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.

Many books on religion and culture deal in vague generalities about the holy and the human. David Cunningham’s Reading Is Believing offers a refreshing counterapproach. In twelve chapters focusing on each phrase of the Apostles’ Creed, Cunningham provides rich reflections on the central claims of Christian faith as they impinge on specific literary and cinematic works. His treatment of Helen Prejean’s ‘Dead Man Walking’ in relation to the forgiveness of sins, as well Graham Greene’s ‘The End of the Affair’ as it is illuminated by the resurrection of the flesh, are small masterpieces of theological judgment.–Ralph C. Wood, Baylor University

This is "theology through the arts" in an accessible, beautifully written, and provocative form. Literature is given space to do its own kind of theological work in its own kind of way.-Jeremy Begbie, Author of Voicing Creation’s Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts, University of St. Andrews