Christianity has always had a soft spot for a good redemption story. And few people seemed to offer a more spectacular one than Russell Brand.

When the British comedian and actor announced his conversion to Christianity in 2024, it attracted considerable attention. After years of cultivating a public image built around sex, drugs, controversy and an almost impressive ability to offend people, Brand was suddenly talking about Jesus, reading the Bible, praying with his followers and sharing the story of his baptism in the River Thames.

For many Christians, it was wonderful news. Here was a man who had built an extraordinary career out of being provocative, outrageous, sexually promiscuous, and occasionally quite brilliant. He had spoken openly about his struggles with addiction, experimented with various forms of spirituality, and spent years searching for something that might give his life a deeper sense of meaning. Now, apparently, he had found Jesus.

Brand was baptised in the River Thames, with television adventurer Bear Grylls among those present. Before long, he was posting prayers online, discussing the Bible with his millions of followers, and appearing alongside prominent Christian personalities. For some believers, his conversion was further evidence of a spiritual awakening taking place across the Western world.

There was, however, a rather uncomfortable complication.

By the time Brand was baptised, several women had already publicly accused him of serious sexual misconduct. He had denied the allegations, but police investigations were underway, and his future was looking increasingly uncertain. His newfound Christian faith subsequently became part of the public conversation surrounding those accusations, with some commentators questioning his motives and others defending his right to seek spiritual transformation.

Then, on 5 November 2026, a jury at London’s Southwark Crown Court found Brand.

and three counts of sexual assault involving four women. He was acquitted of three other charges and is due to be sentenced on 9 November. The offences took place years before his conversion, during the period when Brand was establishing himself as one of Britain’s most recognisable entertainers.

I’ve been thinking about the response from the Christian community ever since.

For what it’s worth, I have no particular reason to doubt that Russell Brand genuinely believes in Jesus. People often reconsider their lives when everything around them begins to fall apart. Sometimes it takes a personal crisis to make us confront things we have spent years avoiding, and Christianity has always offered the possibility that our worst decisions need not define the rest of our lives.

Nor do I think the Christians who welcomed Brand into the faith were necessarily wrong to do so. Jesus himself developed something of a reputation for associating with people whose behaviour was considered morally objectionable. If the church is going to take his example seriously, it can hardly insist that people sort out their lives before they’re allowed through the front door.

But welcoming someone into a community of faith is one thing. Turning them into a Christian celebrity, applauding their testimony, and presenting them as evidence of God’s activity in the world is quite another.

And somewhere in the excitement over Russell Brand’s conversion, I wonder whether the Christian world became so captivated by the prospect of another famous person joining its ranks that it forgot to ask some fairly obvious questions about repentance, accountability and the people who had been hurt along the way.

Christianity Loves a Celebrity Convert

When I was a kid growing up in Australia, I absolutely idolised a footballer by the name of Gary Ablett Senior. He played Australian Rules football, a sport that probably makes very little sense to most Americans, but believe me when I say this bloke was extraordinary. I had his posters on my bedroom wall, watched every game I could, and dreamed of being able to do even half the things he could do with a football.

In 1989, Ablett produced one of the

in Australian sporting history, kicking nine goals in the Grand Final and winning the Norm Smith Medal, our equivalent of the Super Bowl MVP award. But what impressed me most was what happened when he accepted the medal. In front of a national television audience, he publicly thanked his Saviour.

Now, I realise that in America, athletes thanking Jesus after a big win is about as surprising as finding a Bible in a hotel room. But Australians are generally much more reserved about public expressions of faith. Here was my sporting hero, on the biggest stage in Australian football, openly acknowledging Jesus Christ. As a young Christian, I thought it was magnificent.

Unfortunately, Ablett’s story took a tragic turn. In February 2000, a 20-year-old woman named Alisha Horan died from a drug overdose after spending several days partying with him. A coroner

Ablett’s conduct, and he pleaded guilty to drug possession and use offences. He was fined $1,500, although he was never charged in connection with Horan’s death.

I remember feeling devastated by the whole thing. The man I had admired for so many years, partly because of his Christian faith, had become involved in something that ended in such terrible circumstances.

Looking back, I wonder why I had placed so much importance on the fact that a famous footballer shared my religion. Somehow, his public declaration of faith had made him more than a sporting hero to me. I’d assumed something about his character that I couldn’t possibly have known.

And I wonder whether Christians are still making that same mistake with people like Russell Brand. We get so excited about having another famous person on our team that we sometimes forget that being a Christian, even a very public one, doesn’t automatically make someone a person worth following.

Whatever Happened to Repentance?

One of the things I’ve always found fascinating about Jesus is how willing he was to associate with people who had made an absolute mess of their lives. Tax collectors, prostitutes, thieves, and all manner of social outcasts found themselves sharing meals with him, much to the disgust of the religious establishment. He seemed remarkably comfortable in the company of people whom respectable society had already written off.

But there’s a story in Luke’s Gospel that I think is particularly relevant to the Russell Brand situation.

Zacchaeus was a wealthy tax collector, which in first-century Palestine was hardly a profession likely to win you many friends. Tax collectors were notorious for exploiting their fellow Jews, often enriching themselves by collecting more than they were entitled to. When Jesus invited himself to Zacchaeus’s house for dinner, the religious crowd was predictably outraged.

What happens next is interesting. Zacchaeus announces that he will give half his possessions to the poor and repay anyone he has cheated four times the amount he took from them. Jesus responds by declaring that salvation has come to his house.

Notice what Zacchaeus doesn’t do. He doesn’t simply announce that he’s a changed man, share an emotional testimony, and expect everyone to forget about the people he’s ripped off. He recognises that his actions have caused harm, and he does something practical about it.

The New Testament word commonly translated as repentance is metanoia, which carries the idea of a change of mind or direction. It’s about much more than feeling sorry for something or adopting a new set of religious beliefs. Genuine repentance is supposed to change the way we live, particularly in our relationships with other people.

None of us is in a position to know what has happened inside Russell Brand’s heart, and I’m not particularly interested in speculating about it. But Christianity has never taught that saying the right things about Jesus automatically cancels out the consequences of what we’ve done to others.

In fact, John the Baptist was rather blunt about the matter. When people came to him for baptism, he told them to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Luke 3:8). In other words, don’t just tell me you’ve changed. Let me see what that change looks like.

I suspect that’s a message the modern church could stand to hear a little more often, particularly when someone famous announces they’ve found God. We can welcome them, encourage them and hope that their faith becomes a source of genuine transformation. But we don’t need to rush to declare them a shining example of Christian living before they’ve had the opportunity to demonstrate what that transformation actually means.

Forgiveness Doesn’t Mean Escaping Consequences

Over the years, I’ve encountered people who were encouraged to forgive someone who had betrayed their trust, mistreated them, or caused them considerable pain, only to discover that what was really being asked of them was to pretend the whole thing never happened. They were expected to move on, restore the relationship, and stop talking about what had been done to them. If they struggled with any of that, there was always someone ready to remind them that Jesus said we should forgive seventy times seven.

It’s remarkable how often that particular Bible verse gets quoted to the person who has been hurt rather than the person who caused the harm.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve managed to confuse forgiveness with reconciliation, and reconciliation with the restoration of trust. They’re related concepts, but they’re not interchangeable. You can forgive someone without inviting them back into your life, and you can genuinely wish someone well while recognising that the relationship may never be what it once was.

The same principle applies to Russell Brand. His conversion may have changed his relationship with God, but it cannot undo what happened to the women involved in his criminal case. Nor should his Christian faith have any bearing on whether he faces the consequences of his crimes.

And surely that shouldn’t be controversial among Christians. If repentance involves taking responsibility for our actions, accepting the consequences ought to be part of the process. A person can experience God’s forgiveness and still be required to make restitution, lose a position of influence, or serve a prison sentence.

For anyone who has been hurt by someone claiming to be a Christian, this is worth remembering. You are not required to trust someone simply because they have apologised, and you are not obliged to reconcile with someone who remains unsafe. Forgiveness should never be used as a means of pressuring people into relationships they no longer feel safe having.

Sometimes, the most loving thing we can do is allow people to face the consequences of their actions, rather than rushing in to rescue them from the discomfort of taking responsibility.

What About the Women?

There’s one final thing I want to say about Russell Brand, and it concerns the people who have been largely absent from this conversation.

The women.

We’ve spent a great deal of time talking about Brand’s conversion, his relationship with God, whether his repentance is genuine, and how Christians should respond to him. Meanwhile, four women have had to recount deeply painful experiences in a courtroom, knowing that the man they were accusing had millions of followers and a considerable public platform.

I wonder how different the conversation might have been if Christians had shown as much interest in their wellbeing as they did in Brand’s baptism.

Of course, it’s entirely possible to care about Russell Brand’s spiritual journey and the women he harmed. There’s no reason those concerns should be competing with one another. But when someone famous announces they’ve found Jesus, the excitement surrounding their conversion can sometimes drown out the voices of people who have a rather different story to tell about them.

I wonder what those women made of the celebrations surrounding Brand’s conversion. What was it like watching someone they knew in such a different way being applauded by Christians around the world? I imagine it would have been difficult, particularly when so much of the public conversation was about what a wonderful transformation Brand had supposedly experienced. Of course, I can’t speak for them, but I do think their side of the story deserved considerably more attention than it received.

I genuinely hope Russell Brand’s faith changes his life for the better. I hope he finds the courage to confront his past and accept whatever genuine repentance requires of him. And I hope the women whose lives have been affected by his actions receive the dignity, compassion, and justice they deserve.

Because surely a faith that believes so passionately in redemption ought to care just as passionately about the people who need healing.

And perhaps that’s the Russell Brand problem Christianity needs to confront. We were right to welcome him into the faith, but in our excitement to celebrate another soul finding Jesus, I wonder whether we paid enough attention to the people who were hurt by our new Christian brother.