Motorcycle minister rolled back into the fold

"When you live most of your life on two fast wheels, just inches above the pavement, questions about mortality -- and the eventual answers -- are always very close."

-- The Original Wild Ones: Tales of the Boozefighters

The Rev. Ed Mahan, of Burleson, is a rough-edged biker preacher who knows a lot about resurrections -- particularly his own spiritual one. That's why he loves Easter, a time of new beginnings.

He will lead a biker-style Easter sunrise service at 6:30 a.m. Sunday on the grounds of the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club, Fort Worth chapter. The public is invited.

Dozens of bikers will roar into town to attend. They'll hear Mahan say God loves them no matter what.

"I really believe that," Mahan told me recently. "We have a lot of struggles in life, a lot of obstacles, many of them put there by the institution of religion itself. Nevertheless, the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ is new beginnings."

The 58-year-old Mahan, also known as "Irish Ed," still rides a black Harley. But he no longer drinks, because of medication for a heart condition. The self-styled "runaway preacher" turned his back on God, he says, in 1980, leaving his faith and his ministry behind. He says he became bitter and selfish, always ruthlessly searching for the dollar, first in real estate, then as a used-car dealer.

"I was about as far from God as you can get," Mahan said.

Ironically, it took the Boozefighters, a hard-living biker club, to return him to his spiritual roots. For years he was "in the closet" about his past as a minister. He especially didn't want Boozefighters to know he was an ordained Southern Baptist preacher. But in 1998 one of his friends blew his cover when he asked him to conduct a wedding on New Year's Eve for two club members.

An even bigger turning point came in 1999 when he conducted his first funeral for a fellow Boozefighter. "I had hardly touched a Bible in 15 years," he said. "When I opened my Bible, which was very dusty, big tears started coming down my face. I said, 'Dear God, what have I done?'"

Mahan led the club's first Easter sunrise service in 2000. A convert at that service, Julie Green, aka. Pawnshop Julie, will lead the opening prayer of the event this year.

Now, Mahan is national chaplain of Boozefighters Motorcycle Club International, which became widely known because of the 1953 Marlon Brando movie, The Wild One. The film is loosely based on actions by the original Boozefighters during a riotous weekend in Hollister, Calif., on July 4, 1947.

Mahan's story is told in one chapter of a 2005 book, The Original Wild Ones: Tales of the Boozefighters, written by Bill Hayes with major material provided by Jim Quattlebaum, a Cleburne resident and national historian of the club.

Mahan also has his own "In the Wind" ministry and is working on a master's degree in counseling at Fort Worth's Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

John Rogers of Alvarado, national president of Boozefighters, and Carl Spotts, vice president, praised Mahan's chaplaincy work. Fort Worth is now national headquarters for the club and also the site of its national museum, which includes relics from the original "Wild Ones."

"You don't have to be an atheist to be a Boozefighter," Spotts said. "We have prayers before every meeting for those who may be in harm's way."

The Rev. Charles Stewart, pastor of Cana Baptist Church in Burleson, said Mahan goes into bars and other places to proclaim the Easter message of hope and redemption.

"He reaches people who wouldn't give me the time of day," Stewart said. "Ed is the real deal."

EASTER SUNRISE SERVICE

6:30 a.m. Sunday

Boozefighters Motorcycle Club Building, 1501 E. Bessie St., Fort Worth.

The Sons of Thunder band will play. Free breakfast of coffee, pigs in blankets and doughnuts.

Information: www.bfmcnatl.com