Does Faith Need Branding?

With every passing year, I get this increasing urge to go down the spiritual path. The feeling intensifies around the start of a brand new year.

This year, I felt it even more intensely.

And it took me a tragedy to grab onto God’s feet oh-so-desperately. Like I’d never ever before! My worst nightmares crumbled in comparison and I’d never wish this knell on anyone, including my enemies.

The sudden, unexpected death of my spouse threw me straight into an avalanche of grief that whipped me mercilessly with its tentacles after a foggy period of numbness.

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Matthew 5:44

When Faith Died… for a while

I was initially outraged at God. I asked Him what His problem was with us? Couldn’t He bear to see us happy? Wasn’t He supposed to protect us? Were all our prayers futile?

As things unfolded, a whole lot of truth bombs hit me each day like a snowstorm. Yes, we were also in the thick of snowstorms, the worst Boston had ever encountered in decades this year. 

I prayed as I had never prayed before in my entire life. 24*7 for weeks.

Yet Ryan was heading towards the spiritual realm.

Strangely, I clung onto God stronger and harder like my life depended on Him. Truthfully, I really had no one else to take refuge in during the most challenging phase of my life.

Even more strangely, there was an unfathomable peace with the acceptance of His will. There was gratitude for having someone like Ryan as my spouse and the father of my child.

Slowly, my initial desperation made way to a serene belief that Ryan was finally at home with God. Then there was complete surrender to Him.

My First Brush with Celebrity Spirituality

I was finding peace and the strength to move forward thanks to my faith. I was in the stage of seriously levelling up my spirituality. Nothing else made sense anymore in the world.

In that period, I found an advertisement for Hallow, a Catholic prayer and meditation app. It caught my attention, and I was immediately offered a 30-day free trial.

However, what caught me totally off-guard were Hollywood celebrities endorsing it?

There’s nothing wrong with it, and I even liked some of the celebrities. Like Mark Wahlberg, who is one of my favourite Hollywood actors, or Gwen Stefani, whose music was an integral part of my teenage years.

Like most of us, I haven’t been entirely immune to celebrity idolisation in my earlier days either.

And yet while Hallow looked comprehensive and enticing, the fact that it had Hollywood celebrities endorsing it much like any other commercial product made me very uneasy.

Yes, I took the bait and signed up for the free 30-day trial period of Hallow. But that was it. I didn’t dare move forward into exploring all the various Catholic prayers and meditations on Hallow. 

Hallow isn’t new, having launched in 2018. However, its growing visibility can be attributed to its Hollywood endorsements since 2022-2023. It’s not just Hallow but many of its likes. I can foresee something like this catching on in India and other countries in the future.

When Scripture Throws Light

I’m still grappling with how I feel about celebrities being the face of Christianity/ Catholicism. Especially when there are certain incidents that point otherwise in the Holy Bible. 

Like Jesus Christ in his ultimate wrath at the Temple came to mind. It’s the only time in the Bible when we see a typically calm Christ in a ballistic mood. 

Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’[a] but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’

Matthew 21:12-13

This moment serves as an iconic example of how anger can be right and totally permissible. Anger, which is usually demonised, is an essential emotion for fighting the right battles.

Righteous anger for righteous battles. 

Would Christ be okay with faith being commodified or branded today?

The second image that came to mind was the birth of Christ. He was born in a manger to a poor carpenter’s family. He lived among the common people and wasn’t remotely elite by any worldly standards. 

Would Christ want His teachings to be endorsed by the elite, a group he had disassociated from, right from His birth until His last breath on the old, rugged cross?

Then came the mental picture of His death on the cross. Jesus was mocked, tortured and persecuted for no crime at all. Not much has really changed today.

What is more helpless, grotesque at the outset, yet deeply powerful on introspection than the symbol of the Cross. It’s why His death is called ‘Good Friday’. 

Would Christ want his Good News to be shared primarily by the privileged, when he lived and died alongside the meek, humble, and marginalised?

The Thin Line Between Influence and Inspiration

Clearly, I find myself skeptical of celebrities, however well-meaning, becoming the face of something as deeply personal as faith. Especially when it feels at odds with the very ethos it represents.

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Matthew 20:16

And it’s not even about who’s endorsing it as much as why does it need endorsing at all? I don’t know if I would feel any less discomfort if non-celebrities were endorsing Hallow.

Maybe I’m being unfair at coming to conclusion without fully experiencing it. Maybe I should give the likes of Hallow a fair chance.

Or maybe this uneasiness is worth paying attention to. Not as judgement, but as instinct.

Because faith, at least as I understand it, was never about visibility or influence.

It is something quieter.

Something inward.

Something unseen but felt between parallel realms that’s separated by life but brought into divine union by death. 

Like authenticity, faith doesn’t need validation. 

Yet we live in times where influence often defines and determines the value of everything, including something as sacred as personal faith.

This post is a part of Blogchatter A2Z Challenge 2026.