Tim Allen has read the entire Bible — word by word, page by page, no skimming — and the 71-year-old says he's going back to the beginning.

The actor announced the completion of his 13-month journey through Scripture in a post on X, capping a project he began in August 2024 with the Jerusalem Bible's Old Testament and carried through to the final pages of the New Testament.

"Humbled, enlightened and amazed at what I read and what I learned. I will rest and meditate on so much. I will begin it again."

No ghostwriter. No book deal announcement. No publicist-crafted redemption tour. Just a man, a text, and the kind of quiet discipline that used to be unremarkable in American life and now makes national news precisely because it's become so rare.

A Road That Started in Wreckage

As reported by Fox News, Allen's path to that post winds through decades of pain, rebellion, and halting, stubborn search. His father was killed by a drunk driver when Allen was eleven years old. His brothers were thrown around the car. His mother held her dying husband in her lap.

What followed was the kind of grief management a previous generation imposed on its boys. Allen's uncle delivered the instructions:

"Man up. You know, your mom needs you right now. So, no crying. None of that."

Allen described his childhood response on Mike Rowe's podcast last fall — the desperate bargaining of a kid trying to make sense of a senseless world:

"I said, 'I will eat vegetables.' Whatever as a kid. 'Just make — whatever's going on — this is terrible. I will do my homework,' or whatever."

Nobody answered. The silence shaped him. He spent years asking questions that the adults around him couldn't or wouldn't engage with. A shop teacher finally gave him the only honest reply anyone had offered — told him to stop asking and figure out what he could do.

There's something deeply American in that exchange. No therapy-speak. No trauma framework. Just a man in a workshop telling a kid the truth: some things can't be fixed, only carried.

Rock Bottom and the Long Climb

The questions didn't stop. Neither did the self-destruction. In his twenties, Allen was arrested for selling cocaine. He went to jail. He has spoken about feeling suicidal during that period — about the comic in him being the thing that kept him alive.

He told Esquire in 2011 what incarceration did to him:

"When I went to jail, reality hit so hard that it took my breath away, took my stance away, took my strength away."

That same year, he told ABC News he'd spent years as a churchgoer who couldn't stop being a cynic:

"For years, I just did not like this idea of God, church. (I was) still a churchgoer, but constantly a cynic."

Allen didn't arrive at faith through comfort. He arrived through disintegration. That matters — because the culture currently markets spirituality as wellness, as self-care, as another optimization hack. Allen's version looks nothing like that. His version has a body count and a mugshot.

The Emanator, the Builder, and Refusing to Shrink God

Allen's theology — if you can call it that — resists neat categories. He doesn't claim a denomination. He describes God as "The Builder" and "the emanator," and he's honest about the limits of his own understanding:

"I don't know what political, religious persuasion I really am because the more I look at the emanator, I tag it, I make names, and then I go through this whole thing. It's in a big chair, and it's got a beard for some reason. It looks like Father Time."

But the irrelevance masks something serious. Allen believes the universe is intentional. He's said so plainly:

"Whoever built me, this is too much, too weird that it happened by accident. It didn't happen by accident."

And he asks the Builder what he's supposed to do — while acknowledging the answer might not be comfortable:

"I always do ask…The Builder, what did you want me to do? And I do ask it. But you got to be prepared for the answer."

This is what intellectual honesty about faith actually sounds like. Not the polished certainty of a megachurch stage, and not the sneering dismissal of the New Atheist podcast circuit. Something rougher. Something real.

Forgiveness After Sixty Years

Perhaps the most striking moment in Allen's public faith journey came last September, when he posted about Erika Kirk — Charlie Kirk's widow — and the words she spoke about the man accused of killing her husband:

"When Erika Kirk spoke the words on the man who killed her husband: 'That man… that young man… I forgive him.' That moment deeply affected me. I have struggled for over 60 years to forgive the man who killed my Dad. I will say those words now as I type: 'I forgive the man who killed my father.' Peace be with you all."

Sixty years. That's how long Allen carried it. And he didn't release it through a therapist's prompt or a self-help bestseller. He released it because he watched a grieving woman do something impossible and decided he could no longer refuse to follow.

Forgiveness is the hardest teaching in Christianity. It's the one that separates intellectual agreement from actual practice. Allen didn't pretend he'd mastered it. He admitted, publicly, that it took him six decades to get there — and that someone else's courage was the thing that finally broke the dam.

Paul, Philosophy, and a Snickers Bar

Allen's Bible journey wasn't just devotional — it was intellectual. He tracked his progress publicly on X, offering dispatches that were equal parts wonder and humor. In October 2024, deep in the prophets:

"The challenge in reading this Book is how I translate words that the Eternal expresses to the temporary. I need a Snickers."

By the time he reached Paul's writings, Allen was genuinely astonished. He described Paul as a Roman Jew familiar with Plato, Stoicism, and Greek philosophical schools, and marveled at the density of what he found:

"A Roman Jew familiar with Plato, Stoicism, and other Greek schools of thought. I am amazed in seven pages!"

On Bill Maher's podcast, Allen dug into Paul's argument that law was invented to define sin — that without law, you don't know what is sinful — and connected it to broader cycles of ignorance and philosophy. He told Maher that this territory was where he'd been living intellectually for two decades:

There's something quietly subversive about a Hollywood actor going on Bill Maher's show and talking seriously about Pauline theology. The entertainment industry treats faith as either a punchline or a pathology. Allen treats it as the most interesting question he's ever encountered.

Why This Matters Beyond One Man's Journey

America doesn't lack for celebrity spiritual content. Every few months, another famous person discovers meditation, ayahuasca, or some bespoke blend of Eastern philosophy and Instagram aesthetics. The shelf life is about as long as the press cycle.

Allen's story cuts differently. Thirteen months of sustained, disciplined reading — not a retreat, not a weekend seminar, not a curated highlight reel. The man sat down with a difficult, ancient, often bewildering text and refused to skim. He posted about struggling with Ezekiel. He admitted he needed a candy bar to get through the prophets. He finished the Old Testament after nearly a year and called it "a humbling, overwhelming experience."

In a culture that can't sustain attention through a three-minute video, a 71-year-old comedian read the entire Bible and immediately announced he's doing it again.

The Builder, it seems, got an answer.