Superstar Russell Brand has some shocking news. We are going to see how his turn to faith is part of a larger spiritual renewal that’s happening all over the world, but most of all, we are going to see how the life he is now embracing is more extraordinary than anything he could imagine.
Why I Wear A Cross!
I'm interested to hear what YOU think, let me know. pic.twitter.com/kMcyYgvl7o— Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) January 21, 2024
– Russell Brand’s recent transformation amid personal turmoil reflects a broader trend of retraditionalization worldwide.
– Brand’s Christian convictions, particularly his embrace of the cross, signify a profound spiritual journey.
– His insights echo the teachings of figures like Irenaeus, emphasizing divine strength in human weakness.
What Russell is openly saying now is beautiful, sincere, and a profound testimony. He’s going through a very difficult period right now as he is being investigated for sexual assault, which he does deny, though admitting that he’s had a very promiscuous past. But now, Russell Brand has changed. Listen to what he said to Tucker Carlson some months back:
What’s happening to Russell Brand, in turning to a more ancient and eternal way of understanding our current time and predicament, is part of a much larger trend going on all over the world. Scholars such as Rodney Stark have argued that we are currently experiencing the greatest religious renewal the world has ever seen. It’s a fascinating phenomenon known as retraditionalization, where more populations are returning to custom, culture, and tradition, particularly their religious traditions, as rich sources of meaning and truth amid the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of our modern secular globalist era. This is happening all over the world and is changing politics and international relations like never before.
From the reawakening of Christian civilization in Russia, Hungary, Poland, and Georgia to the extraordinary electoral success of Hindu nationalism in India, and the neo-Confucian revival in China to the extraordinary surge in Christian conversions throughout sub-Saharan Africa, religion is booming in our world today. Russell Brand looks like he is becoming a very important part of that boom.
Russell’s distinctively Christian commitment, specifically his embracing of the cross, is most compelling. Russell’s beautiful observation about dying to self and the role of pain and suffering as a means of encountering divine grace is even more profound than perhaps he realizes. The late second century bishop of Lyon, Irenaeus, who had known St. Polycarp who himself studied under the apostle John spoke of how God’s strength and power is manifested in our weakness and fragility.
Irenaeus says that our suffering and frailty provide the platform for God’s grace to take over once we’ve relinquished control. At the same time, God inherited the flesh and the weakness of the human body for himself. God’s strength is manifested in our weakness because God himself inherits our flesh and at the same time he manifests his glory and strength through us. This, according to Iraneaus, is when we become truly human- when we are united to God. This means that the original divine pronouncement at the beginning of Genesis, ‘Let us make man in our image,’ is only fully complete in and through Christ.
It is in Christ, the Incarnate Word, that God fully inherits our flesh as our flesh is redeemed and vivified in God. Hence Christ’s last words on the cross: ‘It is accomplished.’ The redemption of humanity was fulfilled in Him. Christ died on a Friday, the sixth day of creation which is the day of Adam, to reveal that it is through his death that the fullness of our human life is revealed. This is why Christ is referred to as the Second Adam, and is the very fulfillment of Genesis 1. He is conceived using the infusion of the Holy Spirit. He is born like Adam, surrounded by animals. He passes through the Rivers of Eden in his baptism and his cross restores the Tree of Life.
This is why the ancient church sees Mary as the New Eve who gives up the fruit of her womb and places the fruit back onto the tree to restore the world to its original Edenic harmony. Just as Adam’s bride came from his side while he was in a kind of death, so you have the soldier piercing the side of Christ in his death, from which flows the water and blood that supplies the baptism and wine for the new creation of his bride, the church. That is the story of the Bible: Paradise Lost, and Paradise Restored. This is what Russell Brand is embracing when he’s embracing his cross: the Tree of Life restored.
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