The product of a violent home, John Christian Hillcox overcomes long odds to build a Texas megachurch where he preaches the gospels of prosperity and End Times, and pulls the political strings of a key voting bloc. A man of enormous appetites and inadequate self-control, Pastor Hillcox rallies his flock to oppose everything he considers immoral and detrimental to the United States being a godly, Christian nation. Being Christian is a gripping psychological tale of a man who uses religion to justify his own sins and lies, heedless of the consequences for his loved ones, his community, and the world at large. The story of this larger-than-life, but familiar, character follows him from his crime-ridden early adulthood to the prime of his ministry in post-9/11 America. Not since Elmer Gantry has a novel so exposed the religious flim-flammery and hypocrisy that threaten to tear apart the American social and political fabric. Being Christian is a quintessentially American story, based on the ideologies and personalities that make the news every day with their challenges to the Constitutional religious/political divide.
The product of a violent home, John Christian Hillcox overcomes long odds to build a Texas megachurch where he preaches the gospels of prosperity and End Times, and pulls the political strings of a key voting bloc. A man of enormous appetites and inadequate self-control, Pastor Hillcox rallies his flock to oppose everything he considers immoral and detrimental to the United States being a godly, Christian nation. Being Christian is a gripping psychological tale of a man who uses religion to justify his own sins and lies, heedless of the consequences for his loved ones, his community, and the world at large. The story of this larger-than-life, but familiar, character follows him from his crime-ridden early adulthood to the prime of his ministry in post-9/11 America. Not since Elmer Gantry has a novel so exposed the religious flim-flammery and hypocrisy that threaten to tear apart the American social and political fabric. Being Christian is a quintessentially American story, based on the ideologies and personalities that make the news every day with their challenges to the Constitutional religious/political divide.
