Cold. Corrupt. Christian.

A gripping psychological tale of a man who uses religion to justify his own sins and lies

Being Christian tells the story of a larger-than-life, yet familiar, character from his crime-ridden beginnings to the peak of his political influence in post-9/11 America.

The product of a violent home, John Christian Hillcox overcomes long odds to build an evangelical empire preaching the gospels of prosperity and End Times. 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’ identity as a Christian nation—heedless of the consequences for his loved ones and community.

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.

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Bursting from headlines of our day, K.C. Boyd’s novel, Being Christian, tells the story of personal corruption masquerading as public piety. Self-anointed minister J.C. Hillcox builds an empire of fanaticism and superstition upon a lifetime of sex and violence, using his slavering ambition to fan global zealotry and gain himself political power and wealth. Being Christian shows the slimy underbelly of a kind of modern for-profit religion that destroys real faith in pursuit of dominion over the earth. It’s a walloping good read for anyone who has been scorched by the flames of such people, such movements.

Elizabeth Sholes, Director of Public Policy, California Council of Churches and California Church IMPACT