You might think that small mountain villages in the Dominican Republic are immune from the self-promotional vanities of the Christian music industry. But that’s probably because you have not yet heard the story of The Great Celebrity Who Came to El Puerto.

It’s January of 2006, and we’re squeezed into a rental van in the rural backcountry of the Dominican Republic, touring the countryside with an American ministry that operates in the area. It installs water purification systems in local churches, who then distribute the water to their neighbors. I’m one of three journalists on the trip, and we are joined by a few musicians. These include Paul, a pastor and performance artist who fronts a hybrid punk/gospel-revival band in Denver; and Brad, the ex-drummer of a popular jam band who’s now recording and touring on his own. Rounding out the group are the president and founder of the organization, a few of his employees, and an interpreter.

We stop in a rural town called El Puerto to check out a church and water system there. We’re scheduled to eat lunch at the home of Benjamin López Vega, pastor of Defensoras de la Fe (“Defenders of the Faith”), a leading church in the area. When we arrive, the pastor’s wife tells us he’s out digging a cistern with one of his parishioners. We hang out on the porch and wait. We admire the scenery, walk through their garden, and take photos of their simple four-room home.

Finally, the pastor arrives. He is 81 years old, wrinkled as a dried pumpkin, and wearing an orange hardhat. The hardhat adds an extra two inches in height, which brings him up to maybe five-foot-six.

Pastor Vega is a cuddly fellow, given to hugging strangers as a way of greeting them, and given to leaning his sweaty head against one’s chest during said greeting.

“I like this guy,” Paul says to me.

Smiling, I nod in agreement as I lean in to receive my own pastoral hug. (The grin quickly turns into a wince, though. As I so rarely get hugged by old men wearing hardhats, I’m not quite prepared to be jabbed in the armpit by his protective headgear.)

Nonetheless, I’m happy to meet Pastor Vega. If more pastors were cuddly and wore hardhats, this world would be a much better place.

The pastor prays for us and we eat a simple meal of rice, beef, fresh tomatoes, and cucumbers. Afterwards, we return to the porch, and conversation turns to the musicians in our group. We discuss their former bands and current careers, and Pastor Vega tells us, through an interpreter, that he is friends with a famous American musician who once came to El Puerto. In fact, this man even visited the church.

“Really?” Paul asks. “Who was it?”

Pastor Vega can’t remember the guy’s name, but assures us that he is quite the celebrity in the United States. Not only is he a renowned singer, but he is a movie star.

“Very important, very famous,” the pastor tells us.

We’re impressed. A singing, churchgoing, humanitarian movie star! There aren’t too many of those around, if you don’t count Michael W. Smith. And we don’t.

“What films has he been in?” Paul asks.

Pastor Vega can’t remember. One of the pastor’s stepsons, an authority on American culture, suggests it was Gladiator.

Wait just a—Russell Crowe sings! He’s even in a band. Good Lord, was it Russell Crowe?

No, the son says. Not Russell Crowe.

That’s a relief, because we were going to have to repent for thinking the churchgoing, friend-of-El Puerto, charitable Mr. Crowe was a jerk.

Pastor Vega’s stepdaughter chimes in. “He’s very handsome,” she says in Spanish. “He’s been in many films. He’s a generous man. He gave us a box of his CDs.” She goes inside to find them.

Meanwhile, it’s time to visit the church and its water system. Pastor Vega tucks the hardhat under his arm and we momentarily forget about the famous Jesus-loving movie star singer who might have appeared in Gladiator and other noteworthy films.

At the church, we join the pastor in his open-air, third-floor sanctuary. From a balcony overlooking El Puerto, he tells us how the water system is making the children of the community healthier. No longer do they have amoebas or parasites. No longer is baby formula being prepared with contaminated tap water, now that the impoverished citizens of El Puerto can buy clean water at the church. The pastor is proud.

Meanwhile, word spreads among our group about the Curious Case of the El Puerto Celebrity. His name remains unknown to our Dominican hosts, and we try to remember as much of the Gladiator cast as we can. Richard Harris? Too old. Derek Jacobi? Too British. Joaquin Phoenix? Maybe, but none of us would really describe him as handsome. Djimon Hounsou? A good-looking fella for sure, but not American and, to our knowledge, not a singer.

Our visit ends. More cuddly hugging ensues. Clouds descend on El Puerto and scattered drops begin to fall as we prepare to leave. We’ve barely shut the door of the van when Pastor Vega comes barreling out of his home, in the rain. He’s carrying a small box.
We open the door.

“A gift,” he says. “For you!”

“No, we can’t take this,” says Tom, the founder of the water ministry and our tour guide for the week.

Pastor Vega insists.

We wave to Pastor Vega and accept his gift. Tom opens it. Inside the box are eight or nine identical CDs, still shrink-wrapped. It’s a Christian worship album.

“That’s him!” Paul yells from the back seat. “Gimme that. This is the guy!”

His name is Chase Reed. The album cover is a close-up of his face, complete with a rugged soul patch and framed by shaggy, highlighted, movie-star hair. On the back is another photo of Mr. Reed wearing stylish clothes and a worshipful grin. In both photos he appears to have been Photoshopped within an inch of mannequinism.

“This man has no pores,” Paul observes.

Brad snatches a CD out of the box. “This guy was in Gladiator?”

Mr. Reed looks a little like John Tesh without the massive jaw-and-forehead combo. But other than that, his face is unfamiliar. We shrug.

Paul unwraps the jewel case and pulls out the insert. It unfolds to five panels, which is enough to contain lyrics for eleven songs and—count ‘em—nine photos of our hero in fashionable poses. He has very white teeth.

We read the liner notes, and in the “Acknowledgments” section, our eyes start to bleed as we stumble across the following phrase: “Thanks,” Chase Reed tells his many supporters, “for your faith in God and me.”

Nearby, crickets chirp. In Spanish.

Finally Brad pipes up: “At least he listed himself after God.”

Hands trembling with equal doses of anticipation and foreboding, we put the CD in a portable CD player. We pass around the headphones. The lyrics are doggerel, but they’re about Jesus, and love, and the cross, so that’s good. But the music—the music is chirpy, synth-driven, drum-looping europop. It’s not a little porntastic.

“It’s like sex praise,” Paul says, establishing a category you won’t soon see at religious bookstores. We laugh. (Later, Paul will rethink this designation, opting instead for “PraiSex,” which seems more marketable.)

Later that night, in the hotel lobby—with throbbing sex praise still bumping through our psyches—we enter his name at IMDB. Yep, he’s a movie star, all right. Mr. Chase Reed has one acting credit to his name, and it’s a doozy: an unbilled role as a U.N. photographer in Left Behind II: Tribulation Force. That’s right—the straight-to-video one. Not quite Gladiator, but we had to admit the dude was indeed famous.

And not just in El Puerto.

*The name of the singer has been, er, altered to protect his dignity. But feel free to look it up.

Jason Boyett is a writer from Texas and the author of Pocket Guide to the Bible, Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse, and some other books not about pockets. He has written for a variety of publications, including Salon and Paste.