Samuel Joseph for President, 133 pages, paper, $12.00. Publication date: April 15.

February 20, 2008: The Rev. Malcolm Boyd, best-selling author of Are You Running with Me, Jesus?, is still running strong. His new book, Samuel Joseph for President: Media, Politics, Religion, Race, to be published by KenArnoldBooks, skewers presidential campaigns, the church, and popular culture in five satirical stories.

The title story, “Samuel Joseph for President,” which depicts a Jewish candidate who rattles the Christian Right, is straight out of today’s political headlines.  The seminarian who is the subject of “The Fantasy Worlds of Peter Stone” is seduced by Hollywood when he plays the role of Jesus in a block-buster hit, finding celebrity irresistible.

In “Odor of Espresso,” Father Art wants to shake up his stodgy parish, but succeeds only when he opens a coffeehouse in the church basement and the rabble pour in. A theatrical sketch, “A Study in Color,” reminds us that race remains at the heart of the American nightmare—and that race itself is a metaphor for a disturbing lack of clarity about who we are as a people. In the final fable, “Visions of Anna Higgs,” a teenager sees visions that lead to the founding of a new religion that turns accepted “truths” upside down but, with its founder’s death, falls into the hands of a public relations firm and loses its way. Her story is a parable for what has happened to Christianity in America.

The Rev. Malcolm Boyd, gay elder, freedom rider, civil rights and antiwar activist, and author of 29 books, is an Episcopal priest, who for fifty years has been a teller of truth and advocate for social justice. The first openly gay priest, he and partner were also the first gay couple whose union was blessed by a sitting bishop in the Episcopal Church.

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Connie Kirk 503-227-4699
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