For Reverend Stephen Sweitzer, the pastor of a prosperous church in a small Midwestern town, life has become both tense and dull. His marriage of twenty-five years no longer holds any joy, he worries about the his son Bill's revolutionary activities against corporate greed, and he feels that he no longer can bring about needed changes in his own congregation.

A sympathetic relationship with a new parishioner Ellen Dietrich turns into love. Stephen decides to start a new life with her in St. Louis. Before long Stephen realizes that he is perilously close to losing his own identity and he...