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Comedian Russell Brand has again spoken out about the impact of his new faith in Christ during a recent conversation with Neil Oliver posted to X, saying he is in the “business of serving Jesus Christ.” He said, “In surrendering to Christ, there is something extraordinary about saying there is this man, another man, entirely God, entirely man. But through some necessary, extraordinary, metaphysical act just beyond the edge of rational understanding, the Creator of this simulation came into the simulation and told us, ‘Hello, I am God. I’ve come here. Here are some virtues and values.’”
Brand shared a message that Christian author C.S. Lewis once spoke. He said, “C.S. Lewis talks about the ‘stoics era’… to imagine that one might be able to do always what one can do sometimes. You know, there are times when it’s like, ‘I am not in the business of Russell Brand anymore. I am in the business of service. Serve Jesus Christ. And it’s such a powerful idea that I’m held alive by it. But surely, this parasite nature grips me again, and I return to egotism. I return to wanting and longing and fear. And all of those limiting things.” Brand recently developed a relationship with Jesus Christ and was baptized into the faith in April.
He said in a TikTok video posted in May, “I’ve been a Christian a month now, and it’s been a big change. Not that I’ve entirely changed as a person. Of course, I haven’t, but I’ve taken on a lot of new concepts, and it changes you to accept that it’s not like you’re in a game show, and by doing really, really good things, you can get redeemed.” In recent years, the actor has also come under heavy public scrutiny and faces several allegations of sexual misconduct stemming from when he was a younger actor. A joint investigation by The Times of London and Channel 4 released last September features four women who alleged Brand sexually assaulted them between 2006 and 2013 during the height of his film career. The Sunday Times reports that Brand was alleged to have assaulted a girl who was 16 years old at the time. Another woman told the outlet that Brand sexually assaulted her at his Los Angeles home in 2012.
In surrendering to Christ…
From my conversation with my friend @thecoastguy pic.twitter.com/F4A4HPN0BH
— Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) July 1, 2024
Last December, Brand told his social media followers that he was reading through the Bible and The Problem of Pain, a 1940 book by C.S. Lewis that explores the role of suffering in the Christian life. He revealed in January that he was reading The Purpose-Driven Life by Saddleback Church founder Rick Warren. Although he once viewed churches as either too “old-fashioned” or too modernized, he said he found Christ more important in his life as he grew older. After his baptism, the comedian said his faith brought “incredible” people and literature into his life, offering him peace and direction.
Brand said in his May video, “Repentance, to repent, means that you have to continually change and acknowledge that ‘I am in a battle against myself,’ that I need to surrender myself to an ever-present, internal and accessible Jesus, that mercy is something that’s given to me, been granted to me, that I live with through love, not something that I can sort of win or achieve by doing good deeds.”