Actor, comedian, and podcast host Russell Brand announced on Monday that he was officially baptized as a Christian on Sunday, going on to post a video describing his experience on social media platform X. The 48-year-old first shared that he would be following the Lord’s command to believe and be baptized last week after formerly being a Buddhist. Jesus is Lord, ladies and gentlemen. And there’s no one who is beyond His ability to save.
“Yesterday I got baptized, and it was an incredible, profound experience,” the British-born actor said at the start of the video. “Many aspects of it were very intimate and personal. The truth is this, as a person who has in the past, taken many, many substances and always been disappointed with their inability to deliver the kind of tranquility and peace and even transcendence that I’ve always felt I’ve been looking for … something occurred in the process of baptism that was incredible; overwhelming.”
I got baptised!!!!
And… pic.twitter.com/c1JamCk49x
— Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) April 29, 2024
He then revealed he was indeed baptized in the River Thames, saying, “I felt changed. Transitioned.”
Brand later stated that his life felt very different after the baptism was completed. “I feel as if some new resource within me has been switched on.”
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Here’s more on the baptism via The Daily Wire:
The “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” actor continued, saying some fans have been supportive, while others are skeptical. “This is new for me, I’m learning … but this is my path now,” Brand said. “And I already feel incredibly blessed, relieved, nourished, held. It’s been an incredible experience.”
“I’m so grateful to be surrendered in Christ,” he concluded, thanking fans again for their support. His comments match what Brand had spoken about in a previous video discussing his intention to get baptized. Brand said he believed baptism was 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,” he went on to say in a separate video that was posted on Friday. “That you can live as an enlightened and awakened person.”
And that’s exactly what baptism is, especially according to the historic belief of the Christian church from the beginning of it’s inception. Baptism identifies you with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. An ontological change occurs where original sin, the old Adamic nature, dies when going into the water, just as Jesus died on the cross, as you are under the water, you are buried with Christ the same way He was in the tomb for three days, and then coming back up, you are resurrected with Him, a new nature given to you, along with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whose work is to unite you more and more with God the Son as your progress in the faith.
It’s no surprise to those following Brand on social media. He’s been studying and contemplating Christianity for months and began wearing a crucifix earlier this year.
“I suppose it takes a certain amount of adulthood, and it might be different for all of us — for me, it seems that it’s taken quite a lot — to recognize that you need — I need — a personal relationship with God,” he commented in a video posted in January.
This is an amazing story of God’s redemption. I hope and pray that Brand continues to walk with Christ each and every day, finding the joy and peace through Him that he could never find in drugs or anything else the world has to offer.