Reporting from Park City, Utah — If character truly is destiny, what does that say about the mind-warping trajectory of the charismatic evangelical Christian preacher Joshua Milton Blahyi, once known as General Butt Naked? He can be warm but then you remember what he did in the past. In the course of a day our opinion of him would change, we tried to keep track of each other, of where we each were. It messes with your head a little bit. The filmmakers, both in their 30s, began working together at the National Geographic channel. And how would that play out in the real world? Filming the answers to that, partially due to inevitable funding difficulties, took the team a very long five years.

Today this once-brutal warlord has renounced his sadistic past and reinvented himself as evangelist Joshua Milton Blahyi. Facing those he once terrorized, preaching where he once murdered, Blahyi is on a quest to save his soul. Can a man really change?

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. Ministers talk about forgiveness, but few preachers have sought forgiveness for as much as Joshua Milton Blahyi. Blahyi is an evangelical minister preaching the gospel in Liberia.