“I can’t just not be who I am,” Candace Cameron Bure told PureFlix podcast host Billy Hallowell in a recent interview. Regarding how she is able to maintain her Christian convictions in Hollywood, the actress said:
“It’s not something I think about regularly…My faith is just my life, it’s a part of it, it just naturally flows from me.”
Candace Cameron Bure on Her Faith Journey
Candace Cameron Bure started acting when she was five years old and was cast in Full House at age 10 as D.J. Tanner, the role she is probably most famous for. The show was rebooted in 2016 as Fuller House, with Bure reprising her role. The actress said that being involved in the franchise has been “one of the biggest joys of my life.”
Bure was not raised in a Christian home, and her first exposure to Christianity occurred when she was 12 years old. A friend invited her family to church because her parents were considering a divorce. It turned out their decision to go saved her parents’ marriage (they have now been married for 50 years). But while Bure said attending church, “started my faith journey,” she did not truly make her faith her own until after she got married and became a mother in her early twenties. That was when she started thinking about how she wanted to raise her kids.
Until then, even though she believed in Jesus, Bure didn’t go to church or read the Bible on a regular basis. She also saw herself as a pretty good person. But when her brother, Kirk Cameron, gave her a book called The Way of the Master by Ray Comfort, it had a huge impact on her. “It was then for the first time that I actually saw myself as a sinner in need of Jesus,” she said. She dedicated her life to God and prayed his for help with honoring him as a wife, mom and leader in her community. Twenty years later, she said, God has kept his promise.
But it’s not as though she has been passive in the meantime. She has put in the work to deepen her faith through studying the Bible, going to church, and listening to sermons. Bure believes that regular Bible reading is essential to the Christian walk. “Anyone who reads the Bible on a daily basis knows that you recognize and you realize so much more,” while neglecting time in God’s word means that we will not understand just how “present” God is in our lives.
While she would not describe herself as methodical about living out her beliefs, Bure’s faith has shaped her career. Instead of pursuing money or fame, she said, “I’ve always chosen the things that are true to me and the things that I want to do.” If she did not feel comfortable with certain opportunities, she has been willing to pass them up or to find creative alternatives.
“I’ve never been willing to…compromise myself,” said Bure, noting that she has said “no” much more often than she has said “yes.” And she is thankful that she has been able to maintain a career without sacrificing her convictions: “I’m glad that people have respected it within my industry and the people that I’ve worked with and obviously the fans that have shown up and watched what I do.”
