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He quit one of the most successful rock bands to become a follower of Jesus. Here’s a preview:

“I went home, lined out a big line of meth after church and I said “Lord, if you’re real like that guy says, then show yourself to me, reveal yourself to me.  Make me want to be a good dad to my kid.  I don’t want her to lose me.  She lost her mother to drugs and I’m going to kill myself if I keep doing this.  Help me.  Then I snorted the line after I prayed it, (laughs) that’s how messed up I was.”

On Sunday, December 2, 2007, Rick Davis, co-host with Lael Arrington of the Radio Show The Things That Matter Most, interviewed Brian Welch, the former lead-guitarist of the “Nu-Metal” rock band Korn.  Brian Welch quit the multi-platinum, Grammy award winning rock band in 2005 after his conversion to Christianity.  The radio interview with Brian Welch, who sometimes goes by the nickname “Head,” was broken up into three parts. The interview can be listened to in full here.

The first part of the interview began with them discussing the magnitude of the worldly success of the band.  Brian described his formed band Korn as angry, aggressive, with negative lyrics, fun, loud, and annoying music.

He said “It’s rock, it’s heavy, it makes parents yell at their kids to turn it down.”  After talking about the band’s height of success, Brian was asked about his childhood.  Welch recalled that he grew up “normal.”  He came from an upper-middle class family.  His father was a banker that later took over a Chevron.  His father drank a little bit, and that would scare him sometimes.  Brian said he started smoking weed somewhere around third or fourth grade.  He got involved in music at an early age by listening to his fathers eight-tracks of Queen and Billy Joel.  Brian wanted to play drums at first, but his father recommended the [much quieter] acoustic guitar.  Brian said that he had natural ability to play guitar.  He attributes part of his success to the fact that he devoted himself to music, having never had a healthy relationship with his dad.  Instead, he poured himself into his music.  Brian began writing songs at the age of 15, and admits that they weren’t very good.

Rick Davis then asks Brian about his former drug addiction.  As already mentioned, Brian experimented with marijuana somewhere around the third or fourth grade.  He admits that he never inhaled until Junior High.  When he did, he didn’t like it and avoided smoking dope until he tried it again as a sophomore in High School.  The young “Head” smoked a joint that he didn’t know was laced with PCP.  It scared him.  He had a bad experience that made his arms feel like they were melting, and vowed to stay away from that stuff because of the way it made him feel.  In High School, he switched to alcohol (beer), and drank lots of it throughout his High School years.  He avoided doing drugs until he tried speed (methamphetamines) while in the band, Korn.  He says he got hooked, and along with other members of the band, wrote songs while on meth, sometimes for days at a time.  He says that he and his band mates quit drugs once the band got signed.  Brian privately dabbled with pills, cocaine and speed all throughout his time with Korn.

The second section of the interview focused on Brian’s conversion to Christianity, and the book he authored “Save Me From Myself.”  He said he found God in 2005.  Rick Davis began by asking Brian what he thought was so attractive about the drug scene.  Here’s a summary of Brian’s answer:

“Drugs are spiritual in a sense.  They take your mind, your emotions, and feelings, somewhere else other than where you’re at.  It’s all about feeling good.  It’s a counterfeit to what God gives, to what I’ve found.  Jesus taught about a kingdom.  The kingdom is a place where you can go to without drugs.  You can tap in to the heavenly realm by the Spirit of God.  Drugs are a counterfeit to that.”  “Once I felt God touch me and come in to my life, I had no need for drugs.  God gives you that high that you need.  The spiritual world opened up to me.”

Brian views drugs as a counterfeit to what God gives.  He views the kingdom of God as a place you can go to without drugs.  It is not clear from the interview, but I take it that when Brian says “place you can go to,” that he’s referring to an experiential state of emotional satisfaction rather than a physical place as in a location.  He also sees God as giving him the high that he needs that he was seeking from drugs.  He seems to be saying that his conversion had a lot to do with his needs being met by God in terms of a better high than that of drugs.  He continues to talk about his conversion to God and how his abandoning drug use is viewed in terms of repentance.

“Repentance isn’t saying ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry for doing all those drugs,’ it’s changing the way you think.  The God thing, He fills you with a high that’s higher than the drug.  I need something to fill me, I can’t just be bored.”

Brian explains his view of repentance as being a change in the way one thinks.  He no longer is referring to his own experience, now he is putting forth a universal truth claim about Christianity.  I am willing to listen to anyone’s personal story and take it at face value.  If one of my neighbors tell me that they saw an angel come to him in a dream and tell him that God loves him so much and he has nothing to fear, then that’s fine.  There’s no need to question him about his dream.  Or if someone says, like Brian said, that God gives him the feeling of completeness, or a “high” that he was searching for at his job, from drugs, from sex etc., then I’m cool with that.  I may become concerned for him if that is all God is to him and pray that the Holy Spirit works in him.  But when Brian Welch takes a biblical term such as repentance, a term that has a meaning from Scripture, and reduces it to simply a change in the way one thinks, contrasting it with sorrow for one’s sins, then I cannot remain silent and just let things be.

Repentance certainly is a changing in the way one thinks, but it is accompanied by regret and change of conduct as well.  There is a sorrow for sin produced by the Holy Spirit that causes believers to turn from that sin and toward God in Christ.  I think that this is what Paul was talking about in his second epistle to the Corinthians.  In his first epistle, Paul was very stern in his rebuke to the church in Corinth.  In 2 Cor. 7:6-11 Paul writes that he ran in to Titus at Macedonia and received a report on the Corinthian church that comforted the afflicted Paul and brought him joy.

“But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus; and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced even more. For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it– for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while– I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter.” – 2 Cor. 7:6-11 NASB

We see that Paul rejoiced because of their sorrow for their sins that led to repentance.  He said that he wasn’t rejoicing in their sorrow alone, but rather their repentance which was caused by their sorrow.  When Brian Welch strips repentance of the sorrow for sin and says that repentance is just a change in the way one thinks, one must ask what the change was from and what it is to.  Comprehensive volumes have been written on repentance.  Here I only intend to briefly demonstrate that his understanding may be askew.

Davis continues the interview and says: “In the book, you talk about having all the success someone could have, but you were still depressed.”  Brian goes on to say that as fame rose, things got worse.  All 5 members of the band lost their wives, families were broken up.  About his success he said: “It wasn’t what I thought it would be. When you get ‘there’ it didn’t fill ‘that hole.’  The truth is, when you get there, it’s not what you think.  I was a miserable idiot with millions of dollars in the bank.  I was doing blow in front of cops.  I thought life was a bad joke, but I had cool toys.”  Rick Davis recalls the verse where Jesus asks “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26, Mark 8:36, Luke 9:25).  Brian said “I wish I’d known that scripture beforehand.”

The final segment of the show is the end of the interview, the section that gives a very clear look into the life and mind of Brian Welch.  Davis asks: “How did it happen, that you accepted Christ?”  Now, you must understand that up until this point in the interview, most of what was discussed was his former life as a rock star, drug addict, and some light discussion that would lead one to the conclusion that Brian is not an atheist.  I put it like that because of the way he spoke of God and Jesus.  His only mention of Jesus was that Jesus talked about a kingdom and how he [Brian] was able to “go there” without drugs.  He continued to refer to “God” as the fulfillment of his need to get high, making his drugs of no use because “God gives you that high that you need.”  This is not to nitpick over particulars or split theological hairs, it is to point out that there is a tremendous need in today’s church for a correct understanding of the person and work of Christ.  Back to Davis’ question: “How did it happen, that you accepted Christ?”

“I needed help, like I said.  One night at 4AM, I started sweating bullets, drenched full on, pains in my chest.  Went to the computer, had all the symptoms of a heart-attack.  I had weird movements in my EKG.  I decided to get cleaned up and become rational, for my kid’s sake (single parent).”

I would like to point out that although Brian experienced a crisis, it is not clear from his answer that he had an awareness of his need for a Savior, to save him from the penalty of his sin.  It appears that he reacted to his crisis for the sake of his kid.  He continues:

“Someone sent me an email saying that he felt led by God to send me this Scripture:  Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. – Matt. 11:28.”  After reading the verse in the email, Brian responded back to his friend and told him that he was a lost soul, but didn’t mention the drugs.  He says “I ended up going to church one day, high on drugs.  The pastor preached about hanging out with Jesus.  All you got to do is talk to Him, hang out with him, and all the junk will fall out of your life if you just give him your life and start talking to him, hanging out with him at home.  I raised my hand during the service to receive Christ and stuff.”

This is an illustration of the dire situation of American Christianity.  If the message from the pulpit does not mention repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as the substitute for the penalty of your sin, rather a way to rid your life of “junk,” then conversions like Brian Welch’s are bound to increase in numbers.  After all, who doesn’t want to rid their life of junk?  This is where the interview get’s messy.

“I took that sermon literally and decided to put it to the test.  I went home, lined out a big line of meth after church and I said “Lord, if you’re real like that guy says, then show yourself to me, reveal yourself to me.  Make me want to be a good dad to my kid.  I don’t want her to lose me.  She lost her mother to drugs and I’m going to kill myself if I keep doing this.  Help me.  Then I snorted the line after I prayed it, (laughs) that’s how messed up I was.”

Now, this is his own testimony.  It is not beyond the limits of God to save a soul through this type of challenge.  It is however, not in line with the biblical teaching of how a soul is normally saved.  Challenging God to prove himself to you is not a wise thing to do.  I’m sure that many agnostics have done this and continued in their unbelief after no proof was provided.  I say that it is unwise, but I do not rule out the possibility of God to work through this.  What I am most concerned about is his reason for the challenge.  He asks God to show himself to him, reveal himself to him, so that he would have the desire to be a good dad to his kid.  Still nothing about sin or hell.  No mention of Jesus Christ, whom God sent for the redemption of His people.  Brian continues:

“But within a couple of weeks, I had confided in a friend, I had my fried throw all my speed away, went to church another time, I relapsed once, had one more week long drug binge, wasn’t getting high anymore when I snorted this stuff, I was reading Bible, still, you know, doing drugs a little bit, I felt a peaceful presence come over me that was higher than any drug I ever experienced, it was higher feeling than any show that I’ve ever played in Korn.  It was out of this world, it was heaven, heaven was being revealed to me.”

What this sounds like is a blown mind from a drug-induced hallucination, an effect of being high on speed for a week.  It is undeniable that Brian experienced something based on his testimony.  It is also undeniable that when someone is geeked out on speed for seven days without sleep, that a number of strange things occur in the mind of the tweaker.  The following is from pages 12 & 13 of How to Keep Your Kids Drug Free! by Robert Morey:

In every drug experience a person loses something.  During that time one alters the straight or normal way of thinking and as a result may lose:

• 1. The ability to understand things rationally.
• 2. Contact with the normal world of sense perception.
• 3. Any accurate perception of the size, shape, or color of objects.
• 4. The ability to perceive differences between objects.
• 5. The sense of self and identity.
• 6. The awareness of time.
• 7. Consciousness of the past and its importance
• 8. Consciousness of the future and its goals.
• 9. The ability to give sustained attention.
• 10. The ability to communicate intelligently.

In every drug experience a person is subject to certain delusions.  These include:

• 1. The sensation of having great insight, intuition, and knowledge.
• 2. A monistic or pantheistic perception of the universe.
• 3. An experience of godhood by sensing one is infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, indestructible, and eternal.
• 4. The sense of being possessed, overpowered, or carried along by some force greater than oneself.
• 5. A heightened perception of sounds, sights, and colors.
• 6. A heightened sensual experience of sex, touch, and taste.
• 7. A confusion of the senses in which one may see music and hear colors.
• 8. The ability to live in the present without any concern for the past or the future.
• 9. The ability to be released from all responsibility and restraint and to do whatever one feels like doing.
• 10. Mystical or religious experiences with God or spiritual beings.

Based on Morey’s book (this guy has written on everything!), it becomes clear that when one is high on drugs, there is a loss of contact with reality.  Sadly, this was the state that Brian Welch was in while his alleged conversion took place.  I am not making the assertion that he is not saved.  I am also not asserting that he is.  Based on his own testimony, his spiritual experiences have happened while he was blasted out of his mind, geeked and tweaked.  Let’s continue with what Brian Welch had to say:

“It says in the Bible, no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him, but he has revealed it to us by His spirit.  That’s what I believed happened.  He revealed to me what heaven is like, what God is like, and what unconditional love is like.  And I didn’t feel condemned, you know, when God revealed himself to me.  I didn’t fell like, you know, Oh man, I’m gonna go to hell because I’m talking to God on drugs. I was scared of that a little bit, but when He revealed himself to me it was all love, it was just like, I’m here, and your life is going to change right now, and it changed and I’ve never been the same.”

Obviously, Brian has quoted 1 Corinthians 2:9 out of context and used it to verify and legitimize his experience.  That verse has nothing to do with what he’s describing.  Notice that there still is no mention of his sin, his guilt, or his conscious need for a Savior.  At this point, it seems like Brian is just on a rad trip.  He’s cranked out and trippin’ hard.  As I mentioned earlier, at best, he’s not an atheist.  Then Davis asked:

“That is a great story!  In trying to find happiness we actually inflict tremendous pain, not only on ourselves, but on those we love, by being engaged in self-destructive activities.  Why do you think, Brian, and here I’m not only talking about drugs, but just whatever these things are, whether its money, success, sex, anger, or any of these things that are self destructive, why do you think we’re so stupid to do the things we do and when we do them, why don’t we recognize they’re killing us?”

Most Christians that read this would answer this question in terms of man’s sin, the fall, depravity, the love of evil deeds, captivity to Satan etc.  Brian begins to answer along those lines but somewhere along the line loses it and goes off into some really strange form of rationalization.

Brian: “Because we’re human, we’re, we’re, we’re idiots by nature (laughs).  Because God is God and we’re, we’re trying to make ourselves our own god.  Were trying to do everything we’re taught, when we were taught, we were programmed when we were kids you know that we got to do all this stuff, and when reality, we, we try to do everything ourselves, we convince ourselves that if we get to this goal or whatever and do this and that then our life will be happy and we’ll be fulfilled.  It even comes, like, you know,  with being a rock star, having a rock star dream, or even like having the dream of a family and I mean, it’s all good, that’s all good and it’s part of life, but still, like, you know, we have kids and we grow up, and we get old and we die.  They grow up, they get old, they have kids and they die.  There’s got to be something more or else life is a bad joke.  In order that we can love another person so deeply, there’s got to be somewhere that comes from.  That’s God.  I just think that everyone needs to surrender to God and we’ll see.  I say, don’t listen to me, go to God yourself.  I went to God snorting lines saying show yourself to me, reveal yourself to me, and He did.”

It would take days just to break this down, unpack the errors, and offer correction.  The point that should be taken from his answer is that he really doesn’t have a clue.  He has very little biblical understanding of God and man, and who knows, maybe no concept of sin at all.  The sad thing is that Brian Welch is now a major celebrity among Christian groups.  He is only going to get more popular.  He is in high demand to give his testimony, he’s got youtube and Godtube videos all over, CNN interviews etc.  All these Christian groups that desperately want the world’s approval are delighted to claim Brian Welch as their Christian hero.

When Welch made his profession of faith, the media jumped all over the story.  I remember hearing about it and praised God because he gets all the glory when one comes to faith in Christ.  But as time went on, I began to notice very strange statements coming from Brian.  He started writing and recording his own music on ProTools or some software like it, and in one of his songs he took a shot at 50 Cent.  I never heard the whole song, but the part that I did hear was not very impressive.   His songs drew the attention of the media due to his icon status, not his songwriting skills.  When interviewed and asked why he put 50 Cent on blast in his song, he said that God spoke to him and told him that he wasn’t happy with the way the world was going.  Brian said that he was God’s mouthpiece, God’s way of getting a message to 50 that he was participating in evil.  Too bad 50 wasn’t strung out on the cheese that Brian was snorting, God could have spoke to him directly without Brian.  Perhaps 50 was too sober for God to reveal himself that day.

I’m making fun out of the situation because Brian Welch should not be a spokesperson for Christianity.  It would be different if Brian were proclaiming the gospel of grace to the glory of God.  But it’s not that way.  He’s romanticizing his experience and packaging it up as something attractive and desirable for others.  Listen to what he says next.

“It’s pretty deep, if you just get past the how people of God have made Him look so bad, and if you go to God yourself, it’s pretty deep and amazing.  He’ll make you feel like you’re the only person in the world walking with Him.”  At this point, Rick Davis recalls Howard Storm’s testimony of his near-death experience when he was sent into hell.  He recalls from that interview that Storm said “God’s love is so complete that anyone who walks with God fell like they’re His favorite.”  Brian agrees, saying “Yeah, it’s crazy!  That’s why people, like, get jealous sometimes when they hear other people’s story.  That’s the reason churches fight and stuff, it’s like little kids you know, its like, I believe that people feel like they’re right, no, no, God told me this, and this is my doctrine, and this is how we believe it, and they think everyone else is wrong because they’re God’s favorite (laughs).  But yeah, He has a way because he does that, I don’t know how, but, it’s pretty crazy.”  Rick Davis responds and says: “I guess his love is just so great, so perfect, so infinite, that He’s got enough to make us all feel [like His favorite].”

According to Brian, the reason that churches fight (and stuff) is because God makes them each feel like they’re God’s favorite.  What profound insight.  Davis then asks him the big question.

“Tell us about your experiences that you’ve had since you became a Christian that make you know that this is God in your life.”

This is an important question to ask.  How do you know that your experiences were not drug-induced altered states of consciousness?  How do you know that it was the God who has revealed himself in Scripture?  Brace yourselves, here’s Brian:

“It’s a hard reality.  When you surrender your life, it’s a process where He reveals himself to you, God reveals Himself to you, and then there starts a relationship.  The whole thing he wants to do is make you like Jesus.  Jesus, it says in the Bible, that he learned obedience and stuff through suffering and stuff, so we got to go through some suffering and stuff.  But he takes you on ups and downs, it’s like, they call it hills and valley’s and stuff.  He takes you like, in valleys, the valleys are like the hard dark times when there’s storms and stuff in your life.  It seems like you have bad luck wherever you go, and then, after that season he’ll take you up on a mountaintop and he’ll start communicating with to heart and your spirit, in like, deep ways to where you know it’s God.  I told you the scripture earlier, no eye… It’s the same like Jesus talked about I’m going to prepare…what the Spirit does, the Holy Spirit reveals to you that place that is heaven where Jesus is and God does that.  In my experience, I right away had an experience with God, like I said, you know, I just felt heaven.  I was still a little doubtful, just, I knew God was real, but I didn’t have that really close thing that I read about in the Bible.  Even it talks about a guy getting caught up to the 3^rd heaven and stuff.  I was hearing stories about people having like close encounters with God like in other ministries and I just thought, God, I started telling him I want to have this, I want to feel this.  In January, 2007, after 2 years of being a Christian, I just felt for 2 weeks, it happened on January 14 I believe, I was totally in some other place while I was on earth it was like God revealed heaven to me like in the deepest way to where there’s no nothing, nothing can happen to me ever again in my life that will cause any doubt ever that He’s…  It was so deep, it was so deep.  I don’t know how to explain it other than, I was caught up (RD that is so cool).  Tears were flowing out of my eyes that were tears of love and joy and contentment.  I was like, man I don’t care if I die tomorrow.  It was so…I can’t wait to get to this place.  And He’ll do it, I tell people this… to get them hungry to want to ask God themselves to reveal that place to me.  He’s no respecter of persons.  He’ll do it for anybody.”

In the end, all we can do is grieve.  I did.  It’s funny sometimes.  But when you see the nucleus of one’s faith, what holds it all together, and it is not the finished work of Jesus the Messiah on the cross for the forgiveness of sins, it causes grief.  Brian, if you ever read this and want to talk, I will make myself available.  I’m a former rock guitar player also.  Maybe we can jam, have a beer and a stogie, or a clove (no cigarettes).  But we need to talk some theology.  I want to show Christ to you from Scripture.  At this particular time in history, the popular view is “anything goes.”  Who knows what to believe?  But you know what bro, God has given and preserved His Word throughout the ages and we have trustworthy manuscripts, copied from the original writings.  The Bible is not a religious book of spiritual sayings.  IT IS THE WORD OF GOD!  “Anything goes” is a lie.  At the end of time, God will judge the living and the dead.  The only way to escape hell is to be found in Christ.  His righteousness, not your own, is what is acceptable to God.  This offer is open.  “Even the demons believe”  - James 2:19b

Saved?  If so, then why and from what?  If not, then why not?