Actor Russell Brand finds peace in first month as Christian

Actor Russell Brand’s life has changed dramatically since he committed his life to Christ.

“I’ve been a Christian a month now, and it’s been a big change,” he said recently on his podcast. “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.”

He has learned what it means to change direction.

“Repentance, to repent, means that you have to continually change and acknowledge that I am in a battle against myself,” Brand said. “That I need to surrender myself to an ever-present eternal 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.”

He said he now enjoys reading Christian literature and has a sense of peace now that he did not have before.

“When I’m in doubt, I feel the instruction is there, accessible, and I feel like I know what I am supposed to do and when I don’t do what I am supposed to do, that is even clearer,” Brand said. “When I feel myself being selfish or inconsiderate or putting myself first or not thinking about how I can be better to other people, it is as if there is an inner illumination available to me now.”

The timeless truths of the Bible now have a personal meaning

“I love the simplicity of the idea of God coming to Earth as a man to experience what it is to be human and to sacrifice himself, because that is the only sacrifice that could bring us home, that could give us the opportunity for redemption,” he said. “I like the idea, when I am in prayer and in communion just alone, that there is a figure available, wounded and coronated, available to me.

“In my failings, in my failures, and in my fallibility, there is strength to be broken. Not just broken by life in the sense of life is rearing and exhausting, but to be broken in the same way that you have to train an animal to behave itself, to be broken into better conduct. It is a beautiful journey to go on.”

–Alan Goforth