CARSON, Calif.  Brian Deegan and his band of freestyle motocross riders called the Metal Mulisha wore black and were covered in tattoos. They brawled, cursed and stirred up trouble. In their sport, they were the bad guys.

So when Deegan was baptized, he wondered what his fans would think.

After a near-fatal crash in 2005 while attempting a back flip during filming for a television show, he lost a kidney and four pints of blood, and found religion. When a surgeon told him he might not survive, Deegan, 34, who has won more freestyle motocross medals at the X Games than any other rider, made a pact with God. If he lived, he would mend his ways. When he finally pulled through, he sought a pastor, began reading the Bible and “gave his life to Christ,” he said.

Soon his fellow freestyle riders Jeremy Lusk, Ronnie Faisst and Jeremy Stenberg, who is known as Twitch, began attending Bible study with Deegan.

“All the heavy hitters of the Mulisha are born-again Christians,” Deegan said. “I started tripping. ‘What are the fans going to think?’ I started getting nervous.”