Status Updates From American Savior: A Novel of...

The Trump parallels have mostly disappeared, but I’m still realizing this is a sort of puppet Jesus, a Jesus mask that Merullo’s putting on. It‘s just his own personal philosophy but he’s putting it in Jesus’ mouth. 🤷‍♂️ I guess Jesus *is* in the public domain; he can do whatever he wants with the character.

Up to recently I’ve just been reading this as a straightforward Jesus, but after a scene where the protagonist hassles a guy about renting a car to Jesus, “Do you want to be the guy who charged the next President for your services?” I thought who is this—Trump? Now I can’t read it any other way. The book is from 2008, I don’t think it is… but the parallels are eerie.

I read Merullo’s GOLFING WITH GOD earlier this year thinking it was some shitty Christian apologetics thing and was charmed by how *weird* it was. I was interested in reading more, and this book about Jesus running for President seemed like it could be pretty weird too. It’s too early for me to judge it but I’m a little skeptical I guess. Feels a little George Burns in “Oh, God!” to me.