Yesterday, The Times reported that Russell Brand had been conducting baptisms in a penguin pool at a zoo. The relative merits of conducting a baptism at a zoo or surrounded by penguins can be debated. Given the Didache was pretty clear that running water i.e. a river was preferential, and there is plenty of biblical data to support a position that reckons this to be best, most view the presence of water and the full submersion of the candidate as the essential mode and are less concerned whether it happens in the sea, a river or some other form of pool. What seems less debatable is whether Russell Brand ought to be conducting baptisms at all.

Now, let me be clear from the front end: I make no claim to know whether Russell Brand is a genuine Christian or not. I am not his pastor, I’ve not heard his testimony and I can’t see his life up close. I certainly believe it is entirely possible he has converted and there are voices in a better position to know who seem to think he has. Regardless of what he may have done, those things he has admitted to doing and those things in the public eye which anybody can witness him to have done, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost; he did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. It is perfectly possible that Russell Brand has, indeed, repented of his sin and put his trust in Christ. As with any profession of faith you don’t see up close and aren’t involved with in any way, it is beyond my ken. I simply accept it is evidently possible, acknowledge that a profession has been made and note the rest is between Brand, the Lord and the local church.

Nevertheless, as much as it may be the case that Brand has converted, I cannot see any credible reason why he should be conducting baptisms. In fact, I think there are three specific reasons why he should not be conducting baptisms and, particularly, not in this way.

Baptism is for the local church

This reason is not unique in any way to Russell Brand; it applies to anybody who might conduct a baptism. Nor is it anything to do with the need to be some sort of licensed priest. I believe any member of the local church should be able to conduct a baptism. The priesthood of all believers licenses any church member. Martin Luther said, ‘In cases of necessity any one [sic] can baptize and give absolution, which would be impossible unless we were all priests.’ So what is the issue?

Fundamentally, baptism is how the church identifies its members. Here is how Bobby Jamieson helpfully defines baptism:

Baptism is a church’s act of affirming and portraying a believer’s union with Christ by immersing him or her in water, and a believer’s act of publicly committing him or herself to Christ and his people, thereby uniting a believer to the church and marking off him or her from the world.

But the baptism carried out by Brand appears not to be into membership of a local body of believers; it is just into the ether. It isn’t a church’s act of affirming belief in Christ, it is just Brand doing it. You can watch his video here.

In one case, Brand asserts that the man he is baptising gave his life to the Lord today; he then baptises him essentially into nothing. It might well be Russell Brand’s affirmation that here is a believer, but it isn’t the church’s act of affirming a believer. As Bobby Jamieson rightly says:

what would you do if your friend sneaked up behind you [in a swimming pool], dunked you, and then said, “Now you’ve been baptized!” Even if you know little about baptism, my guess is you’d have a strong suspicion that, in addition to being slightly odd, your friend is wrong. You haven’t been baptized; all you’ve been is dunked.

It seems to me this is all that Russell Brand has done too. In essence, he has not really conducted a baptism at all because it is neither the affirmation of a church nor been done into membership of the local church. You can follow the link to Bobby Jamieson’s (mercifully short) article for a more fulsome comment on this.

Missionally Unwise

One of the reasons why baptism should be done into the local church is because it is one of the first steps on the road of discipleship. This person publicly affirms their belief, the church affirms their profession and as both parties affirm belief they commit to one another. The candidate commits to serving as part of the body and the rest of the body commit to caring for the candidate and helping them to grow up to maturity. Unfortunately, when we baptise people into the ether, we remove all of this from them.

I do not know, for example, what measures were taken to determine a credible profession of faith but it doesn’t take much to see that the profession of a moment, no matter how genuinely felt at the time, is not altogether unlikely to dissipate as quickly as it came. Altar calls are the oft-cited means of encouraging the emotional response of a moment that soon after disappears. It is possible the men who were baptised by Brand really are genuinely converted and will go on with the Lord – I hope they are! But we can’t be that surprised if the emotions of a moment, the opportunity to be baptised by a well known figure, lead to affirmations of belief that prove not to be credible in the end.

Not only does baptism by the local church help to avoid this problem – not perfectly, by any means, but nevertheless limiting its likelihood – it also offers the necessary scaffolding for discipleship without which those who are genuine are left floundering. Jesus did not give us only baptism to identify believers as belonging to the church at one moment in time, he also gave us communion to constitute the church and provide a means of ongoing affirmation of faith. But to baptise somebody without them joining the local church is to affirm their profession in the moment without then continuing to affirm them as members in good standing by taking the Lord’s Supper week by week nor to walk with them and disciple them, helping them to continue on faithfully with Jesus.

Baptising people into the ether runs a high risk of giving people false hope – affirming their profession of a moment with little to no grounds – and leaves them without the God-ordained support of a local church. Whilst we may find some who prove to be genuine and press on with Jesus, we are far more likely to find we are simply falsely identifying people as genuine believers who ought never to have been affirmed as such. It sets many people up for failure in a Christian walk that they barely even begin.

Personally unwise

The above two reasons are not specific to Russell Brand. This third reason is specific to him. As much as I believe it is possible he has become a genuine believer in Jesus Christ – I hope it really is true – it is deeply unwise for Brand to engage in public ministry whilst awaiting trial for serious criminal offences that have, as yet, not reached a verdict.

Brand currently stands accused of two charges of rape, two charges of sexual assault and one charge of indecent assault. What is more, these are not mere accusations, they have reached a threshold for charging, are being prosecuted and have been deemed to have enough evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction. As much as Brand may protest his innocence, it is both personally and missionally foolish to engage in public ministry whilst those charges are outstanding. It fundamentally brings the gospel into disrepute.

As a comparator, think of a church minister who has been publicly accused of ministry-disqualifying sin. The minister may also protest his innocence. But the appropriate thing to do in those circumstances is to suspend the minister on full pay without prejudice whilst the accusations are investigated and he should either be removed from post if he is later found to be guilty or he should be reinstated and publicly exonerated if it is clear he has done nothing wrong. But how unwise is it to let him continue serving publicly – baptising people and administering communion – whilst an investigation is ongoing. What will happen if, at the end of it, it proves that he has, indeed, done this thing and the church did nothing about it and even let him continue as if nothing had happened? It will bring the church into disrepute and it will bring the gospel into disrepute. It is impossible to act as a minister of the gospel while there are live questions backed up with some evidence about your character and qualification. It is simply untenable.

But with Russell Brand it is more significant than all that. He isn’t just accused of character failure (as if that isn’t bad enough), he is accused of criminal behaviour which, to quote Paul, is ‘of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate’. That is not to pass judgement on his guilt – that is for a trial to determine – but it is to say the seriousness of the situation warrants a serious response, particularly given we are dealing with ‘a realistic prospect of conviction’. It should, at the very least, cause us to temper our willingness to front such a person in ministry.

It bears saying that, because Brand has taken it upon himself to conduct these baptisms seemingly apart from a local church, this is not the church being lax. This is an issue of an individual acting alone. I want to reiterate, I do not know whether Brand is a genuine Christian or not – I am not close enough to him to say – but I do know a desire to front oneself in ministry whilst criminal charges are outstanding without considering the implications for the gospel does say something about how concerned we are for the Lord Jesus and his reputation. It doesn’t prove that Brand is or isn’t a genuine believer, but just as outstanding criminal charges inevitably raise questions that need to be cleared up, so a publicly ministry whilst those charges are yet to be settled inevitably raises unhelpful questions too. If our genuine concern is for the gospel and the good reputation of the Lord Jesus more than for ourselves, it is hard to see that we would not (minimally) take a back seat and not engage in public ministry for his sake until the charges are dropped and our name is clear. That Brand has not will cause some to draw their own conclusions about the genuineness of his profession of faith and, worse still, about the goodness of Lord Jesus and his gospel as a result.