Time to ask ourselves what we really believe

I have recently moved from a church where in three years we did not once recite a creed together, to a church where the Apostles’ Creed or one of its variants is recited every week.

I had never paused to wonder whether those around me meant the same thing as I when we proclaimed that we believed in, say, the life everlasting. David Cunningham’s Reading is Believing has given me pause, and the impetus to ask people, “What do you mean when you say you believe in the forgiveness of sins?”

Reading is Believing has a simple aim: explaining the tenets of Christianity to our world through the use of ‘texts’ (literary, cinematic, or both). Devoting one chapter to each of the twelve phrases of the Apostles’ Creed, Cunningham explores the meaning of the ‘doctrine’ contained in the phrase, then shows how one particular fictional text pertains to that doctrine. Each chapter closes with discussion questions, and a list of related theological texts and other works illustrating the doctrine in question.

There are many works of popular culture that (perhaps unconsciously) draw on ‘gospel themes’, and we have every reason to use those to bring the gospel to a biblically-illiterate society. I cannot, however, recommend Reading is Believing to anyone wishing to develop these skills. With the respect due to a fellow believer, many readers may find Cunningham’s interpretation of the Creed’s phrases somewhat heterodox.

For example, he charges the Apostle Paul with ‘quenching the Spirit’ in regard to gender roles in the church — a fearful assertion in the light of 1 Cor 14:37-38. Further, there seems to be a low view of the righteousness of God. This has implications for his view of sin: “human beings are sinful [and] are capable of doing wrong … This is not to say that human beings are inherently wicked or that we should expect that they do evil deeds. It means that they are free but limited creatures.” The emphasis falls not on God’s forgiveness of us, but on our forgiveness of one another.

Consequently, Cunningham plays down notions of judgment and retribution – both in Jesus’s death, and in his return. The crucifixion is not a central concern: the chapter on Jesus’ ‘suffering under Pontius Pilate’ is about suffering in general, not his substitutionary death. There is a repeated commitment to the notion that God ‘relentlessly pursues’ people for salvation, such that even if “hell must exist for those who choose it … the wideness of God’s love and mercy makes it quite possible that hell will ultimately be empty.”

With this kind of doctrinal variance couched in the language of orthodoxy, we may have reason to question our use of creeds.  Why do we recite statements of faith?  How do we choose which creeds to use?  Have the members of our congregations ever explored the statements for themselves?  Are they sure of the meaning of the words they recite?

Unless the words of the creeds mean approximately the same thing to all of us, the ‘we believe’ itself is meaningless.

Stuart Heath is a member of Holy Trinity, Mowbray.