For the Faith

A Novel

What will a man dowhat crimes will he commit and what sacrifices will be makefor his faith? Is the radicalism of modern-day mullahs and their followers far removed from the strange fanaticism found in our own Christian heritage, perhaps lying dormant within our own family histories? Alan McMurdie confronts these questions when his only son commits suicide, and he is left holding the broken pieces of a family that is torn asunder by tragedies that transcend generations of faithful Mormon ancestors. A young boy conceals his baptism from a stepfather who despises all religions. Later, as a young man, he discovers a fortune in uranium in the deserts of Southeastern Utah and makes a bold decision to abandon it all for the glory of serving God. As a missionary in the Southern United States, he witnesses firsthand the heartache and the tragedy that sometimes follow those who choose faith over false traditions. Two generations later, another young boy will experience the nightmare of being sexually molested at a Boy Scout camp and later will have to confront the awful truth of his own sexuality, an immutable reality that places him at odds with the strict teachings of his Mormon faith. And an even darker secret lies buried within the familys history: a terrible secret from the distant past of an ancestor involved in one of the most shocking and sordid crimes of the nineteenth centurya crime made more hideous because it was driven by obsessive, fanatical faith. Throughout five generations, the McMurdie family has carried the burden that an overzealous faith sometimes places on its adherents. From triumphs of the human spirit to the very depths of delusion and despair, they have given all, suffered all, and witnessed allfor the faith.