Wideman's Gospel

Cal Wideman, minister's son, is searching for a faith to replace the beliefs his parents instilled. His coming-of-age story begins days before Christmas when he arrives back in Chicago after months of roaming around Mexico. His parents ask him to help them reconnect with his younger sister Rachel. She recently left the Christian college she was attending and moved in with a group they regard as a cult. Cal suspects his parents are overreacting, prodded by their son-in-law Jim, married to their older daughter Priscilla. Jim, an ordained Baptist pastor, has become an anti-cult expert employed by a large consultancy serving fundamentalist churches. Cal agrees to act as the family's emissary and deliver their proposal for peace talks. He visits Rachel at the alleged commune in an ultra-rich suburb. Rachel is excited to tell him about her newfound faith. Her fiancé, a Vietnam vet, guardedly explains key doctrinal beliefs that have upset Rachel's parents. Central to the group's charismatic theology is a reinterpretation of Biblical source texts, which they study in their original languages: ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. On Christmas Eve, at his parent's house, Cal finds himself playing devil's advocate to defend Rachel's freedom of thought. The family drama that unfolds forces Cal to relive the trauma of losing his faith and to wrestle once again with the tensions between and among faith and reason, freedom and family, the world as it is and the one he wishes it could be.