This memoir chronicles a journey of faith. The narrator focuses on fundamental questions of existence while tackling the everyday difficulties of growing up. A fundamentalist Christian upbringing leaves little room for doubt. However, questions arise that the narrator cannot answer simply by opening her Bible. When she leaves her small town in Iowa for college, tiny cracks in her faith that she once easily stepped over become impassable canyons. She must face the reality that her worldview might be wrong. When she decides to follow the line of questioning her doubts have pulled her towards, she discovers a meaningful life apart from the fundamentalist Christianity of her childhood.

The world is a fractured place, faceted and fascinating in variety but broken in strife. Artist Gerhard Richter, said “Art is the highest form of hope” and the thinker Martin Heidegger said that art is a “happening of truth”. Marc Chagall hoped his art connected with people’s lives and sufferings and would become infused with prayer for redemption. How does visual art (and thinking theoretically and theologically about art) contribute toward hope and truth that bring the fragments of society into personal and communal connection? This is a practice-based (or studio-led) thesis in stained glass making at the juncture of the interdisciplinary fields of visual culture and religion. Making the visual art of stained glass windows involves collaborating, selecting, breaking, combining – processes that embody the unifying of disparate pieces. There are three projects and three chapters included in this research that work cohesively to show how visual art can facilitate a shift in us to see with compassion that guides our actions to care, and the word “EidenSight” is introduced to give vocabulary to this. Research draws primarily from reflections on collaborative studio work, visual art and visual artists, aesthetic theory (especially of Heidegger’s essay “The Origin of the Work of Art”) and thinking theologically through these sources. Stained glass has been a profession of work and a profession of faith; here the ancient art is created for contemporary places and raises questions theoretically and theologically and identifies themes that contribute to an understanding of how art affects us. Over the centuries, stained glass has contributed to architecture, art history, and theological aesthetics, as well as viewers’ personal and social experiences, from ecclesial settings to public spaces. This research contributes three commissioned site-specific stained glass installations (two in the US and one for the University of Stirling’s Art Collection) that lead the written thesis which is embedded full of images and has a correlating website: www.eidensite.weebly.com. The results are visual and verbal: requirements for the practice-based thesis include a heavily documented practical element in correlation with a shorter written component (30-80,000 words). Within the limits of these parameters, this research offers completed stained glass windows and a written thesis that includes insights from those projects, plus three chapters on: the material of glass, the space of the window, and the implications of being stained and a main conclusion that ties those elements together contributing to the overall thesis question: can art help us see with compassion that leads to care. Three institutions now have an original work of art substantiated by written theory, and the submitted thesis is substantiated by works of art viewable on different continents.

A. B. Simpson / Charles Spurgeon / Andrew Murray / Oswald Chambers / George Muller / Hudson Taylor / John MacMillan / A. W. Tozer / Kenneth Hagin / Kenneth Copeland / Frederick K. C. Price / E. M. Bounds / Amy Carmichael / Phoebe Palmer / This thesis is a study of nineteenth and twentieth century faith theology and praxis, seeking to determine a balanced, healthy faith that is both sound in theology and effective in practice. Part 1 presents a history and sources of Faith Teaching and Practices. It first looks historicalty at the roots of later faith teaching and practice by presenting a sampling of teachings on faith from early church fathers, reformers, mystics, and Pietists. These form the foundation for the movements of faith in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries--the classic faith teaching, followed by the modern faith movement and leaders. Part 2 deals with the foundational issues of faith teaching and practice: the relationship of faith to the supernatural, the concept of the inheritance of the believer and the practice of claiming the promises of God, the nature of faith, and the authority of the believer and its inferences for faith praxis. Part 3 investigates seven major theological issues of faith teaching and practice: faith as a law and force, the object and source of faith, the relationship of faith and the will of God, distinguishing between a logos and a rhema word of God, the concepts of revelation and sense knowledge, the doctrine of healing in the atonement, the question of evidence of the baptism in lhe Holy Spirit. Part 4 examines major practical issues of faith teaching and practice about which controversy swirls: positive mental attitude and positive confession; issues of discernment in acting upon impressions, voices, revelations, and "words from the Lord;" questions of failh regarding sickness and healing, death, doctors and medicine; the relationships between sickness, suffering, healing, and sanctification; and prosperity. Part 5 reflects upon these issues and comes to final conclusions regarding: the role of hermeneutics in determining failh theology and praxis, how to handle unanswered prayers and apparent failures of faith, the seeming paradox and tension between claiming one's inheritance and dying to self, a summary of practical conclusions for exercise of healthy faith, and final conclusions and recommendations on developing a sound theology and practice of faith for the twenty-fist century. / Practical Theology / D.Th. (Practical Theology)

A. B. Simpson / Charles Spurgeon / Andrew Murray / Oswald Chambers / George Muller / Hudson Taylor / John MacMillan / A. W. Tozer / Kenneth Hagin / Kenneth Copeland / Frederick K. C. Price / E. M. Bounds / Amy Carmichael / Phoebe Palmer / This thesis is a study of nineteenth and twentieth century faith theology and praxis, seeking to determine a balanced, healthy faith that is both sound in theology and effective in practice. Part 1 presents a history and sources of Faith Teaching and Practices. It first looks historicalty at the roots of later faith teaching and practice by presenting a sampling of teachings on faith from early church fathers, reformers, mystics, and Pietists. These form the foundation for the movements of faith in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries--the classic faith teaching, followed by the modern faith movement and leaders. Part 2 deals with the foundational issues of faith teaching and practice: the relationship of faith to the supernatural, the concept of the inheritance of the believer and the practice of claiming the promises of God, the nature of faith, and the authority of the believer and its inferences for faith praxis. Part 3 investigates seven major theological issues of faith teaching and practice: faith as a law and force, the object and source of faith, the relationship of faith and the will of God, distinguishing between a logos and a rhema word of God, the concepts of revelation and sense knowledge, the doctrine of healing in the atonement, the question of evidence of the baptism in lhe Holy Spirit. Part 4 examines major practical issues of faith teaching and practice about which controversy swirls: positive mental attitude and positive confession; issues of discernment in acting upon impressions, voices, revelations, and "words from the Lord;" questions of failh regarding sickness and healing, death, doctors and medicine; the relationships between sickness, suffering, healing, and sanctification; and prosperity. Part 5 reflects upon these issues and comes to final conclusions regarding: the role of hermeneutics in determining failh theology and praxis, how to handle unanswered prayers and apparent failures of faith, the seeming paradox and tension between claiming one's inheritance and dying to self, a summary of practical conclusions for exercise of healthy faith, and final conclusions and recommendations on developing a sound theology and practice of faith for the twenty-fist century. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Th. (Practical Theology)

This thesis is a study of nineteenth and twentieth century faith theology and praxis, seeking to determine a balanced, healthy faith that is both sound in theology and effective in practice, Part 1 presents a history and sources of Faith Teaching and Practices. It first looks historically at the roots of later faith teaching and practice by presenting a sampling of teachings on faith from early church fathers, reformers, mystics, and Pietists. These form the foundation for the movements of faith in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-the classic faith teaching, followed by the modern faith movement and leaders. Part 2 deals with the foundational issues of faith teaching and practice: the relationship of faith to the supernatural, the concept of the inheritance of the believer and the practice of claiming the promises of God, the nature of faith, and the authority of the believer and its inferences for faith praxis. Part 3 investigates seven major theological issues of faith teaching and practice: faith as a law and force, the object and source of faith, the relationship of faith and the will of God, distinguishing between a logos and a rhema word of God, the concepts of revelation and sense knowledge, the doctrine of healing in the atonement, the question of evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Part 4 examines major practical issues of faith teaching and practice about which controversy swirls: positive mental attitude and positive confession; issues of discernment in acting upon impressions, voices, revelations, and "words from the Lord;" questions of faith regarding sickness and healing, death, doctors and medicine; the relationships between sickness, suffering, healing, and sanctification; and prosperity. Part 5 reflects upon these issues and comes to final conclusions regarding: the role of hermeneutics in determining faith theology and praxis, how to handle unanswered prayers and apparent failures of faith, the seeming paradox and tension between claiming one's inheritance and dying to self, a summary of practical conclusions for exercise of healthy faith, and final conclusions and recommendations on developing a sound theology and practice of faith for the twenty-first century. / Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / D.Th. (Practical Theology)

This thesis is a study of nineteenth and twentieth century faith theology and praxis, seeking to determine a balanced, healthy faith that is both sound in theology and effective in practice, Part 1 presents a history and sources of Faith Teaching and Practices. It first looks historically at the roots of later faith teaching and practice by presenting a sampling of teachings on faith from early church fathers, reformers, mystics, and Pietists. These form the foundation for the movements of faith in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-the classic faith teaching, followed by the modern faith movement and leaders. Part 2 deals with the foundational issues of faith teaching and practice: the relationship of faith to the supernatural, the concept of the inheritance of the believer and the practice of claiming the promises of God, the nature of faith, and the authority of the believer and its inferences for faith praxis. Part 3 investigates seven major theological issues of faith teaching and practice: faith as a law and force, the object and source of faith, the relationship of faith and the will of God, distinguishing between a logos and a rhema word of God, the concepts of revelation and sense knowledge, the doctrine of healing in the atonement, the question of evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Part 4 examines major practical issues of faith teaching and practice about which controversy swirls: positive mental attitude and positive confession; issues of discernment in acting upon impressions, voices, revelations, and "words from the Lord;" questions of faith regarding sickness and healing, death, doctors and medicine; the relationships between sickness, suffering, healing, and sanctification; and prosperity. Part 5 reflects upon these issues and comes to final conclusions regarding: the role of hermeneutics in determining faith theology and praxis, how to handle unanswered prayers and apparent failures of faith, the seeming paradox and tension between claiming one's inheritance and dying to self, a summary of practical conclusions for exercise of healthy faith, and final conclusions and recommendations on developing a sound theology and practice of faith for the twenty-first century. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Th. (Practical Theology)