Is Russell Brand a Christian? His baptism, his rape conviction, and what the Bible says about forgiveness and justice

His faith, in his own words

Brand announced in April 2024 that he had been baptised in the River Thames, with the adventurer Bear Grylls and a friend standing either side of him, Christian Today reported on May 10, 2024. He said he had realised “the material world is not enough,” called the baptism an act of “surrender, undertaken in gratitude and in sincerity,” and described it as an “opportunity to leave the past behind.” By then the allegations had already been made public in the 2023 documentary.

Since then he has presented himself as a Christian to a large online audience. ChurchLeaders describes him as a “comedian turned Christian influencer” and notes his book How to Become a Christian in Seven Days. During the trial he and his wife posted videos discussing Bible verses, and as the trial began he told reporters he felt “blessed,” NBC reported, adding of a good outcome, “that’s my prayer.”

What the Bible says

The closest story in Scripture is King David’s. David took Bathsheba, the wife of one of his soldiers, and then arranged her husband’s death. When the prophet Nathan confronted him, David confessed, and the answer came in two parts:

¹³ Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” “The LORD has taken away your sin,” Nathan replied. “You will not die. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, because by this deed you have shown utter contempt for the word of the LORD, the son born to you will surely die.”

Both halves matter. God forgave David the moment he confessed; and the consequences of what he had done still came, inside his own family, for the rest of his reign. The same pattern runs through the New Testament. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us” (1 John 1:9), and Paul could tell a church full of former thieves, drunkards and the sexually immoral, “that is what some of you were. But you were washed” (1 Corinthians 6:9–11). No sin is too large for the cross: the man crucified beside Jesus was promised paradise that same day (Luke 23:43).

But notice what that man said first: “We are punished justly, for we are receiving what our actions deserve” (Luke 23:41). He did not ask to come down from his cross. Paul describes the courts in the same terms:

⁴ For he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not carry the sword in vain. He is God’s servant, an agent of retribution to the wrongdoer.

And when Zacchaeus met Jesus, his first act was to turn toward the people he had harmed: “if I have cheated anyone, I will repay it fourfold” (Luke 19:8). Jesus told worshippers to leave their gift at the altar and first be reconciled with the person who has something against them (Matthew 5:23–24). In Scripture, repentance does not only look up to God; it looks across to the people wronged.

What it does not say

It does not say baptism wipes the slate with the law or with the people harmed. Brand called his baptism an “opportunity to leave the past behind.” In Christian teaching baptism does wash away sin before God; nowhere does Scripture say it closes a police file, cancels a sentence or settles what is owed to victims. “Whatever a man sows, he will reap in return” (Galatians 6:7) was written to Christians.

It does not say a believer cannot commit terrible sin. David was called “a man after His own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14) and still did what he did. So a profession of faith is no evidence that a person could not have done what a jury found.

It does not say a conviction proves a person is not a Christian. Psalm 51, which tradition links to David’s confession, says “Against You, You only, have I sinned” (Psalm 51:4). That line is about who is the final judge, not a licence to ignore Bathsheba or Uriah, and it is no basis for writing anyone out of God’s mercy either.

It does not tell victims to forgive on a timetable, or to stay silent. Jesus’s teaching on forgiveness (Luke 17:3) begins with “rebuke him” and assumes repentance. Paul says to “expose” the deeds of darkness, not cover them (Ephesians 5:11).

How Christians differ

Evangelical and Baptist Christians stress personal faith: anyone who truly turns to Christ is forgiven, whatever they have done. Many also hold that real conversion shows itself over time in changed life, so they look at what a convert does next: whether he owns what was done, rather than whether he was baptised.

Catholic teaching holds that baptism takes away all sin committed before it, and that sins after baptism are forgiven in confession. It also teaches that forgiveness does not remove the duty to repair harm: the Catechism says, “Many sins wrong our neighbor. One must do what is possible in order to repair the harm” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1459), and adds that absolution takes away the sin but not all the disorder it caused. The Church makes no public ruling on any individual’s soul.

Orthodox Christians see repentance as a lifelong turning, worked out in confession and in the life of the Church; a grave public sin is often met with a period away from communion, as a medicine rather than a sentence.

Reformed and Lutheran Christians speak of being “at the same time righteous and a sinner,” so they are not surprised that a believer can do great evil, and they insist just as firmly that the state’s punishment is God’s work too (Romans 13). These are summaries in general terms; views vary within every tradition, and none of them treats a conversion as a defence in court.

Our take

This is our opinion, not a report. Whether Russell Brand is a Christian is for God to judge, and a convicted man can be a real one. But Christians who rally to him as a persecuted believer, and treat his baptism as a reason to doubt the women, get it badly wrong.

We would not say his faith is fake. We have no way of knowing, and Scripture is full of people who did terrible things and were forgiven. If the thief on the cross could be promised paradise, so can anyone.

But the thief’s first words were “we are punished justly.” A jury heard four weeks of evidence that his online audience never heard, and it convicted on four counts and acquitted on three, which is what careful judgement looks like, not persecution. The Christian response to a verdict like this is not to explain it away or to call the courts satanic; it is to take it seriously. Brand may still seek to appeal, and that is his right. Until a court decides otherwise, faithfulness looks like Zacchaeus, not like a podcast: accepting the sentence, owning plainly what the jury found he did, and putting their good ahead of his reputation.

The harder lesson is for churches. A famous convert is a gift, and a temptation. When we rush to claim a celebrity, we are tempted to treat accusations against him as attacks on us. The women in this case were owed belief that was tested in court, not dismissed because the man had been dipped in a river. Grace is free; it is not cheap, and it never asks the people who were hurt to pay for it.

If this story has stirred up something you have been through, you are not alone. In England and Wales you can contact Rape Crisis; in the United States, RAINN; elsewhere, your local sexual assault service or the police.

Over to you

When a well-known Christian is convicted of a serious crime, what should repentance look like in public before you would believe it: silence, an apology to the people harmed, accepting the sentence, or something else, and why? Tell us below.

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