{"id":32370,"date":"2024-02-08T10:49:55","date_gmt":"2024-02-08T15:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=32370"},"modified":"2024-02-08T12:29:02","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T17:29:02","slug":"russell-brand-says-jesus-is-becoming-more-important-desires-a-personal-relationship-with-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/02\/russell-brand-says-jesus-is-becoming-more-important-desires-a-personal-relationship-with-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Russell Brand Says Jesus is Becoming ‘More Important,’ Desires a ‘Personal Relationship’ With God"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Adobe Stock | Inset: Russel Brand \/ Rumble<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a recent social media video, podcast host and comedian Russell Brand said that he finds Christianity and Jesus Christ increasingly important as he grows older and wants a “personal relationship with God.” Brand said in a video, which he filmed while kneeling on a yoga mat, “The reason I wear a cross is because Christianity and, in particular, the figure of Christ is, it seems to me, inevitably becoming more important as I become more familiar with suffering, purpose, self, and not-self.”<\/p>\n

The 48-year-old actor said that he has been “reading the Bible a lot more,” as well as Rick Warren’s\u00a0The Purpose-Driven Life<\/em>. He said when he was growing up, Christianity appeared to him either “really irrelevant and old-fashioned and sort of dusty” or too modernized. Both those routes, he said, did not appeal to him when he was younger. Things have changed after he has achieved “a certain amount of adulthood,” he said. He has now come “to recognize that you need, I need, a personal relationship with God.”<\/p>\n

He said in an apparent reference to\u00a0Galatians 2:20<\/a>, “It occurred to me that if instead of always talking to myself inwardly, I could replace one of those voices with an indwelling God. It says in Galatians it’s our job to die so that as Christ died on the cross, he might be reborn in us.” Brand’s video was met with an outpouring of support and encouragement from users on X, many of whom said they were praying for him. Pastor Greg Laurie responded to Brand by posting a long letter addressed to him in which he explained that he was once put off by Christians until he heard the Gospel.<\/p>\n

Laurie wrote in part, “The word ‘Gospel’ means ‘Good news.’ We are all sinners, and we have broken God’s commandments and fallen short of His standards. But the good news is that God loved us so much He sent His only son to die on the cross for our sins and then rise from the dead. Jesus is alive and ready to come into your life, Russell!” Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon\u00a0wrote<\/a>: “If he’s not a Christian already, he may get there soon. The important question he needs to answer for himself is not whether Christianity is useful, but whether it’s true.” Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u00a0replied<\/a>\u00a0to Brand’s video simply: “Brilliant!”<\/p>\n

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Why I Wear A Cross!
\nI’m interested to hear what YOU think, let me know. pic.twitter.com\/kMcyYgvl7o<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) January 21, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n