WHY They're ALL Turning to Christ! | Pastor Reacts

The Rise of Public Figures Turning to Christ

It looks to me like you've taken a Christian tilt, like what the hell do you make of that? And how do you know that that's just not another form of self-aggrandizing falsehood? What an insightful question.

Is he really following the Jesus of the Bible or the Jesus of his own making? How many celebrities have been here before, right? Proclaiming Christ and then shortly thereafter falling away. Something is happening to public figures in our society.

One by one, a lot of them are slowly but surely embracing Christianity. What is going on here? What can be the explanation for this? Jordan Peterson recently interviewed Russell Brand and Brand talked about his own journey to Christ.

So let's take a look at this together, because if you're a Christian seeking to share the faith yourself, or if you're on a journey seeking truth and wondering about Christianity, then there are some insights in this video for you.

Russell Brand, Mysticism, and the Search for Meaning

If you're new here, welcome to Wise Disciple. My name is Nate Sala and I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be. Before I jumped into this ministry, I was a pastor for a number of years at a church in Las Vegas, and from that experience, I make these videos, okay?

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Go to logos .com forward slash wise disciple. The link for that is below. Let me, let me ask you something that's more personal than this is my observation and you tell me if it's accurate. So you've talked about being spectacularly successful in the land of hedonistic whim, let's say, and you've discussed, well, you were kind of an icon for that, right?

And a model for that even. And so, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're emblematic of that, of the success of that approach, but that didn't work for all sorts of reasons. And so it seemed to me that you wandered out of that landscape into a kind of amorphous mysticism, but that that's became become more targeted.

And it's become more targeted in the Christian direction recently, particularly perhaps in the last year. Is all of that accurate? Yeah. So I'm not extremely familiar with Russell Brand. I first became aware of him because he was an actor and a comedian, and he would make headlines for acting like a rock star.

That's probably the best way that I can put that, you know, is he was kind of brash in your face, very opinionated person. He was widely known for being a type of mystic. I think he was taken with Buddhism for a time, but something has happened and he's now embracing Christianity.

As a matter of fact, he just got baptized as of this recording. He, and now he professes faith in Jesus Christ. This is what Peterson is talking about. Is there any, okay, that is accurate. Okay. So what do you make of the fact, and you talked about the rosary specifically just now, what do you make of the fact that journey out in the desert of mysticism, let's say, is, well, I think the same thing is happening to you in some ways that's happening to people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and to Neil Ferguson and to Douglas Murray and to Tom Holland, and also to Richard Dawkins, is that there's a recognition emerging that there's something in the midst of mystic, let's say, down in the depths of the metaphysical that speaks of something that's much more Christian than any of us would have possibly imagined, let's say 15 years ago, or even a year ago for that matter.

And I'm wondering how that's making itself manifest specifically in your life. Like how is this mysticism that's obviously part of your nature, that was probably what was pulling you at least in part in the hedonistic direction to begin with.

That was somewhat desire for communion with the spirit of Dionysius and Bacchus, you know, like there's a call to self-transcendence in a kind of radical hedonism, that's for sure. What Peterson is talking about is the spiritualization of hedonism in people, you know, hence the reference to the gods of hedonism and pleasure there.

Which is interesting, you know, so I've been going back and rereading Carl Truman's book on the Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, which is without a doubt one of the most important books written in the last couple of decades, easily.

I highly recommend you read that book and engage with its content, because Truman points out that the sexual revolution is really a manifestation of a dramatic shift in the search for meaning. I agree with this, because I think Viktor Frankl was right, that the reason why we do the things that we do is because we are searching for meaning.

So, in other words, whereas human beings would have discovered meaning and purpose outside of themselves in various ways in the past, and for Christians, you know, we find it in our creator, right? In today's day and age, people search for meaning by looking inward.

They turn the arrow of discovery around, and they discover these things within themselves. The sociologist Philip Reif says that this current societal age is represented by what's called the psychological man.

This is a person who seeks to elevate their own inner desires, no matter what the consequences look like, and they do so in order to discover and connect to greater meaning. It's almost like a spiritual encounter that they're having with themselves, which ultimately means that to be spiritual is to have the most authentic human experience.

Instead of, you know, performing some action outside of your self-defined meaning, now you have to feel something inside of yourself in order to discover meaning. Again, whether that be through promiscuous relationships, you know, drugs or something else.

And for Brand, it was literally drugs, I think, and, you know, a hedonistic lifestyle. How did all of this change, though? Let's find out. So it's just not the optimal ground, let's say. It might be better than rank cowardice, however.

You know, it was William Blake who said, wisdom through excess, and there's something to be said about that. And that's also echoed in the tale of the prodigal son, by the way. It's something to wander in the vast wastelands of the hedonistic world successfully, and then come home.

There's something to be celebrated in that, even though you're going to pay for your bloody sins, that's for sure. Even though they may have been necessary and even desirable in some bizarre sense. So in your life at the moment, it looks to me like you've taken a Christian tilt.

Like, what the hell do you make of that? And how do you know that that's just not another form of self-aggrandizing falsehood? Well, there's so much to say about that last part, right? You know, like, what an insightful question, right?

Peterson just asked whether Brand knows that he's really discovered true Christianity and not another form of self-aggrandizement. In other words, is he really following the Jesus of the Bible or the Jesus of his own making?

How many celebrities have been here before, right? Proclaiming Christ, and then shortly thereafter falling away. So this is not a fundamental question, right? Which by the way, the Bible has an answer to this question, and we're going to get into that in just a moment.

Again, all dressed up, but somewhere to go. Well, you know, I see Joseph Campbell as a kind of a sort of deputy to Jung's principle. And I like how Campbell says, in the end, you might likely explore the native ideology and theology.

Now, I know that's sort of somewhat fast and loose, given that I'm in Northern Europe, and the Nazarene was hardly springing forth from Essex Greys on the Thames side.

Right, an important point to make. An important point to make. Western. It's like, yeah, not exactly.

Yes, yes. How it has felt, almost as if something that felt so heroic and prosaic because of the, you know, because of the delivery systems, it's ordinary, it's abundant. It's these grandmas at a bus stop.

It's the drab intonations of a vicar in a parish. It's the apologetic Church of England, and I'm not attacking the Church of England, but where you feel that they might almost be afraid to mention God in there for fear of.

Stepping on somebody's toes. He's in the broom closet, underneath the box. Yes, definitely.

So, because it felt so, it felt so sort of, you know, local, like this figure of Christ, what it's felt like is, oh, it's you. He's always been there. He's always been there.

There is something... Are you tracking this? So, so Brand is saying the reason why he dismissed Christianity was because it was so commonplace. The nature of the liturgies of the Church, you know, whatever he means by the delivery systems, as he, you know, sort of coined it there, they were all around him and they were just always there.

To this day, you can still go to most hotels. Well, he's in the UK, but in America, and you can find a Gideon Bible inside the dresser drawer, nearest the bed, you know, but it's hardly ever read. Why is that?

Because it's just the book that always sits there. You know, it reminds me of the age old adage, familiarity breeds contempt. You ever heard that one before? It's an oldie, but a goodie, you know, familiarity breeds contempt.

In other words, because of the fact that Christianity is all around us, it has been the foundation upon which our various societies in the West have been built. People, you know, grow up in it like, like goldfish in a bowl, right?

They just don't recognize the water in which they swim. And so it just becomes this, meh. It's like a, you know, oh, church? Well, that's, that's what grandma does, right? But it's not for me. Oh, the Bible?

Well, that's what grandpa reads, but I don't need that, right? That's what Brand is saying. That's.

Returning to Christ, C.S. Lewis, and the Danger of Familiarity

What he thought. That's how he felt. In this, that is not, as you obviously are exploring as well as rather beautifully illuminating for us, there's something in these texts that is about inducing states.

And as whenever a, ultimately a rational idea issued through language in poetics, you know, through poetics, when you induce a state beyond what is literally encoded, when you invite somehow that you reach beyond what is presented linguistically, it seemed to me somehow that in returning to this, in returning to the Bible, in returning to Christ, indeed, it does feel like a return, doesn't it?

Rather than a novel discovery issued at the shore by a missionary who doesn't know whether he's going to get a pat on the back or a cauldron to swim in at high temperatures. It's felt to me like this has always been here.

This has always been here. I'm, of course, enjoying C .S. Lewis's approach because I am a product of cultural atheism, materialism, hedonism, and yes, a child as much of Jim Morrison as William Blake.

But that's the point. Man, Brand is like just throwing out, you know, pearls after pearl. I love that he mentioned C .S. Lewis, but this whole Jim Morrison thing, Jim Morrison is a great example of what was just discussed, right?

Did you know that Jim Morrison was influenced by William Blake to name his band The Doors? A little rock trivia for you. William Blake, by the way, was a mystic and he elevated the notion of looking inward to discover what is true.

If I remember this right, he was part of the Romanticist Society, the Romanticist Movement. So Brand is just resonating with how Peterson has characterized him here, but it seems like he's on the right track.

Again, love the Lewis reference. Let's see what happens.

Inisian, the Bacchanalian, this is about empowerment, sex magic, the glory of it all, the abundant glory, throwing off the liminal and the limiting. And of course, then one arrives one day at the terrible conclusion that there's nothing there.

And perhaps only then, indeed, that's why.

Death to Self, the Narrow Gate, and the Call to Follow Jesus

Ah, let's not, let's not go too fast over this. Let's play that one more time. Pay attention. Hey, real quick, I hope this video is blessing you. Would you do me a favor and like and subscribe to the channel?

It really does help me to get this video out to more and more people.

I really do appreciate it. This is about the Dionysian, the Bacchanalian, this is about empowerment, sex magic, the glory of it all, the abundant glory, throwing off the liminal and the limiting. And of course, then one arrives one day at the terrible conclusion that there's nothing there.

And perhaps only then...

Did you hear that? So this journey that Brand was on of meaning and authentic experience and seeking to understand what is true and real, again, by elevating the self and trusting that this self-aggrandizement, as Peterson called it, is the way to find meaning, all of that leads to the inevitable conclusion that there's nothing there.

This is part of my own testimony, ladies and gentlemen. I grew up in church, but I rejected all of it. I thought Christians were idiots. I thought they were drinking the Kool-Aid. If TikTok had been around when I was in my 20s, I'm fairly certain I would have been railing against Christianity in the same way as all the people that I've recently reacted to in this channel, you know?

But here's the thing, even though I rejected Christianity, by the way, for the same reason that Brand gave, right? Familiarity bred contempt in my own story. My parents were heavily involved in church.

My pastors did their job and taught me what the Bible said every Sunday. We had a home fellowship group during the week, and we were present on Wednesday evenings and Sunday morning, and then again, Sunday evenings.

But guess what? It was just there. I took it all for granted. Familiarity had bred contempt in me. I didn't even know what I was rejecting, but I never stopped searching for what is true. And my journey took me through atheism, through Buddhism, like Brand, through a lot of different ways of thinking, and I realized the same thing, there's nothing there.

I experienced everything I could that the world had to offer, and it was all empty and meaningless. And so when I finally came back to Christianity at 30 years old, the difference was I decided to, it's almost like if you think of a table with a lot of things on it, just sweeping the table clear and just starting over and looking at everything with fresh eyes.

And that's when I finally learned that Christianity was objectively true. It wasn't just a bedtime story. It is the true account of all of reality. And as soon as that sunk in for me, I followed Jesus and I've never looked back.

And I pray that that is exactly what is happening to Brand right now. We should all pray for this. Amen. Then indeed, that's why Jim Morrison died, right at 27, which seems to be the fate of many, many enthusiastic bacchanalian geniuses.

For surely, for surely there must.

Be a death. For surely there must be a death. Hopefully you don't have to kill the host. Hopefully the death is merely the idea and what is offered. And one thing I feel, as you know, from our previous conversations that I have at least a kind of experiential authority to speak about while not representative authority is the impact of the 12 steps on the psyche of an addict and its analysis in the ultimately that what addiction represents is a spiritual problem, is a spiritual quandary, and even embedded in the idioms like get off my face, lose myself, get smashed, is the idea that what the actual impulses and indeed think how significant the word craving is within addiction is a move towards a pulling some force, some source, some calling, some clarion call, some harbinger awaiting some personal rapture.

The problem is, of course, living as we do in the context that ultimately offers you as the end goal through materialist and rational analysis that you might become just this type of a person in this type of a society.

Something important is lost. And those things are explicit in the texts that undergird 12 step practice and philosophy. It is plain that they are talking primarily about, and I've said to you before, but I'll say again, that Jung was a key influence on the founders of that movement along a lot.

Curiously, along with first century Christianity, that what they are not saying, you know, give up drinking, give up drugs. They are saying give up self, give up self, give up self. There are phrases like abandon yourself to God completely.

Like after they get.

Amen. Amen. I love it. Uh, that is the key. I love it. I, I mentioned this at the outset. The Bible has an answer to the question of whether or not you have discovered true Christianity or just another form of self aggrandizement.

And it's the death of self. It's exactly what Jesus says in John 12, 24, truly, truly. I say to you, unless a grain of weed falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Whoever loves his life, loses it. And whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there will my servant be also. The key to following Jesus is that you have to die.

And this is not a physical death of the body. Although that, you know, comes for us all eventually. It's a death to the desires that are in you to glorify yourself, to elevate yourself. It's the death of catering to what yourself demands for its own gratification.

And that is hard, ladies and gentlemen, because this pits you essentially on one of two roads. Jesus said it like this, Matthew chapter seven, verse 13, enter by the narrow gate. For a gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction.

And those who enter by it are many for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. And those who find it are few. In a sense, you see that the contrast between the way or the path of self stands on one side and the way or the path of Jesus stands on the other.

There's your choice. You either choose to pursue your own desires or what God desires for you. And guess what? The gate is narrow to life because most people choose themselves over following God. They want the glory instead of giving the glory to the creator.

That's the reality of the situation. They don't want to die to self. They don't want to deny the self, pick up their cross and follow after Jesus. That's Mark chapter eight. And the tough reality for these folks is that at the end of a life spent choosing every day to glorify the self, there is not only a physical death, but a spiritual death.

Why? Because they chose to separate themselves from the source of eternal life, which is a relationship with God. If you are watching this and you are on a journey to seek what is true, I just told you, you just heard it.

Don't let familiarity breed contempt. You know, Oh, I've heard this before, Nate. You know, it's that old tired gospel that grandma kept trying to share with me, right? You know what? The message hasn't changed.

That's true. But just because it's familiar and you've heard it, I don't know how many times before, and it's always just been there in the background doesn't mean it's automatically false. And all of these public figures, it's just, it's fascinating.

These public figures, these intellectuals, they're finally figuring out that the God of the Bible is real and his ways lead to flourishing both in this life and the one to come.

Addiction, the 12 Steps, and Spiritual Surrender

Pastoral, it's not going very well, is it? All this drinking and drug use and even indicated in the earliest literature for these groups is the idea that there will be behavioral expressions, that there will be sexual behaviors, there will be promiscuity, et cetera, and God alone.

And if you maybe even just take that as one thread and consider what the 70 years since this piece of folk philosophy was all good in the world of pornography, something that was once, of course, available, but somewhat abstract and now is normalized, immersive, immediately available.

It seems that the environment is encroaching. And this reminds me of something sort of important I want to say. Of course, anyone that explores it, the reason the prodigal son is important is because like if someone goes, if someone's telling you, you don't want to be doing any of that, and it seems that it's born in prurience and an inability to attract mates, well, what's the value of that testimony?

But someone that's come back from there and says, well, give it a try, but it didn't work very well for me, is I think is a more powerful testimony to deliver. At least it seems to me that certainly that is a testimony that has affected me more.

Again, Brand points out how he dismissed the message of Christianity and the message of the He says for him, and I suppose this is true of many others as well, it was not helpful for a puritanical type person to just say a bunch of words about the truth of the gospel.

What would have been more helpful is someone who has been to the other side and in a very empathetic way comes back to speak from their experience. And that is Brand. Brand is someone who has not been shy about what the world has to offer in terms of quote unquote authentic experience.

But he can say now with all sincerity and with all experience that what the world has to offer will kill you twice, both physically and spiritually. The only way to experience flourishing in this life and the one to come is Jesus Christ.

The Lord says you must do it on his terms, not yours. If you try on yours, that's just more self-aggrandizement. It's only when you truly surrender yourself and deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow Jesus.

That's when you'll discover meaning and purpose in its truest objective form. Boy, what a wonderful conversation. Very illuminating hearing Brand talk about his journey to Christ. I think we should remember him in our prayers.

I remember when I first got saved, it was definitely a process of not only bringing me closer to God, but also moving me further and further away from selfish living and a selfish lifestyle. It's a process that Christians call sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So let's pray that Brand is discipled well and that he continues to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Amen. Okay, now it's your turn. Are we seeing a resurgence of faith in Jesus Christ or is this just a fluke?

Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to get your thoughts. And if you made it this far and you're still not a part of my Patreon community, what are you waiting for? Jump into the discussions that we're having even just to read the Bible with me.

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