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"Hey, if they're trying to find God, I'd be happy to send them on their way."
A practitioner of The New Rock & Roll or the Big Guy turns out to be heavily religious, bonus points if he is a priest/pastor/whatever.
Despite the name, needs not be physically strong.
Compare with Church Militant, which is this trope with the emphasis flipped, and All Monks Know Kung-Fu, when a Christian monk is presumed to be a martial artist just because he is... well, a monk. Also see Badass Preacher and Warrior Monk, for specific characters who wear both their faith and their ass-kickery on their sleeves.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- A rare villainous (or at least, very mentally broken) example: Anji Yukyuzan from Rurouni Kenshin. He gets better.
- Paladin Father Alexander 'Bayonet' Anderson from the ultra violent Hellsing is an anti-heroic example.
- Chichiri from Fushigi Yuugi is a monk, and possibly one of the most powerful warriors in the series. He's one of the two Suzaku warriors to survive by the end, anyway.
- Chopin from Tower Of God. He is sometimes even possessed by his God, who goes by the name of Hohhohohohhohoh. No, seriously.
- Subverted with Nicholas D. Wolfwood from Trigun.
- Bartholomew Kuma, one of the biggest and strongest humans in One Piece, carries a Bible everywhere he goes, and wears clothes that are similar to a priest's.
Comic Books
- Connor Hawke from Green Arrow comics.
- Nightcrawler from X-Men comics.
- Liang Xih'kai aka Thunderlord from the Global Guardians was both a super hero and a Buddhist Bare-Fisted Monk.
- Rahne Sinclair from New Mutants is a devout Presbyterian and doesn't look like much, but when she transforms into her werewolf form, she's very dangerous.
- Transformers Sunstorm is a religious seeker who never failed to mention "The will of Primus." He also believes that Primus sent him to this world -universe, life, whatever- to deal righteous judgment on the blasphemous. He is a terrifying warrior, especially when he's on fire and so radiated that bots melt and circuits fry when they get too close. His strength is only surpassed by his will and love for Primus.
Film
Literature
- Michael Carpenter of The Dresden Files. Never swears. Happily married. Devoted family man. Will tear you ass to ears if you dare hurt an innocent, or worse, his children. He's not called "The Fist of God" for nothing, folks. (By his friends, no less. What do his enemies call him?).
- His wife, Charity, is a blacksmith who favours long swords, chain mail and war hammers with spikes. Touch her kids and she will mess you up and trash your pad to boot. Who do you think Michael sparred against all these years to become a master swordsman? Also a former semi-dark wizard.
- Klaus/Lohengrim from Wild Cards. His ace power summons a magical armor with the Holy Grail engraved on it.
- Commander Krause in The Good Shepherd by C S Forester, is a Stoic Spock-like naval officer who is very pious and very efficient at sending Those Wacky Nazis to face their final judgement
- Milo Anderson from Monster Hunter International usually functions as the resident firearms expert of MHI (and holds a Federal Firearms License as a dealer). However, he is also a devout Mormon (as is the author, who also used to hold an FFL) and strong faith of any sort can be a very effective weapon against monsters (his faith is far stronger than most other Hunters, so he is able to do a Holy Hand Grenade that probably counts as a Crowning Moment of Awesome).
Live Action TV
- Babylon 5: Gives us a whole list of them:
- Bones: Seeley Boothe often expresses how deeply he believes in his Catholic faith, even though it's been implied he doesn't attend every Sunday mass and he has had sex with several women (has a son with one), though has never married. Lampshaded in one episode where he was given a Trust Password to relay to a hostage: Paladin - "Defender of the Faith."
- Dog the Bounty Hunter is quite openly Christian, and is sometimes shown praying for the safety of his crew before going after a fugitive.
- Firefly: Shepherd Book is a very religious man, and as such never kills anybody... However, the Bible is fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps. It's also unclear what he was before he became a Shepherd.
- Lost: Mr. Eko turned out to (sort of) be a priest.
- Psych: In one episode, a daredevil mentions he is a "good Christian man" as a reason he doesn't want a psychic around.
- Revolution: Neville and his men stop to pray while taking Danny to the prison camp.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Major Kira. Highly religious. Utterly badass.
Mythology & Religion
- In parts of Germany and Austria, St. Nicholas (Santa Claus) is accompanied by a Knecht Ruprecht / Krampus, a demon who was tamed by the saint and now helps him punishing evil kids. Hm, if Santa can take on a demon, that'd definitely make him this trope.
- Samson and David in The Bible
Roleplay
- Of the only two "religious characters" to actually appear in Dino Attack RPG, Pharisee is definitely this. He's a tough-as-nails fellow who not only spends time reciting the Bible, but believes it is his divine right to impart justice on others, to the point where at times he looks no better than the criminals he mercilessly beats up. Shaw on the other hand is the complete inverse, seeing as she really only uses religion as a form of comfort in desperate times.
Tabletop Games
- Whole armies in Warhammer 40000, but most notably the Space Marines — Super Soldier warrior monks in Power Armour, with a prayer and a really big gun for every occasion.
- The Marines are more "Warrior Monk" than outright priest; they respect the Emperor to a point of near worship, as something of a genetic grandfather. The Sisters of Battle? They literally put the militant in Church Militant. And where other races use psychic powers or daemonic magic, they pray for the Emperor's assistance. He provides it.
- In practice, there's not much distinction between "revering" and "worshipping" the Emperor for most Space Marines, and many chapters do openly worship the Emperor, including the Fire Angels, the White Consuls and most significantly, the Black Templars.
- Most Space Marine Chapters have Chaplains or equivalents thereof. Warrior-priests in black Power Armor and skull-faced helms wielding maces who spread the Emperor's word and kick ass while doing so.
- There was an entire Space Marine legion of those in the age before the Horus Heresy. The Word Bearers under the Primarch Lorgar were pious and devout, and revered the Emperor as a god. He actually frowned on this and chastised his son for his zeal, as the time they took to convert planets and build cathedrals to His glory was slowing down the Great Crusade. Afterwards, the Word Bearers turned heretics and began worshipping the Chaos Gods (and actually deliberately kicked the Horus Heresy into action, being the first Space Marines who turned traitors and who later tempted Horus into doing the same). As of the 41st millenium they are still active and very well organized, a constant threat to the Imperium - both militarily and ideologically as they would gleefully corrupt entire worlds. Their own Chaplains became Dark Apostles, and serve the same purpose as they did while loyal.
- Iron Kingdoms gives us the Protectorate of Menoth. Their uniforms even have a "priestly" motif.
Video Games
- The Tower social link in Persona 3 is a monk whose in game profile describes as looking like a gangster, spending every weekend chain-smoking and drinking heavily in a night club. He still takes religion seriously though. Get far enough along his Social Link, and he decides to reconnect with his family (whom he ran out on before becoming a monk).
- Wakka in Final Fantasy X.
- Janos Audron: True, while the God he is devoted to turned out to be a selfish, manipulative Eldritch Abomination, Janos is unaware of this and is pious, priestly and one of the most powerful warriors of his race.
- Ashley, Samara and Thane from Mass Effect are all this, for starters. Possibly Shepard, depending on how you play, although it only really comes up during conversations with Ashley in the first game.
- Most of the Olacion Order in Radiata Stories can qualify as this.
- Sten of Dragon Age: Origins, though it's hard to tell at first since he's The Stoic and operates on Blue and Orange Morality.
- By extended definition, this applies to all military Qunari, given that Qunari are by definition "people of the Qun" (an intense religious movement, irrespective of physical race - not that anyone outside of the Qunari priesthood bothers to differentiate there). Individual devotion levels may vary, but most seem quite high, and since the majority of Qunari are kossith, they're quite large and powerful as well.
- Roberto Frois in Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams.
- Gaira Caffeine of Samurai Shodown. Bonus points for his weapon being an oversized set of prayer beads.
- Dungeon Fighter Online has the most badass "priest" character ever. Behold.
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- Dutch in Halo 3: ODST is a member of the most badass military unit outside of the setting's Super Soldier program, and was a college major in philosophy and religion, occasionally incorporating it into his dialogue and outlook.
Micky: I don't think it actually says that, Dutch.
Dutch: I'm paraphrasin', ya heathen!
Dutch: (after doing a jump in a Warthog/Ghost and crashing) Uh, Lord? I didn't train to be a pilot. Tell me I don't have any more flying to do today. (Aerial drone crashes into a nearby statue) So, was that a yes or a no? (Warthog/Ghost explodes) Amen.
- Unreal Tournament III has Ronin team's Cold Sniper, Bishop.
- Reverend Alberts in Killing Floor.
- Jun Kazama of Tekken showed signs of this in the second game, where she was portrayed as being allied with Angel. The first Tag Tournament had them share an ending, except it was Jun healing her son of the Devil Gene and Angel healing Kazuya.
- Mon-Mon of Yo-Jin-Bo, who wields a giant rosary and is as capable in a fight as the ronin.
- Much like his creator Doug TenNapel, Earthworm Jim is shown to be fairly religious, praying to a god known as "The Great Worm Spirit". The episode of the animated series where he gets to meet Him is oddly touching, at least by the standards of such a goofy cartoon.
Web Original
Podcasts
Real Life
- The late Geoff Mann, lead singer with prog band Twelfth Night, was an ordained priest in the Church of England.
- American football player Reggie White was apparently also an ordained minister.
- New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow is very outspoken about his faith.
- Alice Cooper has been rather open about his Christian faith since the 90s, even if he doesn't talk about it a whole lot. He still chops the heads off of mannequins at shows and plays up the act.
- Early Methodist preacher Peter Cartwright once beat the snot out of a saloon keep, singing "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" all the while.
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