“I believe if God can touch that sort of person there are many more God is touching, and I think there is hope for Liberia.”

Prince Johnson — once a rebel commander in Liberia’s civil war, and a man accused of crimes against humanity — says he has found God.

Twenty years ago, Johnson personally oversaw the torture and killing of Liberia’s former ruler, Samuel Doe. Johnson is now a Liberian senator and a likely presidential candidate. And, he says, a changed man.

“No-one who accepts Christ remains the same,” Johnson told CNN. “You are a new creature, a new person.

“That person of General Johnson in the wartime is not the Johnson now. The Johnson now is the diplomat, the senator and pastor. It’s wonderful!”
Liberia is turning toward religion as it wrestles with the question of how to heal after more than a dozen years of civil war.

The U.S. Pew Foundation says Liberia is one of the most religious countries in the world. Churches, from makeshift evangelical chapels to mega churches, are more crowded than ever.

In this country of just over three million people, virtually everyone was affected by 14 years of civil war that killed an estimated 250,000 men, women and children.

Ezekiel Smith is regional pastor of Monrovia’s Winner’s Chapel International, where Johnson worships.

“Prince Johnson is ‘born-again’ and he comes to church regularly and his lifestyle has dramatically changed since he became entrenched in the gospel.

Read More: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/08/05/johnson.liberia.religion/?hpt=C2