Authorises a religious self-help book by a man facing accusations of rape and sexual assault. The book explores ethical, philosophical, and theological questions, but with unconventional writing style and bonus links to breathwork videos.
of rape and sexual assault in the public eye and subsequently falling spectacularly from grace would be enough to push anyone to respond this way – especially if Bear Grylls texted to ask if you wanted to get baptised.
It’s a: when everyone has abandoned you and you feel devoid of hope, you seek the readily available forgiveness of the Lord. What I cannot understand, though, is why in such circumstances you would not then retreat to your newfound church community or your loving family to reflect quietly, but instead write a religious self-help book.
Yet, this is precisely what Brand – who will be tried in the UK in October for allegations of rape and sexual assault by six different women – has done.is a book that ostensibly seeks to convert its readers to Christ after its author found himself Saved, but which in reality uses rambling biblical metaphors and Christian ideology as a vessel for unfinished Notes-app thoughts. For example: “The point of the culture is to destroy you by stealing your soul.
” This coupled with crackpot conspiracy theories – and him talking about himself, despite many protestations that Christ has finally freed him from the cult of selfishness and individualism to which the rest of us are still enslaved. There are, to be fair, a couple of reflection exercises and a QR code leading you to instructional breathwork videos on Brand’s website.
If you think it will answer questions such as: does God exist? If so, why does he allow suffering? HowI become a Christian in seven days? – then you are sorely mistaken.
Perhaps it hardly needs saying that the man who brought uswould be unlikely to produce a serious theological work but instead a pretentious, solipsistic ramble of which the guiding principle seems to be never to use one word where 15 will do. It is a fountain ofideology, an embarrassing display of hubris and a manipulation of respectable Christian values for personal gain.
Joseph, for what it’s worth, is described as “another show-off loudmouth falsely accused of rape”. Brand does not shy away from the allegations, about which he’s not allowed to write much lest he prejudices the trial. Rather, he provides extensive context about the environment of promiscuity and “easy sex” in which the events are said to have taken place, of how he as a young, impressionable famous person got swept up in sin.
“All of a sudden I could have all the sex I wanted… I had sex with multiple women, often at the same time, most days, for years,” he writes, before going on to emphasise in these circumstances “the implausibility, the pointlessness, of coercion ”. Later, he recounts his debate with Chat GPT – an entity that he describes elsewhere as Satan incarnate – about whether David rapes Bathsheba in the book of Samuel.
Chat GPT argued that David had systemic power over her. This, according to Brand, “excludes the possibility that King David was sexy, fun, seductive and brilliant – all of which, based on what we know about him, seems pretty likely, and in attempting to criminalise sex itself, the moral teachings of the story are lost”. No comment.
Luckily, Brand has provided a proxy comment for me, on a podcast in April on which he admitted to having sex with a 16-year-old girl at age 30.
“Consensual sex with a lot of people, when there is a strong power differential, as there is when you are a famous man who has the ability to attract women that I had at that time, I think… is exploitative,” he said. Well, on that we can agree. Pity we can’t ask Bathsheba how she felt about the whole thing.
Russell Brand arrives at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in May 2025 – he will be tried in October But despite the frustrations provoked by these in-depth deflections, along with the many spurious claims about vaccines , plenty of reactionary hyperbole , buckets of arrogance and my fundamental objection to being spiritually preached at by a man who still has not learned how to button up his shirt, the greatest difficulty I had with this book was simply hacking through the turgid prose.
Ironically, or perhaps not, the clearest parts are when Brand switches wholesale to talking about himself; the bits about the Bible are so obtuse that I could barely get through a page without my eyes closing. Most of the time the sentences are so florid, so pretentious, that they take five goes before you get the gist.
Words such as “negentropic”, “theophanic”, “lapidarily”, “apostasy” and “recidivist” flow freely from the pen of an author who claims to want to help us. He readily admits that his primary issue is “pride”, but who still seems pathologically obligated to prove his superior intelligence through the use of egregiously obtuse vocabulary, a habit that is made only more annoying by the fact he explains what the words mean as he goes along. Elsewhere, pseudo-philosophical sentences glimmer like fool’s gold.
Some personal favourites: “Sex is at very least a lower chakra defibrillation and at best a voyage into a parallel reality where intimacy with a stranger serves as a fleeting facsimile for a brief and shared transfiguration”; “Time itself is flexing and fluxing under the weight of conscious and unconscious attention”; and, best of all, “The liminal preternatural twilight that one encounters when touching the hem of His garment” — which at least gives us some context around the divine inspiration for those necklines.
At a point, I stopped finding it funny and instead started feeling a bit sick, particularly when Brand veers into the ironic quirk of his 2000s comedy heyday: “I thought I could use God’s power to get me grubbies on the derma-pleasures and skin-fiddles, the tutty-boobs and sweet-nooks. ” I wonder if another dunk in the Thames would get the sin that it didn’t manage the first time: namely, the linguistic variety.
Russell Brand on Piers Morgan: Uncensored, searching through his Bible Brand, who could have become a dodgy reiki healer in Phuket espousing the benefits of kambo over a horrible blue cocktail just as easily as a born-again Christian, is the most obnoxious kind of ideologue: one who you suspect has latched on to the view that served him the best and is now forcing it on everybody else . I had similar suspicions as I got wound up by his affected verbosity; this is, of course, exactly how he wants me to feel.
But, for what it’s worth, I also believe he has actually been converted. He describes being in a pretty desperate place in the book: news of the allegations broke while his baby son was in hospital, and he writes in detail about his suicidal thoughts. It’s not hard to believe that Christianity has helped him. But this book isn’t helping anyone else.
How to Become a Christian in Seven Days I think it’s only fair I jump the queue to becoming a saint. You, I hope, shall not have to suffer such a fate. Religious or not, don’t bother reading the book. Suffice it to say that Brand is in God’s capable hands – and, come October, the jury’s.
Please follow us on Google to support us Rape Sexual Assault Church Family Bible Breathwork Conspiracy Theories Brand Saved Charity Culture Soul Spirituality Thoughts
United Kingdom Latest News, United Kingdom Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Supermarket cheese beats brand rivals in Which? surveyThe cheese was said to be 'pleasingly crumbly and creamy'
Read more »
Stars Skip BAFTA Red Carpet for Luxury Brand Trip to MiamiOlivia Attwood, Stacey Solomon, and Rochelle Humes are among the stars who have snubbed the BAFTA TV Awards red carpet for a bikini-clad brand trip to Miami with Space NK.
Read more »
The Family Behind Love Luxury Entrusts Their Daughter Maali Abraham to Push the Brand ForwardA 13-year-old girl, Maali Abraham, is making a name for herself as the online face of Love Luxury, her family's high-fashion resale empire. While Maali's wit and understanding of luxury have captivated viewers, some are concerned about her exposure to wealth at such a young age.
Read more »
Woman tries 40 salt and vinegar crisps and supermarket brand beats Walkers and McCoy'sA Leeds woman spent months taste-testing 40 varieties of salt and vinegar crisps, spending £80 in total, and crowned M&S the surprising winner over iconic brands like Walkers and Golden Wonder.
Read more »