The pop star’s Pentecostalism asserts that God plays an intimate role in every decision she makes, no matter how large or small.
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What Katy Perry prays for, Katy Perry gets. She was just 11 when she asked God for "boobs so big that I can't see my feet when I'm lying down." It was the kind of prayer no one would expect God to take seriously, but Perry hails from a religious background that believes in a God who is eager to answer anyone's prayers, no matter how small (or, ahem, big), as a way of proving His existence.
It's the same God Perry prayed to on Feb. 1, when, as a fully grown pop superstar at the height of her career, she performed during halftime of the Super Bowl for an audience of 114 million. "I was praying and I got a word from God and He says, 'You got this and I got you,'" Perry told Ryan Seacrest days later on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards.
When Perry talks about her relationship with God, it always sounds both personal and somehow refreshing. No other pop star talks about God so regularly and sounds so candid doing it. "I do not believe God is an old guy sitting on a throne with a long beard," she once told GQ , and it shows. Her God is deeply interested in the details of her personal life, from her Super Bowl performance to her relationships to her cup size.
It's not strange for someone raised in the Pentecostal church — someone who once said, "Speaking in tongues is as normal to me as 'pass the salt'" — to feel like her success is the direct result of, and always dependent on, prayer. Her God is deeply invested in individual flourishing and prosperity. And a spirit as colorful as Perry's would, in some ways, be a natural fit for Pentecostalism, which, with its emphasis on speaking in tongues and boldness in prayer, is one of the more fantastical forms of Christianity.
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