Ain't No Messiah
Joshua’s father raises him as the returned Messiah, but surviving every attempt to escape the prophecy may be the most frightening evidence that the old man is right.
What if you were the Second Coming of Christ—but you could not believe it? Joshua is born into a prophecy he never asked for. His father interprets the boy’s survival as a divine sign and builds a church around the belief that Joshua has returned to judge the living and redeem the faithful. Instead of love, Joshua receives worship, fear, abuse, and a lifetime of expectations he cannot escape. He insists he is not the Messiah. Then he survives accidents and attacks that should have killed him. As Joshua grows from a frightened child into a man searching for an ordinary life, his father’s movement grows around him, family secrets emerge, and every escape from death becomes more evidence for the people determined to sacrifice him to their faith. Ain’t No Messiah is a dark psychological thriller and brutal coming-of-age story about religious fanaticism, identity, manipulation, and the terrible burden of becoming someone else’s prophecy.