Mustaine was raised as a Jehovah's Witness[36] and is now a born again Christian.[37] In 1988, in response to the British government's criticism of homosexuality, Mustaine said: "More power to them. It says in the Bible that men should not lay with men like they lay with women. I mean I don't wanna fuck up and not go to heaven."[38] In an answer to a question about Judas Priest having an overt homosexual image, "I don't wanna talk about this. The last thing I need is a bunch of homos picketing us."[38] In 2012, on KIRO-FM he was asked if he supports gay marriage and replied: "Well, since I'm not gay, the answer to that would be no."[39][40] He was then asked if he would support legislation to make gay marriage legal and said, "I'm Christian. The answer to that would be no."[39]
Mustaine began to focus on his Christian faith more directly while attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.[37] Finding that the meetings were actually impeding his progress in sobriety and spirituality, Mustaine left to focus on Christianity on his own.[37] Through this process he became a committed Christian.[37] It has become his policy not to appear with any band that is seen as black metal or satanic, such as declining to appear in a music festival in Greece with the band Rotting Christ as well as in Israel with the band Dissection.[19] In these instances, Mustaine claims he requested that the bands not be kicked off the bill, but that Megadeth would step down and perform some other night.[19][37] However, the promoters actually removed the smaller bands from the billing rather than deal with rescheduling the headliner.[37]
Mustaine had practiced black magic in his teenage years, which became inspiration for a couple of songs on the second album Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?. Mustaine stated that it was emotionally difficult to play those tracks because of his changed spiritual beliefs.
"Performance wise, "The Conjuring" is one of the heaviest songs on the record, but unfortunately it's got black magic in it and I promised that I wouldn't play it any more, because there's a lot of instructions for hexes in that song. When I got into black magic I put a couple of spells on people when I was a teenager and it haunted me forever, and I've had so much torment. So I look back now and I think, 'Hmm, I don't wanna play 'The Conjuring'."[41]
—Dave Mustaine, on playing "The Conjuring" live
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