Born Again by Rick McBride

About the book

Imagine Elmer Gantry as a national political force in a country sliding into religious totalitarianism, a country drowning somewhere between the United States of post-election 2000 and George Orwell's 1984. Born Again paints a future with the brush of modern Christian Reconstructionism, but within that picture, characters emerge who finally recognize that theocracies always end up as police states.

Reverend Jesse Christie, forced into the ministry by his maniacal father, comes to believe the only way he can honorably break away from preaching is by entering the world of national politics. However, his political naivete and carnal weakness plunge him into the abyss and set him on a hero's journey that not only reshapes his world view, but puts him directly at odds with his former associates.

On returning to his Wilmington, NC home after several months in Utah, Jesse takes on the presidential candidate anointed by the Fundamentalist Federation, a man he once hoped to serve with as vice president. Jesse exposes the candidate's plan to convert the office of president into a dictatorship, taking over the U.S. government from within by third wave warfare. It appears democracy is lost when the new administration seizes control of the country.

In the end, Jesse realizes that organized, corporate religion has little to do with the true spirituality, he has saved his marriage, and he forgives himself for his various indiscretions and his daughter's passing. He also learns the new president is not the plastic shill of the radical right after all.

The political coup is the result of decades of planning by a consortium of foreign powers who recognized the U.S. will move to war over natural resources as they become scarce. The foreign powers execute a plan of preemptive self defense, seeking to make changes that will bring the U.S. in line with more responsible environmental, social, and economic policies.

About the author

Rick McBride was born in Heidelberg, Germany to nomadic parents. In his twenties, he moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, seeking fame and fortune on the short tracks of NASCAR throughout the South. Had it not been for all those other drivers thinking they were playing soccer -- with number seventeen being the ball -- who knows? He might have made it. The experience, however, was invaluable. He can still speak fluent Redneck.

Rick took this incredible skill to Tampa, Florida and was soon calling himself a commercial real estate developer, where he learned there really is a Mafia, and it's probably not too smart to call them a bunch of punk-ass thieves. Even if it is true.

After his real estate empire came crashing down, he sought refuge in Corporate America. Mortgage banking, to be specific. But, alas, working for other folks never did feel right to the boy, so he soon wandered into the surreal world of magazine publishing, founding Connexions, North Carolina's Journal of Spirit, Mind, Body, and Environment. As if that weren't enough, he took on the turnaround of, well, actually, an attempt to revive from death, Wildfire, a Native American publication. Today, he writes full time.

Completed projects include his first novel, Born Again and the nonfiction book, Investigation: Doing It My Way, which he ghostwrote and contributed to. Rick has also completed two screenplays, Ghostwriter, a comedy (let's hope), and Identify Theft, a film noir. Currently projects include Capstone, the prequel to Born Again, which is suffering through out the trilogy. He is also researching his fourth novel, Languedoc, and drafting two more screenplays, The Last Oldsmobile, a drama, and Ballroom Karate, a comedy.