So Russell Brand got baptised. Last Sunday, in the Thames. I watched this video of him describing the experience – you may have seen it. It was moving and beautiful to hear him describe the peace he has searched for in many places, and has now come to experience, since accepting Christ as his saviour.

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And if that were the only thing I’d ever heard from Brand, I would have given thanks immediately and hit share…

However, I confess to having felt a smidge of cynicism. After all, I thought, might this not just be the latest twist on his long and meandering journey of faddish exploration of all things spiritual? Has he truly surrendered to Christ, or merely attempted to add him into his pantheon of gods and spiritual practices? I mean, only a couple of days ago he was talking about practicing tarot, right?

And given the serious allegations of sexual assault that have been brought against him, might this be an attempt to re-Brand? To shed his reputation, avoid scrutiny, and maybe gain a new religious fanbase who will accept him unquestioningly? And certainly, scrolling through the comments on his video, there are a lot of affirming welcome messages from Christians who I’m pretty sure would not previously have been Russell Brand fans!

But no sooner had those thoughts crossed my mind than I felt disgusted at myself. Because surely if baptism means anything it’s that an old self can indeed be put to death, and a new life begun. The gospel, after all, is not good news for generally good people. A helping hand over a finish line for those who’ve made it 80% there in their own strength. It’s resurrection for those who were dead in their sins. Dead. Unable to do a thing about their situation. It’s all grace.

And of course I can’t expect full and complete transformation in an instant. Sanctification takes time. So really there’s no reason at all that this couldn’t be legit. I can’t know the state of Brand’s heart. None of us can. But I have to trust that he’s genuinely heard and understood the gospel; that he’s been through baptism classes; that pastors around him have asked the hard questions. Even they won’t know what’s truly in his heart, but they’re closer than I am, and have chosen to baptise him in good faith. Perhaps that should be enough…

Discovering the Suella within

As soon as my thoughts arrived there, it dawned on me that only a few months ago, I – like many others – was disgusted at the public conversation around the baptism of asylum seekers. Following the horrific chemical attack by Abdul Ezedi, an Afghan man who had been granted asylum on his third attempt, after allegedly converting to Christianity, Suella Braverman accused churches of ‘facilitating industrial-scale bogus asylum claims’. Others similarly chimed in, claiming that churches were encouraging people to lie about their faith, and operating a ‘conveyor belt and veritable industry of asylum baptisms’.

Many great pieces were written in response. At the time, I appreciated these from Giles Fraser and Graham Tomlin, which brought balance and clarity, from the perspectives of a Priest and a Bishop respectively.

Of course, there will be some who try to game the system by faking conversion, and some clergy who do an inadequate job of vetting and preparing people for baptism. But, as Fraser points out,

‘It’s not just Muslim converts who try and game the church system. Sharp elbowed middle class parents looking to get their offspring into a good church school are often masquerading as pious believers in order to jump the queue.’

And as Tomlin says,

‘I have confirmed several Iranian refugees. I can’t look into their heart, or even my own to guarantee all of them were genuine converts. Yet I have seen their desperation to escape an oppressive regime, and although some may have started out coming to church to improve their chances of asylum, in the process some of them at least, have found, to their surprise, real faith. Several that I know have gone on towards ordination in the Anglican Church. If that is a ploy to get past the immigration system, it does seem to be taking things a bit far.’  

At the end of the day, none of us knows what is truly in somebody’s heart. When a person stands before us asking to be baptised, we must explain the gospel clearly, help them genuinely count the cost of following Jesus, take them at their word when they express confession and faith, and then seek to disciple them well on an ongoing basis. There’s a reason that baptismal liturgy tends to include the line,

‘Based upon your profession of faith …’

So having reached that conclusion with regards to asylum seekers, I was a little shocked to find myself harbouring ungenerous, Suella-like cynicism towards Russell Brand. Why was my inclination not to offer him the same courtesy, and take him at his word?

Honestly, I can’t know whether Brand’s conversion is genuine, but I can choose to pray for him, and to fight the cynicism. And also to pray for his testimony to stir up curiosity in others. As Krish Kandiah has written,

‘Only time will tell whether this is just a fad. Only God knows if there has been an authentic change of heart. Meanwhile his quest for fulfilment probably mirrors that of many around us and, as such, his testimony may encourage others to look into the Christian faith also.’

Celebration, Cynicism and Cautious Hope

As I’ve reflected on what my attitude should be, I’m realising that it doesn’t fit into the simple binary of celebration vs cynicism. While wanting to think the best of Brand, I can’t fully celebrate his baptism. Not yet. But nor do I want to be immovably cynical, as if I don’t actually believe the gospel of which I’m a minister! There is, however, a space in the middle that I’m inclined to settle around for the moment. That of cautious hope.

To my mind, there is something icky about the way Christians so quickly latch onto celebrity professions of faith, often in an unquestioningly celebratory way. And sometimes it backfires. (Take the Christian response to Kanye West, for example.) I think it plays into the obsession Christian culture can have with celebrity – and look what that’s doing to the church right now! It also puts these celebs on an impossible pedestal, and makes them the benchmark by which many onlookers will judge Christianity to be true or false, which isn’t helpful for either the observer or the observed.

But on the other hand, there’s something repulsive about the cynicism that can’t celebrate genuine faith, and that just sits back and waits for the new convert to stumble. Many of us have very clean, middle-class testimonies, of having been essentially raised as cultural-Christians, and then chosen to adopt that more deeply at some point in our teens. At very little cost to our lifestyle or reputation. As such, it doesn’t always feel to us like we’ve had a darkness-to-light, death-to-life conversion of our own. So when someone comes along with a far more broken and messy past and professes to have changed, we can sneer and think “but have they really?” simply because we can’t easily conceive of it. And all that does is reveal how deeply disillusioned we are, and how little we understand the gospel.

We would do well to look in a mirror daily and repeat Paul’s

‘trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst’ (1 Tim 1.15)

And Jesus’ remark that,

‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick… For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’ (Matthew 9.12–13)

People often arrive at the cross through long and messy journeys, including a whole load of sin, brokenness, and spiritual exploration. To those concerned about the diverse spiritual influences on Brand’s journey so far, take a moment to read Paul Kingsnorth’s remarkable testimony, The Cross and the Machine. And to those concerned whether someone who has lived the kind of lifestyle Brand has can genuinely change, take a moment to read… well, the Bible!  

We must resist cynicism that denies the life-changing power of the gospel. But when considering stories like this, we must also be clear what baptism is and is not. Two quotes from articles I’ve already cited explore this well.

On what baptism is, Krish reminds us that,

‘Baptism is a visible reminder of the fresh start that we all long for and need. Whatever we have or haven’t done or said, and whatever has or hasn’t been said or done to us, we are all equally in need of a new start.’

And on what it’s not, Giles Fraser writes,

‘Baptism is not a certificate of good character. It is an outward expression of the desire to be saved. And that is available even to the very worst of us.

Baptism, is not, after all, the end goal. Jesus didn’t tell us to go out and make countless converts, baptising them and then leaving them to it. No, his commission was to:

‘Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.’ (Matthew 28.19–20)

Discipleship includes baptism early on, but then also involves an ongoing learning and applying of everything Jesus taught. Baptism isn’t the end of the story, it’s the start of a new life. I would hate to have my spiritual maturity judged for all my life on based how I was on the day I got baptised. I have grown and changed and been sanctified a huge amount since then, and still have a way to go. And my hope and prayer is that Russell Brand will have wise people around him who will continue walking him through the journey of discipleship, doing exactly what the Great Commission told them to.

So the position I want to hold is that of cautious hope. I take him at his word, but I haven’t (up to now, in the context of these rambling thoughts) reposted his video. I celebrate personally and privately, and I pray for those who are walking the journey with him to do so with wisdom and rigour. Because this journey will no doubt include facing up to some difficult truths… Which leads me to my final reason for caution.

Allegations of Abuse and the Pursuit of Truth

Just as I don’t know the true status of Russell Brand’s heart, neither do I know the reality of his past. Beyond what he’s written in his Booky Wook, or expressed in his stand up or podcasts – little of which I’ve consumed to be honest. But I do think the serious allegations of sexual assault that have been brought against him should cause us to pause and ponder before hitting share. While he denies the accusations and has not been formally charged, investigations are still ongoing, and for that reason, I am cautious about celebrating too early.

If the abuse scandals in the church of recent years have shown us anything, it’s that Christians often have a hard time believing and taking seriously abuse that’s committed by ‘one of their own.’ Particularly if the individual is a charismatic personality, which Brand certainly is.

One of the many lines that stood out from Matt and Beth Redman’s documentary Let there be Light, about their experience of Mike Pilavachi’s abusive behaviour, was this:

‘There are still a quite a large group of people who are saying things like ‘I think its exaggerated’ or ‘I can’t bring myself to believe this’ or ‘Mike, you’ll always be a hero to me’ and this is a really disturbing thing we need to look at in our church culture.’

It truly is disturbing how easily Christians often rally around charismatic individuals and defend them, in a way that obstructs justice and healing for victims. And it doesn’t take too much imagination to foresee them doing the same for Brand, should he be found guilty. “But he’s a Christian now, and he says he’s innocent, so I won’t believe it.” Or worse, “This is spiritual attack against him, as a new believer.” Or worse still, “He’s been forgiven for the sins of his past, we need to move on.”

Some Christians, I think, have a hard time differentiating between sins and crimes, and tend to treat them as if they are one and the same. But not all sins are crimes against the law, but all crimes are sin. So criminal activity requires both divine forgiveness and legal repercussions, and if it turns out that these allegations are in fact true, then Brand will have to pay the penalty for his crimes, whether or not his baptism and receipt of divine forgiveness was genuine. Though if that is the case, it’ll be hard for me to see how his baptismal confession will have been wholly genuine, given that he currently denies the allegations against him.

I’m also aware that while many celebrate Brand’s baptism as ‘good news’, it won’t sound like that to those women who have made allegations against him. In fact, quite the opposite. It must be deeply traumatic for those who have suffered abuse to see their abuser celebrated so widely, and embraced so freely by the Christian community. I suspect also that for those who have experienced abuse at the hands of others, it may only reinforce their fears that ultimately people tend to protect abusers, and ignore victims. And that would be a tragedy.

Conclusion: A Cautious Hope

So I don’t know what to make about Russell Brand’s conversion. But really this is a post less about him and more about me. A way of processing my thoughts and feelings, imperfect though they may be.

For these reasons, I haven’t felt able to fully celebrate as I would like to. But I want to find a middle ground between cynicism and celebration. A place of cautious hope. I want to resist immovable cynicism, and so I choose to take Russell Brand at his word. I pray for him and those walking with him, and trust that they will disciple him well in the way of Jesus. And if the allegations against him are indeed true, then I pray that the truth will be uncovered, that Brand would himself confess and face the consequences, and that the victims would be able to receive justice and healing.

But also, I do want to pray for more of these testimonies. Stories of people experiencing deep life-transformation, and finding peace, meaning and purpose in Christ, in a way they can’t find anywhere else.

I appreciated the conclusion of Krish’s article where, reflecting on the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4, he writes,

‘We are told that many of the Samaritans in the town where she lived believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony. I pray that many people will listen to Brand’s testimony and make a decision for themselves not whether he is the real deal, but whether Jesus is the real deal.’

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