Customer Reviews

Riders for God: THE STORY OF A CHRISTIAN MOTORCYCLE GANG

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This book gives a new perspective on the inner lives of motorcycle gangs and bikers. Excellent photographs coupled with first-person interviews give the reader an in-depth view of bikers who have given up the violent life for a shot at spiritual redemption. Remsberg talks to all kinds of 'scary' people and shows us their humanity. A great read.

This finely crafted book offers a fascinating look at a world that is doubly obscure: the mind-set and lifestyle of outlaw bikers and the world of religious extremists. Remsberg's photos are mesmerizing. And his text, which reveals these unique bikers in their own words, is equally compelling. Anyone with curiosity about human nature will be engrossed from the first page on.

This book takes an uncompromising view of people who simultaneously live at two extremes of society--the wildly liberal, almost anarchistic side, and the deeply religious. The photography is stunning in its ability to cut through what I would normally notice about a man or woman decked in leathers on a motorcycle--features such as hands (particularly hands,) faces, postures, etc. are brought to the surface by this talented documentary photographer. This is a book which will surprise and absorb anyone who pulls it off the shelf in your home.

Remsberg's powerful and intimate photographs imbue his subjects with a dignity too often missing from studies of people living at the margins of society. Though Riders for God is worth the price for the photos alone (the Blessing of the Bikes is brilliant), it is much more than an art book. Remsberg elicits from his subjects the startling truths that belie the easy stereotypes conjured by the notion of Christian bikers. I found the powerful stories of redemption gripping and utterly unexpected. Rather than masking or exploiting their interior lives, Remsberg's photographs reveal. Remsberg's patience and gently prodding curiosity make him a wonderful guide connecting the reader with people generally regarded as marginal or simple. While he remains an outsider to the gang, he clearly gains their respect along with their candor.

Like the author, I am neither a Christian nor a biker but that doesn't matter with this powerful book. The fact that the author is a true outsider of these events really allows him to ask all the questions the reader has about bikers - but he does it in a considerate yet direct manner. The photographs are incredible and the interviews with members of the Unchained Gang are powerful and disturbing. Most of their lives have been rough, involving violence, harsh sex, imprisonment and drugs until they had a revelation and found God. Listening to the bikers' stories when they're back at some of their old biker rallies, seeing people they used to lead such destructive lives with, and knowing how easily they could fall back into those patterns, makes for engrossing reading.

This is a no nonsense book of some very devious people who were outlaws in morotcycle gangs serving self and their evil ways selling drugs, getting high, beating up people and just being real bad keeping up with the outlaw biker image. You'll learn of the gang initiations and the brutal nature of the biker gang if you upset them. Most were filled with an angry rage ready to unleash at any moment of provocation, which they did so frequently. Jail, prison, theft, hatred is just some of the personal anguish they experienced. Suddenly, these hard-core bikers come to an end point of total frustration and failure, even sickness and are saved by God, Jesus Christ, and tell about their rotten lives without God and how wonderful life is with the Lord. These men and women (and the girls were tough bikers, too) tell it all in a personal interview format. This is no small book and the cover and paper is of high gloss quality. If you want to know about bad people living in a bad life then this book can bring you face to face with these outlaw bikers who are now living for the Lord and are happy tell you their story! There are dozens of motorcycle pictures in this book with photos of the gang members and 263 pages of very interesting true crime reading. There are pages that reveal cruel tortures, so it's not a book for children. These are true stories by those who have commited crimes while operating inside the dark world of the outlaw biker lifestyle.