Abstract

The study of religion can be undertaken using diverse methods. This thesis focuses on the novel as a medium for exploring theoretical, experiential, and fictional materials alongside each other. It is divided into two principle sections. The first is an essay explaining the reasons for choosing the medium of the novel, and exploring its advantages over traditional, non-fiction works. The second section is reserved for the novel itself, an original story that makes use of ideas obtained both through daily experience and formal study. The novel, entitled The Magpie , tells the story of a woman in search of religious affiliation as a means of grounding and structuring her ideas about God. Her goal pushes her to accept a job in Guatemala, working alongside a Catholic priest and a Protestant missionary. The experience does not yield the desired results. Instead, the main character is forced to come to terms with what she has learned about herself. One of the goals of writing such a novel is the synthesis of potentially disparate materials, treated both objectively and subjectively by way of a set of characters. By placing the narrative in time, there is also opportunity to imitate the types of transformations that can occur in the mind of individuals. Finally, as students of religion must consider a variety of forms of expression, it further made sense to experiment with a less academic form of written expression.