Wideman's Gospel (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780934184243)

Cal Wideman, minister's son, is searching for a faith to replace the Biblical 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 has moved in with a group they regard as a cult. Cal believes his parents are over-reacting, prodded by the husband of their older daughter. Their son-in-law Jim is an ordained Baptist minister who has become an anti-cult expert employed by a large consultancy serving fundamentalist churches. Cal agrees to act as the the family's emissary delivering a plan for peace talks. The next day he visits Rachel at the alleged commune in an ultra-rich suburb. He receives a polite welcome and learns about the group's reinvention of Christianity based on their study of Biblical texts in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. On Christmas Eve, at his parent's house, Cal finds himself playing devil's advocate to defend Rachel's heretical beliefs. The dramatic twist that ensues forces Cal to relive the trauma of losing his religion and, at the same time, to navigate the tensions between faith and reason, freedom and family, memory and imagination-in sum, the world as we find it and the world as we desperately want it to be.