Reading Is Believing , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - S. Cunningham David

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142 pages

English

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In this fascinating and fresh look at the Apostles' Creed, David Cunningham argues that reading fiction and film can lead Christians to a deeper, more precise, and more experiential knowledge of their faith. Drawing on novels, plays, and films by the likes of Dickens, Shakespeare, P. D. James, and Graham Greene, Cunningham discusses the Apostles' Creed in detail, using one primary text to illuminate each article.Cunningham begins with a brief history of the Christian creeds and their significance. In addition to plot summaries, each chapter includes discussion questions addressing the relationship between literature and faith and concludes with a works cited list and a list for further reading.This book will delight Christians who want to better understand the creeds and basic doctrinal confessions of the Christian faith. While academics, theologians, and literature and film aficionados will celebrate Cunningham's keen literary and theological insights, the book is equally readable for those with little background in these fields of study. Reading Is Believing is an ideal text for Christian education classes, adult Sunday school, and church-based book clubs. It will serve well as a text in theology courses, as well as various courses in the humanities, ethics, and cultural and religious studies.

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

Christianity

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 novembre 2002
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441239099
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0749€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

© 2002 by David S. Cunningham
Published by Brazos Press a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.brazospress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Ebook edition created 2012
eISBN 978-1-4412-3909-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Scripture is taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.
To the many students over the past decade and more at Austin College Sherman, Texas The University of St. Thomas St. Paul, Minnesota and Seabury-Western Theological Seminary Evanston, Illinois who have read, listened to, debated, and struggled with my theological reflections on fiction, drama, and film: this book is dedicated with respect, affection, and gratitude
Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Preface
Introduction: “I Believe . . .”
1 “God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth” Iris Murdoch, The Time of the Angels
2 “Jesus Christ, God’s Only Son, Our Lord” Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ
3 “Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary” P. D. James, The Children of Men
4 “Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was Crucified, Died, and Buried” Charles Dickens, Hard Times
5 “Descended into Hell, On the Third Day Rose Again” David James Duncan, The Brothers K
6 “Ascended into Heaven, Sits at the Right Hand of God” William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale
7 “He Will Come to Judge the Living and the Dead” Toni Morrison, Beloved
8 “I Believe in the Holy Spirit” Flannery O’Connor, “The Enduring Chill”
9 “The Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints” Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
10 “The Forgiveness of Sins” Helen Prejean, Dead Man Walking
11 “The Resurrection of the Flesh” Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
12 “And the Life Everlasting” Guiseppe Tornatore, A Pure Formality
Conclusion: “Amen”
Preface

In the early 1990s, a well-known scholar of classics and philosophy, Martha Nussbaum, gave a series of lectures at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. The subject of her lectures was philosophical, but she chose, as one of her primary texts, a novel: Charles Dickens’s Hard Times. Since she knew that many of her fellow philosophers, at least, might well have found this choice somewhat surprising, she began her first lecture with an apology (in that word’s ancient meaning of “defense”) for giving so much attention to literature. Among other points, Nussbaum emphasized that fiction encourages readers to “get involved” in the story; they are asked to participate, to allow the imaginative world of the work of fiction to become a world that they themselves can inhabit. Moreover, she said, novels point us toward the “ordinary” aspects of human existence; they are not focused only on rare occurrences or on events that will transpire in only a tiny percentage of the lives of those who read them. Novels often help us to focus on the ordinary case not on the exception to the rule. They therefore encourage us to acknowledge the full humanity of others: their joys and sorrows, their hopes and aspirations.
I was present at Professor Nussbaum’s lecture, and it led me to reflect on the relationship between narrative fiction and my own academic discipline of Christian theology. I had already been teaching for several years at that point, and I had made considerable use of novels, short stories, and plays in my classes. I had found these works of fiction to be an extraordinarily helpful teaching tool: for one thing, students always enjoyed reading and discussing them. Moreover, most of my students were able to recognize how the fiction that we were reading exemplified and explicated the Christian beliefs that we were studying. So I had already gathered quite a bit of evidence that Christians could gain a clearer perspective on their own faith by reading literature. But Professor Nussbaum’s lecture led me to think more broadly about the relationship between reading literature and believing in the Christian faith. I started to realize that literature could be more than just a useful teaching tool or a reservoir of concrete examples for illustrating theological claims. In short, I came to the conviction that, for Christians, “reading is believing.”
Literature particularly fictional narratives and drama tends to encourage its readers to acknowledge and attend to the humanity of other human beings. Consequently, it seems a particularly appropriate medium for thinking through the claims of Christian theology, since Christianity has, from its beginnings, stressed the importance of such acknowledgment and attention. Most of us, as we work our way through life, tend to focus on ourselves. This is certainly understandable to a point, since we all participate in the biological “drive to survive”; but Jesus lived his life focused on the significance of other people, and he taught us to try to do the same. Reading fictional narratives helps to reinforce that lesson, for if we are to enter into the world of the novel (or short story, or film, or play), we have to step out of the limelight ourselves. If I am to enter this fictional world, I will have to accept that I am no longer the main character; in all likelihood, I am not a character at all. At least in their form, even if not always in their content, narratives and drama encourage us to become more other-directed.
Moreover, in order to enter the imaginative world that the author has constructed, we are encouraged to “get to know” the characters, often in a thoroughgoing way. Even if we do not particularly care for a certain character’s outlook on life, our intimate knowledge of that person’s joys and hopes, as well as sorrows and despairs, can give us a certain appreciation for the circumstances in which fictional characters find themselves. Even the most despicable characters and we will certainly meet a few of them over the course of this book! tend to evoke our pity or compassion rather than only our anger and resentment. We are strengthened in our resolve to live better lives rather than merely exulting in our superiority over others, and this strengthening mirrors the traditional teachings of Christianity. In fact, I would suggest that if we can learn to react to the various faults and foibles of real human beings with the same spirit of pity and compassion with which we often react to the faults of fictional characters, we will, most probably, already be living more authentically Christian lives.
Finally, by presenting to us a detailed description of a person’s life, literature helps us to understand the relationship between our beliefs and our actions. When we begin to discern the entire shape of a person’s life, we also begin to understand why a particular belief might or might not be important to that person and why that belief might lead a person to act in particular ways. The circumstances in which many fictional characters find themselves are often similar to the circumstances in which we find ourselves in our day-to-day lives; this similarity can be recognized even if the main characters are talking animals, or the setting is a fantasy world. Whatever takes place in narrative and drama can provide us with fertile soil in which to cultivate a better understanding of the central beliefs of the Christian faith.
Of course, the Christian story itself is in the form of narrative and drama: the stories of the Bible, for example, are stories about people we can recognize and relate to, about their encounters with obstacles and their struggles to survive, about their deepest longings and their greatest triumphs. The stories of the people of Israel, the Gospel accounts of Jesus and the disciples, and the lives of the saints are among the most basic building-blocks of the Christian faith. We should also remember that, when Jesus was trying to help his followers to understand a particularly difficult concept, he often did so by telling them a story.
None of this is meant to imply that the Christian story is fiction (in the sense of “an invented story that never happened”), nor that other stories can substitute for the Christian story as it comes to us in the Bible and its interpretation through history. This central narrative of the Christian faith must always remain primary. Rather, I am simply trying to suggest that Christians don’t usually need to stretch very far in order to grasp the structure and significance of narrative and drama. We are already well trained by the heavily storied nature of our own faith and its dramatic enactment in our worship and in our lives. The Christian story has helped to make us who we are. Thus, when we read a story that takes up the themes of our faith even if only implicitly or tangentially we will begin to make connections and to develop new perspectives on the Christian life.
My hope is that those who encounter this book will emerge from the experience with a deeper and more profound appreciation for the central beliefs of the Christian faith beliefs that are meant to be embodied by those of us who claim that faith as our own. It may also lead to a better understanding of these beliefs; but it is not intended only, or even primarily, to move the intellect. I also want this book to help us to imagine how these beliefs hang together as a whole, to enter into these beliefs and to inhabit them, and thereby orient our whole lives so that our Christian faith can become our source, our path, and our goal. Regardless of the extent to which