Aaron Rodgers says he and his family’s differing opinions about religion have been one of the biggest sticking points in their relationship over the years.
Rodgers, 41, points to the moment he began “questioning” his Christian upbringing as a time when he and his family began to grow apart, the NFL quarterback reveals in a new Netflix project about his life.
The docuseries, Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, began streaming Tuesday on Netflix. PEOPLE had an advanced look at the three episodes, which examine the New York Jets star’s career and recent controversies — including his conspiratorial criticisms about vaccines and the ongoing public fallout with his immediate family.
In the series’ second episode, Rodgers ponders his relationships with his parents Ed and Darla and his brothers Jordan and Luke, coming to the conclusion that their different opinions on religion has played a major factor in their estrangement over the years.
Chance Yeh/WireImage; Luke Rodgers/Instagram
Rodgers began reflecting on religion and leaning on spirituality more after coming across lectures by religious author and self-described spiritual teacher Rob Bell, he explains in the documentary.
“I got into Rob Bell’s work with his NOOMA videos after 2011 and kind of culminating in 2014, and he was kind of retelling the stories of the Bible that I grew up on in a new and interesting way,” Rodgers says, adding that he “made sure he went” to a lecture Bell hosted in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
“He loved everybody and he didn’t judge people,” Rodgers says. “The culture I grew up in is black and white. Black and white is you’re either this or you’re that. There’s no grey area. He was a big help for me to totally unravel the religion of my youth.”
Since then, Rodgers says in the documentary, he “started looking into other ways of thinking and spirituality,” and began “reading a lot of different types of books, philosophy books, self-help books,” which helped him find “the courage to speak my feelings better.”
“I started to stand up to institutions of my youth,” Rodgers says. “And that was everything from organized religion, my parents, dogma, ideology, and that definitely changed the dynamics of my family, because I was just questioning all of it.”
Luke Rodgers/Instagram
Rodgers, who says he grew up attending church every Sunday with his family, criticized organized religion in a 2020 podcast episode with his then-girlfriend Danica Patrick, saying it can be used as a “crutch” and “can be something that people have to have to make themselves feel better,” specifically “about themselves.”
“I don’t know how you can believe in a God who wants to condemn most of the planet to a fiery hell,” Rodgers said at the time. “What type of loving, sensitive, omnipresent, omnipotent being wants to condemn his beautiful creation to a fiery hell at the end of all this?”
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The comments left his immediate family “dismayed,” one insider told PEOPLE at the time.
“To them, his comments are basically a slap in the face to the fundamentals of who they are,” the source said. “It’s basically him turning his back on everything they have taught him.”
The new Netflix project focuses greatly on Rodgers’ spiritual beliefs and practices, including his use of “plant-based” medicines like ayahuasca and holistic spiritual trips, such as a 2023 darkness retreat in which he spent some time reflecting on his relationship with his family.
“People ask me, like, is there hope for a reconciliation? I say, ‘Yeah, of course, of course,’ “ Rodgers says of his family elsewhere in the doc. “I don’t want them to fail, to struggle, to have any strife or issues. I don’t wish any ill-will on them at all. It’s more like this: We’re just different steps on the timeline of our own journeys.”
All episodes of Aaron Rodgers: Enigma are now streaming on Netflix.
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