The New Brotherhood

Mirko Petricevic

Fred Martin looked like someone who should be avoided. I was surrounded by tough-looking bikers, lost in a plethora of tattoos, Harley Davidson, long bears and heavy leather--and Fred was the scariest of the bunch. But by the end of the day Fred gave me a hug goodbye, and I walked away slightly dazed, but delighted.

In the summer of 1989 I attended that field-day for Christian bikers because I was intrigued by the idea that lives once devoted to criminal activity were not rededicated to goodness.

Fred Martin was born into a Mennonite family north of Waterloo, Ontario. He conducted petty crimes as a teenager because he "just liked being bad". A stint in a reformatory served to teach him more about "being bad". His criminal repertoire expanded to stealing motorcycles, armed robberies and drug dealing. He frequently landed in jail, including Kingston Penitentiary where he participated in riot of 1971. altogether Fred spent about 17 years in jails and reformatories.

In 1980, while serving another jail sentence, Fred decided to read the Bible. He didn't feet down on his luck; indeed, Fred considered himself to be at the pinnacle of his career, having spent nearly 20 years proving himself in the criminal world. He began to read the Bible because Jesus Christ was an historical character he wanted to learn about, just like Bonnie or Clyde. Ironically, Fred's criminal values fostered an admiration for Christ. He thought Jesus must have been the greatest con-man of all time.

Fred began reading about Christ in a solitary confinement cell of a Canadian jail. He explains, "The Bible was always in the hole. But we would use it as a pillow. The paper was good for rolling into cigarettes . . . and if you put it in a bowl, put a little water in and you mixed it, you got a good ink for tattoos."

Instead of putting it to these uses, Fred decided to read the Bible, and before his jail term was up, Fred had become a Christian.He says, "I was sitting in the hole, and the only other thing in that cell with me was the Bible, just the New Testament. I picked it up and started reading it. From start to finish and again and again. I couldn't believe that somebody hadn't told me these things before. I'm not a learned person or necessarily smart, but I believe it."

A member of the faith for 16 years now, Fred works as a renovator and cabinetmaker. He says, "I go to church for fellowship. . . . The Bible says you need that. . . . But, you know, I belong to the church of Jesus Christ. I'm not a Pentecostal. I'm not a Baptist. I'm a born-again Christian.

"It isn't what God can do for you; it's what you're gonna do to serve God. That's the whole thing. . . . I'm still growing as a Christian. God's still working with me, and I'm never gonna be perfect. Paul said that he is the least of all the followers of Jesus. I'm even lower than the lowest of them. But I'd rather be that than be the king of this world."

Mirko Petricevic is a staff photographer with the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. This article and the photos were originally published in the Spring, 1994 issue of This Country Canada.

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