The Preachers' Bet

Collin Wirkus is a second-year student at a bible college. His father is an assistant pastor in a local church who is humiliated and disgraced. A senior pastor forces Collin's dad out of the church. Because of this, Collin commits apostasy. He leaves bible college and goes to a secular university to major in finance. Nathan, his best friend from college, meets him one afternoon for lunch in spring of 1992 and laments that voters are idolizing Bill Clinton and are prepared to vote him into the White House despite character flaws. Collin points out all people are prone to hero worship and venerating leaders. When Nathan states that Christians don't elevate their pastors, Collin disagrees and states that he could rise to a leadership position in a local church and have people love him despite not believing in Christianity. Nathan bets he can't. Collin says he could last twenty-five years in the church without anyone ever figuring out that he is faking. Nathan agrees to the bet. Collin finds a struggling local church with an older pastor who is terrible at preaching. Through force of personality and charisma, Collin usurps the church from the older man and takes over as senior pastor. Collin quits his job at a prestigious downtown Chicago investing firm. He still manages his own investments from home even as he works at the church. While speaking the sociological norms of the average evangelical Christians, in private Collin believes them to be incredibly stupid. He presents a complete fraudulent image of who he is and what he believes. No one in the church suspects. Knowing that a wife is essential for pastoring a Protestant Church, he finds a struggling actress, Michelle, who agrees to marry him, despite his odd position leading a church. The incentive is the millions that Collin agrees to split with her when he reaches fifty and can finally walk away from the church and divorce her. Michelle knows that Collin does not love her in the marriage, but agrees to marry him anyway. Collin grows the church. He writes two non-fiction, Christian books and becomes a famous star-pastor within evangelical America. The church has three separate building projects to expand their footprint. Collin doesn't want kids. Knowing the church expects a family, he and Michelle lie about being infertile and instead of adopting, they self-fund an orphanage and school in Sub-Saharan Africa. Michelle grows to resent Collin and his bet. Above all else, her thwarted desire to have children leaves her disillusioned. She loses her secular friends and in time becomes isolated. After failing to seduce a former member of Collin's church, she realizes that Collin has ruined her life. Is there anything that can raise her out of her despair? Does she believe that Collin will fulfill the terms of the bet? Will the church find out Collin's true nature before he betrays them all?