Prince intended to link sexuality with worship of God, says author

Singer-songwriter Prince Rogers Nelson, more commonly known as Prince, was reportedly a conservative Christian.

Various news and social media posts flooded the Internet after his death on Thursday, April 21, and this includes discussions on the subject of religion. As an artist, Prince has been called flamboyant and enigmatic, ever evolving, but his work in the past three decades is peppered with spiritual themes. For instance, his song "The Cross" includes the line, "Soon all of our problems, y'all, will be taken by the cross," "Adore" contains the lyrics, "If God one day struck me blind, your beauty I'll still see," while "Controversy" includes the Lord's Prayer.

But his faith, according to The Washington Post, was rather complex, with Prince having beliefs of his own that were rooted in Jesus.

The 57-year-old musical artist was reportedly fascinated with Judeo-Christian literature as well as the afterlife. He grew up as a Seventh-Day Adventist, but shifted to Jehovah's Witnesses in 2001, something that he considered as more of a "realization" than a "conversion," according to his interview with The New Yorker in 2008.

In that interview, he said he moved to Los Angeles because he wanted to be around and be connected to people for work.

"You know, it's all about religion," he said. "That's what unites people here. They all have the same religion, so I wanted to sit down with them, to understand the way they see things, how they read Scripture."

Prince's inclination toward the spiritual seems to be quite in contrast with many of his sexually-charged songs and gaudy performances, but author Touré, in "I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon" published in 2013, said that the musician believed that sexuality and faith go together.

"He seems to be hypermodern in this desire to merge the carnality of today's world with the spirituality he holds dear, but, in some ways, this is a very old concept; some pre-Christian religions considered sex a form of worship. It seems Prince does, too," Touré wrote, later adding, "Prince intended sexuality to be linked to the worship of God, and he filled his music with classic Christian messages, meaning Prince was sexual but, ultimately, very conservative."