophesied,
00:33Do not be afraid of the problems you see. All your dreams will come true.
00:39Mariah felt a different kind of warmth in her body, and from that moment on,
00:43an unshakable faith was born in her heart. Her parents divorced, and she was unable to
00:49attend the Pentecostal church during her childhood and youth. Mariah listened to secular music on
00:55the radio and learned that her favorite artists, such as Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin,
01:00also sang gospel music. She bought their records and discovered gospel artists such as the Clark
01:05Sisters, Edwin Hawkins singers, and Shirley Caesar. Mariah immersed herself deeply in the gospel
01:12tradition on her own. She always listened to more gospel than R&B and pop, so much so that she
01:18became
01:18a master of the gospel genre very early on. Already in her first album, Mariah drew attention for her
01:24evangelical spirituality and her gospel influence. In 1993, at the height of her fame, Mariah recorded
01:32an innovative Christmas album, as it was almost entirely a gospel album. By then, Mariah had already
01:39managed to take gospel music where no one else had. Every Christmas, the world would hear her message of
01:45joy, hope, and salvation. Evangelical spirituality and the gospel genre are present in all of Mariah's
01:52albums, even in songs that deal with romance and fun. In the 1990s, Mariah attended the Episcopal
01:59Church while she was married to Tommy Mottola. In the 2000s, she was re-baptized in a Pentecostal
02:05evangelical church, True Worship Worldwide Ministries, led by Pastor Clarence Keaton,
02:11in New York. There, Mariah took a Bible course and systematically read the Bible from beginning
02:17to end. Throughout her life, Mariah practiced prayer and Bible reading. Her favorite Bible is
02:23the NIV Student Bible, edited by Philip Yancey, and she read it almost every night for more than three
02:30years. Mariah Carey was the only pop star to take her pastor on tours and live performances.
02:36The two performed at the Grammy Awards in 2006, in the most Pentecostal performance in the history
02:42of the ceremony. Her pastor was also immortalized in two of her albums. Mariah Carey is the diva of
02:49divas. Her talent, her beauty, her voice, her poetry, and her sexy femininity are unmatched. But
02:57evangelical spirituality is the center of her life. And that is why she became the most positive spiritual
03:04force in pop music. And this has been evident from vision of love, to hear for it all.
03:11Thousands of people around the world share their testimonies of psychological and spiritual
03:16healing through Mariah's music.
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