Comedian and actor Russell Brand is best known for his hilarious jokes and increasingly dissident takes on pressing political issues, but now he could be headed toward becoming a Christian, as he recently took to social media to reveal that he has been reading the Bible and CS Lewis.
CS Lewis, for those who don’t know, is a British theologian and novelist who was a close friend of “Lord of the Rings” writer JRR Tolkien and who is best known for his “Chronicles of Narnia” series, which attempts to explore issues of Christian morality through storytelling. However, that’s not all that Lewis wrote: he also wrote a number of non-fiction books, such as “The Abolition of Man,” “A Grief Observed,” and “The Problem of Pain,” all of which explore issues of faith and Christianity in a more direct way than his novels.
It was one of those that Brand, also British, revealed he was reading along with the Bible in a post on Facebook. He posted a picture of the Holy Bible, “The Problem of Pain” by CS Lewis, and the Tao Te Ching, and captioned the picture of the three books by saying, “I am that person who has more than one book on the go! How about you?”
Brand has been under fire over allegations of sexual assault brought against him, aloo of which he denies categorically. Ripping the media for how it has covered him and his dissident viewpoints, Brand said, “I know that a year ago there was a spate of articles, ‘Russell Brand’s a conspiracy theorist,’ ‘Russell Brand’s right-wing.’ I’m aware of news media making phone calls, sending letters to people I know for ages and ages.”
Continuing, he argued that the allegations against him and concerted media campaign to smear him as “far-right” indicate there could be an attempt afoot to shut him up, saying, “It’s been clear to me or at least it feels to me like there’s a serious and concerted agenda to control these kind of spaces and these kind of voices, and I mean my voice along with your voice.”
One of the avenues of attack against Brand was YouTube demonetizing his channel. Free-speech-focused YouTube competitor Rumble, however, refused to follow suit. Commenting on the situation, Rumble’s CEO said, “Just yesterday, YouTube announced that, based solely on these media accusations, it was barring Mr. Brand from monetizing his video content. Rumble stands for very different values.”
Continuing, he said that Rumble stands for free speech and a free internet and against censorship of the sort YouTube stands for, writing. “We have devoted ourselves to the vital cause of defending a free internet — meaning an internet where no one arbitrarily dictates which ideas can or cannot be heard, or which citizens may or may not be entitled to a platform.”
"*" indicates required fields
He then argued that the attempts at censorship pushed by certain governments around the world, such as the UK, are quite dangerous and anti-Western, saying, “We regard it as deeply inappropriate and dangerous that the UK Parliament would attempt to control who is allowed to speak on our platform or to earn a living from doing so.”
Featured image credit: By Raph_PH – RussBrandRegPark140920EARLY-13, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94200508