To be or not to be born again

While watching Carson Daly a few days ago, I watched an interview for a very interesting guest, Brian "Head" Welch, the ex-guitarist for metal band Korn. Apparently, Welch had become a born-again Christian at a low point in his life (his conversion moment happened while he was in a hotel room high on crystal meth). Since then he's gone public about his experience and written a book about it that is a NYT bestseller.

I wanted to do a little more research on him so I googled him and this Web page of people's biographies popped up, a list of notable names who have claimed to be born-again Christians. The list included some famous religious names, but also included its fair share of serial killers, former porn stars, troubled athletes, and, quite amusingly, former Prince proteges.

It's easy to be cynical of those folks who find God when they have to curry favor with the public (see: Michael Vick and Paris Hilton) or emphasize that they have faith when their integrity is questioned (see any politician) or who claim to have had a born-again experience to convince others that they are no longer evil (see: pretty much any murderer up for parole). And really, why shouldn't we all question conversions of convenience?

Regardless of what people think, however, at the end of the day it's only God who truly knows whose spiritual changes are true and who is doing it to further his/her own causes; after all, Jesus reached out to tax collectors, thieves, prostitutes, and lepers, healed them, befriended them and called for transformed lives. And it's definitely true that people don't often turn to religion until something shakes up their world or until they find themselves at the bottom of a spiritual and emotional ditch, waiting for someone to pull them out. People who have everything going for them often don't think they need God.

Anyway, back to Welch. I saw a few of his interviews from CNN and other TV newscasts on YouTube, and after he became a Christian he quit drugs cold turkey and left the band after hearing his young daughter singing sexually suggestive Korn lyrics. For every religious conservative who is exposed for having a secret life that mirrors the lives of those they condemn, there is a story like Welch's that, in my opinion, really tells the Gospel story. I just wish there were more of them out there like that.