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The 'Queen of Punk': How One Rebel's Conversion is Making Waves from Berlin to Rio

by Alejandro Bermudez 

I bet very few Americans today are familiar with the German punk rock star Nina Hagen.

Once labeled “the Queen of Punk,” Hagen has never been easy to look at, except for those who loved her because of her shocking style.

Always wearing deliberately ugly black dresses and sporting a crazy hairdo, Hagen had a knack for shocking audiences with her explicit anti-religious or sexually explicit statements. In fact, an Austrian TV host had to resign after featuring Hagen explaining her sexual adventures in graphic detail.

Her first album in English that was released in the U.S. was titled NunSexMonkRock, an obviously disrespectful jab at Christianity, and specifically, Catholicism.

Nina Hagen broke into the Brazilian imagination in January 1985 during a 10-day Woodstock-type music festival called “Rock in Rio.”

Despite the presence of big name headliners such as Freddy Mercury’s “Queen,” Rod Stewart, AC/DC and “Yes,” it was Nina Hagen, with her masculine voice and her shocking performance on stage that captured the imagination of young Brazilians.

On and off stage, Nina Hagen seemed to be the perfect rebel for a generation of Brazilians eager to break from their recent past of control and military dictatorship: She was an East German escapee, a single mother, irreverent, anti-system and anti-religious, deliberately provocative and, for a beauty obsessed country, seemingly unafraid of being ugly.

Brazil’s love affair with Hagen did wane, but it never quite fizzled out. In fact, with the advent of the Internet, her Brazilian fans made their love known, spreading information and gossip about her music, performances and any potential scandals. These tidbits were eagerly consumed and translated into Portuguese, thus satiating the significant punk rock-loving fan base.

After a three-year-long musical drought, Hagen’s Brazilian fans were eager to receive news about her, scrounging around for any sign of hope of a forthcoming record.

The last thing they were expecting was the announcement that, as of August 2009, Nina Hagen had become a Christian by deciding to receive baptism in the Protestant Reformed church of Schüttorf (Germany).

Her latest album, released on July 16, 2010, is entitled “Personal Jesus,” a quite different return from her four-year musical lapse than her Brazilian fans were expecting.

Hagen has not become your average born again Christian. She still wears dark makeup, weird hairdos and ugly dresses. She still sings with her deep, masculine voice and hasn't ditched her punk music band. She supports gay “marriage” and then backs down; she praises Che Guevara and then changes her mind.

But her openness in discussing her faith in Jesus – much in the tradition of American evangelicals – her desire that every person would find Jesus in their life, and the disappearance of her fear of aging (she’s 55 years old) since she found “the Master of time,” are completely unprecedented in Europe, especially in Germany, were faith issues are regarded as more private than a sexually transmitted disease.

Hagen’s conversion to Christianity was recently described in the Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano as a “Chestertonian turn.” And in an interview with the Italian weekly L'Espresso, she openly said that she does not care if her conversion is seen as a publicity stunt.

Defiantly responding to the “gotcha” questions of the Italian journalist – eager to satisfy the mostly left-wing readership of L’Espresso – Nina says that the roots of her conversion go back to her teenage years, when as an underground singer in East Germany, “I embraced the roots of American gospel (music).”

Regarding her current music career and how she sees it from her new Christian perspective, she responds by quoting Psalm 18 by heart: “For this I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing to your name. Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed.”

She calls her new album her “outing,” her coming out of the closet as a Christian.

“This CD is a homage to my Creator, to the author of my life Jesus and to all human beings,” she says.

“Why do you love God?” the Italian journalist insists.

Her reply: “Because I know Him. I am his daughter, and I will be it forever. He has been the one who has loved me first.”

How are her rebellious, punk-loving Brazilian followers reacting? Apparently, not too badly. Nina is still the same rebel, and many Brazilian fans have started collecting photos of her playing or praying at church or feeding the poor.

Hopefully, they are realizing along with good ol’ Nina where the true, ultimate revolution leads to.

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)