(OPINION) Actor and comedian Russell Brand announced Friday that he will be baptized this weekend, the culmination of his months-long public wrestling with the tenets of Christianity. “This Sunday, I’m taking the plunge,” Brand, 48, said in a video he posted to X. I’m getting baptized.”
Brand said he had heard baptism explained to him as “an opportunity to die and be reborn; an opportunity to leave the past behind and be reborn in Christ’s name like it says in Galatians — that you can live as an enlightened and awakened person.”
He also referenced what he suggested were non-Christian reflections on the same theme of embracing death for the sake of life, quoting Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and the Buddha.
“All of these things seem so inviting and beautiful,” he said. Brand also suggested that increasing numbers are turning back to Christianity as the empty value system of modernity disintegrates and leaves them wanting more.
“I know a lot of people are sort of cynical about the increasing interest in Christianity and the return to God, but to me, it’s obvious,” he said. “As meaning deteriorates in the modern world, as our value systems and institutions crumble, all of us become increasingly aware that there is this eerily familiar awakening and beckoning figure that we’ve all known all of our lives, within us and around us. And for me, it’s very exciting.”
Brand added that he intends to get baptized in the heavily polluted River Thames, joking that he might also be baptized in toxoplasmosis and E. coli.
“I may be leaving behind the sins, but I might be picking up some pretty serious viruses,” he said.
Brand’s baptism follows other videos he has made in recent months about his spiritual journey to the Christian faith.
In December, he told followers he was reading the Bible and The Problem of Pain, a 1940 book by C.S. Lewis that explores the role of suffering in the Christian life.
Baptism. This Sunday I’m taking the plunge! How was it for you? pic.twitter.com/DnwcUrzoqa
— Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) April 26, 2024
In January, he noted that he was reading Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life and that he desired a “personal relationship with God” as he found Jesus Christ increasingly important as he grew older, despite once seeing many churches as either too “old-fashioned” or too modernized.
“The reason I wear a cross is because Christianity and, in particular, the figure of Christ, are, it seems to me, inevitably becoming more important as I become more familiar with suffering, purpose, self, and not-self,” he said at the time.
In March, he posted a video explaining that he had been visiting churches of various denominations with the intention of possibly getting baptized and asked his followers their opinions on the sacrament.
During an interview with Tucker Carlson last year, Brand said, “Like many desperate people, I need spirituality. I need God, or I cannot cope in this world. I need to believe in the best in people.”
Acknowledging he “didn’t have enough self-discipline to resist the allure of stardom,” he said he “fell face-first into the glitter, and I’m only just pulling myself out now.”
