Posted: 1/19/07
| Members of the Hellfighters bikers group in Huntsville, Ala., include (left to right) James Caffery, Lynn Caffery, David Bates, Possum Pierce, Chris Roberson, Richard Headrick, Gina Headrick and Joanna Roberson. |
Born-again bikers running
full-throttle for Jesus
By Kay Campbell
Religion News Service
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (RNS)—The cruisers rumble into the parking lot in quick pairs. The riders dismount, shaking ponytails out of their helmets. They’ve got patches on their leather jackets, tattoos on their arms and eyes that have seen everything.
But these bikers have Jesus in their hearts and Bibles in their saddlebags.
“The Hellfighters are sold-out, 100 percent, foot-stomping, Bible-thumping Christians,” said Richard Headrick, a bike-riding sign painter from Laurel, Miss., who started the Hellfighters motorcycle ministry a few years ago. “Only the bold will qualify.”
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| Possum Pierce, with a crucifix mounted to his motorcycle, is a member of the Hellfighters bikers ministry in Huntsville, Ala. |
Headrick and his wife, Gina, came to Huntsville to meet with a group of Hellfighters—one of their 10 national chapters—that meets at the International Worship Center, a nondenominational church led by mild-mannered Pastor Mark Beaird.
Beaird, who says his ride is a red Schwinn bicycle with a card stuck into the spokes for some extra noise, welcomes the group of unconventional Christians as part of the flock of about 100 at the church.
“I don’t care if they wear leather to church or not,” Beaird said. “Give me someone who wears leather and wins souls over someone who wears a suit and never talks to anybody about God.”
The Hellfighters aren’t shy about talking about God.
“Being aggressive is a must,” said James Caffery, an ex-con and a member of Hellfighters. “We kind of like you to be a born-again heathen. Sure, we ride and we eat, but our main concern is to tell people about Jesus. We’ll pretty well go in anywhere.”
The bikers have ridden to Sturgis, the infamous two-week rally that draws upwards of 500,000 bikers to South Dakota every August. It’s famous for scantily clad women, drunkenness, good bands and full-throttle hedonism.
“Sturgis is where Satan is,” Headrick said.
But it’s also where, the bikers say, Jesus would want them to be, handing out their bikers’ Bibles and tracts and sounding their relentless call to turn to Jesus.
They figure their past qualifies them for that ministry in a way no seminary ever could.
“Jesus Christ did not use Goody Two-Shoes to take his message,” said David Bates, a psychiatric nurse who’s come out the other side of drug addiction and mental illness. “He used people like in this room. We’re survivors.”
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