Academy Award-winning actor Russell Crowe has announced to Men's Journal magazine that he is planning on being baptized later this year at a consecrated chapel located on his ranch in northern New South Wales."My mum and dad decided to let my brother and me make our own decisions about God when we got to the right age. I started thinking recently, 'If I believe it is important to baptise my kids, why not me?'"
Good for him. But, of course, a religious ritual without holy intentions and a "faith understanding" of the Christian doctrines that the ritual illustrates (in this case, being a picture of Christ's death, burial and resurrection to pay for an individual's sins) is a pretty empty excercise.
Therefore, I hope the Byzantine rite priest that will conduct the rite will require a more thorough statement of faith of Crowe than that which he gave to the magazine interviewer; namely, "I do believe there are more important things than what is in the mind of a man. There is something much bigger that drives us all. I'm willing to take that leap of faith."
As a fellow who was myself baptized a few times before I finally understood and truly believed in the gospel of Christ for my soul's salvation, I pray that Russell Crowe's baptism is a sincere and knowledgeable expression of his Christian faith. Otherwise, he'll end up being what I was all those times -- "all wet" but yet without Christ.
