Messiah.

Description:

When a mortician appears on television to declare that death is infinitely preferable to life, he sparks a religious movement that quickly leaves Christianity and most of Islam in the dust. Gore Vidal’s deft and daring blend of satire and prophecy, first published in 1954, eerily anticipates the excesses of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult.

subjects: Cults,  Fiction,  Religious aspects,  Religious aspects of Suicide,  Suicide,  Messianism,  American fiction (fictional works by one author),  Religion,  Americans,  Science fiction