‘Faith is a really intimate subject… and a difficult subject’
Known for his derring-do, Bear Grylls tells Peter Stanford why coming out as a Christian has been one of his biggest tests of bravery
Bear Grylls selects which projects to take on, he explains, by going for the riskiest. That may explain why this former SAS serviceman and adventurer climbed Everest at 23, circumnavigated the British Isles on a jet ski, and made an unassisted crossing of the Atlantic in an open inflatable boat, before switching to front extreme endurance TV shows such as Born Survivor, Wild Weekend and The Island.
His newest venture, he insists, is part of the same pattern of pushing himself to the very limit, though at first glance it looks like a curious departure from the norm. The man who, in a celebrated episode of Born Survivor, once emptied out the guts of a dead camel in the Sahara and then sheltered inside its carcass, is publishing a book about God.
Soul Fuel, which he describes as “a daily devotional”, contains 365 reflections to carry readers through the year and give “strength to a failing body”.
That Grylls has a private faith was known long before he invited Barack Obama to say a prayer with him at the end of filming a headline-grabbing episode of Running Wild in 2015, when he took the then US president trekking in Alaska. But a daily devotional?
Grylls – often pictured in advertisements for his TV series, walking through fire – looks uncharacteristically sheepish.
“This is the only press I’m going to do on this, because half of me is a little bit self-conscious, and a little bit
apprehensive,” he confesses. “Faith is a really intimate subject. And a difficult subject.”
Being a lover of the great outdoors – he is also Britain’s chief scout – the man christened Edward Michael, but called Bear by his big sister and everyone since, has suggested meeting in central London’s Hyde Park facing the Huntress Fountain, which is topped by a bronze figure of the goddess Diana with her bow and arrow.
For all his professed caution, 44-year-old Grylls gives no outward impression of holding back when he pitches up with his 16-year-old son, Jesse (the eldest of his three sons).
At his insistence, the three of us sit squashed up on a bench. Then his publicist joins us, and she squeezes on, too. By now, people wandering by the fountain are staring – perhaps because they recognise his famous face, even behind his shades and baseball cap. Or are they wondering why we are playing Sardines, when every other bench in this section of the park is empty?
In the end, Grylls untangles the mess, like the natural leader he is. “Let’s split up,” he tells the other two, “otherwise Peter is going to have a nightmare with this.”
With a bit more space to breathe, he begins to talk candidly.
“I could have not done a book on faith,” he muses, “and it would be a lot safer.” It is a curious word to use, suggesting he feels he may be making himself a target by coming out as a believer in our secular, sceptical times. “In the words of CS Lewis, when the children in Narnia ask if Aslan [the Christ-like figure] is safe, the reply comes: ‘Safe, no way, but he’s good.’ I’m not sure if I have the exact words, but for me it sums up the journey of faith.”
He has never wanted to be categorised by faith in his public and professional life, in case it somehow causes viewers to see him as too holy or pious. “I have been asked to be patron of Christian organisations, and I always feel bad saying no, but I say no because I just don’t want that label.”
The book began as something he had written for his family. “I have three boys,” he says. As well as Jesse, there are Marmaduke, 13, and
‘Faith has been a quiet but powerful part of our family and their lives growing up’
Huckleberry, 10, raised by Grylls and his wife, Shara, partly in the Home Counties and partly on St Tudwals, an island off Abersoch in west Wales, where he famously left Jesse marooned on the rocks, as part of an RNLI training mission.
“Faith has been a quiet but powerful part of our family and their lives growing up. And if I were ever not around, which will happen one day, here [in the book] are my thoughts.”
Presumably higher-than-usual odds on not being around to see his young family reach adulthood are part and parcel of being an adventurer? “Well, maybe,” he replies, but he doesn’t want to be distracted from his main point about the book’s genesis: “Here’s my thoughts on what will help you live an empowered, light-filled existence.”
How it went from family keepsake to high street bookshops brings us back to Barack. “So many people ask me about praying with Obama. It was an off-camera moment at the end of it, but I thought, here is a man who I could see had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it just felt natural at the end of our journey.”
In a Youtube clip that went viral, Grylls asks the Lord to “bless and protect” the then President’s “work and family” before both men say “Amen”. Today, his voice trails away as he remembers the moment. “People generally don’t want religion, but they like community and kindness. That stuff transcends borders and cultures.”
Grylls grew up on the Isle of Wight, where his Royal-marine-commando-turned-tory-mp father, Sir Michael, took him climbing sea cliffs as a boy. What formal religion there was in his childhood came at Eton in the school chapel, and he didn’t like it.
“Everything was liturgical and cassocks and Latin,” he recalls, “and ‘You’re in trouble because you’re late’. It was distant and cold and gave a false impression that God is distant and cold.
“And, for me, it has been a lifetime’s journey that is still continuing of unravelling religion from faith. The heart of Christ’s message was about freedom and fun and light and love and forgiveness and risk-taking – always messy. But my experience as a child was of it being too neat.”
After his marriage at 25 to Shara in 2000, the couple made their first home on a barge in the Thames. Grylls got involved with a group of friends who met regularly to play squash.
“It was brilliant, not a parody but a reflection of how ‘church’ should be, because there were 10 of us – me, a vicar, a second-hand car dealer, a gay antique art dealer, a policeman, a soldier and a nightclub owner.
“We were totally different, but we’d meet every day at 3 o’clock and we always had each other’s backs in our lives.”
The cleric in question was Nicky Gumbel, developer of the Alpha Course, an introduction to Christianity that has proved effective and popular in bringing people back