Tom Freston meets Joshua Blahyi (aka "General Butt Naked"), the man behind Matt and Trey's Book of Mormon character, previously profiled here. The former general headed a militia that fought naked and by their own admission "sacrificed young children, ate their hearts, and drank their blood" before battle. Blahyi now runs a ministry that tries to rehabilitate child soldiers:
He described his conversion as a moment in battle in 1996 when he had just sacrificed a "peaceful, kind, three year old girl." He had bloodstains on his hands and heard a voice behind him speaking in his dialect. "I saw a man in white linen, but he was so bright—brighter than the sun. And I discovered later that that man was Jesus, who told me finally to repent and live—or refuse and die." Ralph asked him if he had known anything about Jesus. He said no, but that a group of Christians, an "evangelistic ministry," came to teach him, embraced him, and let him stay in their pastor’s house. After 54 days of struggle, he finally accepted Jesus as his savior, and General Butt Naked became Joshua Blahyi the evangelist—a conversion noted throughout the country. Joshua said it gave Liberians hope because they figured, "If God can change me, He can also change your children."
Speaking of Mormon, Tod Kelly just got around to seeing the musical and came away "feeling uplifted about the world, humanity and – yes – religion":
The villagers in the Book of Mormon did not need the Lord God to come down from heaven to convince them that horrible acts of evil were, in fact, horrible acts of evil. Nor did they need to study advanced philosophy, that they might reason out over time that this was so. Instead, the knowledge of what was good was inherent inside of them, just as plainly as was the desire to do wrong. Cunningham’s stories did not speak to the villagers because they were divinely inspired (at least we assume); they spoke to them because they contained truths they already knew in their hearts.
The Dish 