A MYTHICAL REALIST ORIENTATION FOR RELIGIOUS

EDUCATION: THEOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL

IMPLICATIONS OF THE MYTHICAL NATURE
OF RELIGIOUS STORY

Theodore Brelsford
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Abstract

This article proposes a concept of “mythical realism” as a way of

understanding important characteristics of religion and orienting
religious education. The focus is on beliefs as one central aspect of
religion. The author draws on recent cognitive studies in religion
to illumine the “counterintuitive” and “mythic” character of reli-
gious belief, while also arguing that religious thinking should be and
commonly is held together with “intuitive,” “scientific” understand-
ings of experiential reality. A case is made for the enhancement of
“mythical realist” religious understanding as a fundamental goal of
religious education. Pedagogical suggestions are given for nurturing
such mythical realist faith.

INTRODUCTION

In this article I propose a concept of “mythical realism” as a way of

understanding some important characteristics of religious belief and
as a helpful way of orienting religious education. Religion is a com-
plex (and in some ways perplexing) phenomenon that is widespread
throughout human cultures and throughout human history. This arti-
cle focuses primarily on beliefs as a central aspect of religion and is
informed by recent cognitive studies in religion. Although I do not
intend to discount other important aspects of religion such as ritual,
ethics, or communalism, they are not my focus here.
The intention of this article is to begin to articulate a case for the
enhancement of “mythical realist” religious understanding as a funda-
mental goal of Religious Education. Goals are not the only things
that matter in education, but goals do matter and in some sense
define and guide educational practices. I take the general goal of

Religious Education Copyright 

C The Religious Education Association

Vol. 102 No. 3 Summer 2007 ISSN: 0034–4087 print

DOI: 10.1080/00344080701496231

264
THEODORE BRELSFORD 265

Christian religious education to be that of nurturing strong and healthy

Christian faith.1 I argue that this must include the ability to per-
ceive/experience/understand the world in Christian “mythical”2 and
“realistic” terms simultaneously. In other words, persons possessed of
strong and healthy Christian faith consistently perceive and experi-
ence and understand the realities of the world around them in terms
of Christian mythology and in ways that enable them to interact well
with those realities. The article in its present form does not move much
beyond an initial attempt to establish and clarify this goal.
In overview: I begin with two personal stories of conversionary
experiences to show that mythic stories are what move us and ori-
ent us in the world. From this proceeds a discussion of scientific and
religious knowing as (respectively) intuitive and counterintuitive un-
derstandings of the world as we experience it. Following this is a brief
discussion of religious belief as “mythical realist,” with some theolog-
ical implications of viewing religious belief in this way. Finally, I offer
a clarifying statement of what I mean by a mythical realist approach
to religious education and begin to suggest some pedagogical implica-
tions of this approach.

STORIES OF CONVERSIONS INTO LARGER STORIES

At age twelve I went forward one Wednesday evening to dedicate

my life to Christ at the end of an evangelistic musical service at my
family’s church. It was a moment of high emotions and great release
for me, and a notable turning point in my life. From a critical distance
(and after some study in sociology of religion) I can see that pressure
had been mounting for me to perform this act to meet the social
expectations and hopes held by my parents and my church that I would
join the ranks of the “saved.” It was also a time of early adolescent
angst as I struggled to sort out my personal identity in relation to some

1
I presume that religious education within other faith traditions similarly seeks
to nurture faith in those traditions. I note that religious education in schools in the
United Kingdom and many other European countries presents a different kind of
context and necessitates different kinds of goals.
2
Counter to popular usage of the terms myth and mythical to denote falsity, I
use these terms as they are used in classical philosophy and modern religious studies
to denote narrative explanations and descriptions of the realities of our existence in
the largest possible perspective and context (e.g., stories of creation, origins of good
and evil, ultimate sources of life), paradigmatically including superhuman agents and
non-historical events.
266 MYTHICAL REALIST ORIENTATION FOR RE

larger understanding of my world. Perhaps in part that evening I was

fulfilling a social expectation to join the church and become a believing,
decision-making Christian. Perhaps I also sought to resolve or relieve
a related psychological crisis by shoring up an identity aligned with
my family and my faith community and the whole of creation. No
doubt the emotional fervor of the music aided in the decision-making
process. But I also really meant it (as I think is well evidenced by
the fact that I later went to seminary and now teach in a theology
school).
When I went forward that evening I was not merely dedicating
my life to a social institution, or to a set of theological ideas or some
metaphysical theory. Rather, I had in my mind images of Christ in
heaven and present in that sanctuary, images of Satan the tormenting
Temptor in hell and on earth, and images of myself being eternally
embraced and protected by the God of all creation. In other words, it
was for me a scene of mythic proportions in which I was acknowledg-
ing and committing to a cosmic story featuring the triune Christian
God and Satan, with their respective minions, as well as (among many
others) Moses and Abraham and Sarah, and Paul and the disciples
and my ancient ancestors and parents and grandparents, and me, all
with their/our respective and related chapters or sub-stories. I was,
as I see it now (after some study in psychology and theories of myth)
connecting to and identifying myself with a comprehensive story of
the world, which provided a way of understanding my personal life
story as meaningful in relation to that overarching story. Connecting
to and identifying myself with this comprehensive “mythic” story also
provided a way of integrating the mythic/metaphysical and the his-
toric/physical dimensions of the world as I experienced it, perceived
it, and was coming to understand it.
I experienced another conversion at age twenty in a college bi-
ology course in my sophomore year. This time the story to which I
aligned my self was the grand story of evolution. Surely, I had had
some exposure to evolutionary theory in high school biology, but the
overwhelming social support in my family and church and rural com-
munity for a literalist belief in the biblical accounts of creation and
against evolutionary theory ensured that such exposure did not sway
my beliefs in the least. During my college freshman year I had been
exposed to and even intrigued by some sociological theories of reli-
gion that caused me to ponder the claim that “man created God in
his own image.” But I stopped short of accepting this Durkheimian
view. I had also listened for an entire semester to my anthropology
THEODORE BRELSFORD 267

professor regularly rail against the obvious foolishness of religion and

especially creationist views of human origins. This had caused me to
think about anthropological versus theological accounts of religion and
human origins, but direct frontal attacks are strikingly easy to defend.
The professor was obviously an angry atheist.
My biology professor was winningly friendly and a skillful teacher.
He liked to wander out among students during a lecture and sit down
and look at what he had written on the board to think it through with us.
One day in a section on adaptation and change he told the story of how
the dominant color of birds in London changed over a relatively short
period of time in response to the rapid onset of air pollution during
the booming industrial revolution. As the bark on the trees became
blacker and blacker, lighter colored birds that used to be camouflaged
by the lighter colored bark became easy prey to predators. Meanwhile
darker colored birds that used to fall easy prey to predators because
of their distinctive color now increasingly blended in and survived at
higher raters. Light color genes were being deselected. Dark color
genes were being selected for their adaptive advantage. This was a
rare and dramatically visible instance, he told us, of the evolution of a
species in adaptive response to environmental change.
I did not go forward that afternoon, as there was nothing analogous
to an alter call. But I did experience at that time a decisive and distinc-
tive shift in my view of the cosmos. My basic world view changed in
important and dramatic ways. And once again it was not just that I was
giving intellectual assent to a certain theory or set of ideas. Rather, my
imagination had been captured and I suddenly saw the “whole story”
of evolving birds, and fish, and mammals, and plants, and planets. It
was again a story of mythic proportions. It included what could at least
at times be seen here and now (as in the case of the London birds
during the Industrial Revolution) as well as mysterious un-seeable
forces and processes that millions of years ago shaped our current ex-
istence. It connected me beyond my historic ancestors to the whole
pre-human evolution of life on earth, and the whole inter-connected
cosmic ecology of life in the present.
The “mythic” story of evolution was evoked for me recently in a
single image on the cover of a Special Edition of Scientific American.
The cover features a prehistoric man carrying a bone and walking
partly erect up over a knoll with the rising sun in the background,
and a small tree and some grass at the top of the knoll. The image
simultaneously humanizes and mythologizes the story of evolution:
the emergence of a life-giving solar system, a greening planet, and
268 MYTHICAL REALIST ORIENTATION FOR RE

the dawn of Homo sapiens (distinguished by bipedality and tool use)

as a crowning achievement. The issue is titled: “Becoming Human:
Evolution and the Rise of Intelligence” (2006).
In calling the story of evolution “mythic” I do not mean to cast
doubt on the truth value of evolutionary theory. I believe there is ample
scientific evidence to support the basic story of evolution. There is also
evidence of the creative presence of God in the world. This presence
is widely experienced and witnessed to across the world and across
human history. The point is not that evolution or divine creativity are
untrue or true. The point is that comprehensive, comic stories are
important to human understanding and are the framework in which
we think and live. We yearn for, and we need, and have for millennia
relied on such understanding.
My intent is not to rationalize, validate, or harmonize religious and
scientific views. My intent is to note and hold together three basic facts:
(1) Myths, as grand stories featuring metaphysical, non-physical, or su-
perhuman characters (gods, ghosts, demons, etc.) and non-historical
events (events understood as occurring before or outside of human
history), are a time-honored and adaptively successful way of under-
standing the world and our existence in it; (2) Science, as method of
accumulating empirically verifiable facts and theories about the world,
is unarguably highly successful as a strategy of human understanding;
and (3) humans routinely engage in scientific and mythic understand-
ing simultaneously. I suggest that doing so well is an important and
appropriate basic goal of religious education.

SCIENTIFIC KNOWING AS INTUITIVE AND RELIGIOUS

KNOWING AS COUNTERINTUITIVE UNDERSTANDING

Scientific knowing is rooted in what contemporary cognitive sci-

ence (studies of how the mind works) terms “intuitive understanding.”
For example, we intuitively know that if we knock a book off a desk it
will fall to the floor. This is intuitive because unsupported objects con-
sistently fall to the ground or floor in the world of our experiences and,
importantly, in the world of our ancestors’ experiences for millennia
past. Scientific theories of gravity are merely careful and sophisticated
explanations of how and why things “fall.”
Contrarily, in terms of cognitive science, mythic thinking is seen
as “counterintuitive” and “counterfactual.” For example, in the New
Testament Jesus reappears in bodily form after his death and then
floats up from the earth into heaven. This is counter to our common
THEODORE BRELSFORD 269

intuition and the well established fact that persons cannot float up-
wards unsupported, and counter to the intuitive fact that bodies do
not regain life and reappear after death.
Facts are observable and verifiable events and phenomena in ev-
eryday life (e.g., it is a fact that persons die and their bodies naturally
disintegrate thereafter). Counterfactual beliefs are counter to such
facts (e.g., the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body). In-
tuitions are evolved common sensibilities about the world around us
(e.g., all agents—things to which we ascribe thought and will—have
bodies). Counterintuitive beliefs run counter to such intuitions (e.g.,
some agents—for example angels and God in contemporary popular
belief—have no physical body).
The adaptive advantages of mythic understanding as embodied in
religious belief systems presents a baffling problem for understanding
human thought and society from an evolutionary perspective. As Scott
Atran puts it, all religions include “costly and hard-to-fake commitment
to a counterfactual and counterintuitive world of supernatural agents
. . . ” (2002, 4). And, virtually all human societies across human history
seem thoroughly imbued with religious views of the world.
Evolutionary theories of mind insist that (as also with the rest of
the body) cognitive traits survive and flourish only if, and precisely be-
cause, they have notable adaptive advantages—they promote in some
way the survival and flourishing of organisms with that trait. The ad-
vantages of believing in and committing one’s life to “a counterfactual
and counterintuitive world of supernatural agents” are not at all clear.
Yet religions and religious beliefs are ubiquitous throughout all human
societies past and present. In fact, as Atran puts it “the psychology that
leads to such beliefs is common to us all,” including modern scientific
thinkers who would eschew religion (8).
In cognitive science theories of religion the most prominent cur-
rent way of understanding this perplexing human propensity to hold
ardently to counterintuitive beliefs is to understand religion as a by-
product of traits initially evolved for other purposes (known as “exap-
tation”). For example, humans evolved hyper-active agency detection,
causing us to see agents and ascribe agency when no agent is there—
such as seeing faces in clouds, or mistaking a tree stump for a bear—
because there is survival advantage in over-detecting, and survival dis-
advantage in under-detecting agents around us. This “explains” the
ubiquitous human perception of, and belief in supernatural agents
(cf. Boyer 2001). But, as Atran points out, such theories fail to ade-
quately explain the extraordinary motivation and commitment entailed
270 MYTHICAL REALIST ORIENTATION FOR RE

in religious belief (for example, why is belief in Santa Claus held dif-
ferently for most people from belief in God? And why is there such
ardent and persistent belief at all in a God whose agency remains ever
difficult or impossible to physically verify?).
Other attempts to understand and explain the benefits of religion
from an evolutionary perspective include commitment theories, expe-
riential theories, and performance theories. Commitment theories of
religion focus on ways institutions and cultures rely on religious belief
systems in order to sustain and enforce rules and norms. But these
theories tend not to attend well to ways cognitive structures and pat-
terns shape belief. And they do not really explain why religious beliefs
tend to garner more steadfast and enduring commitment than do most
political, economic, or scientific systems of belief.
Experiential theories of religion attempt to “explain” religion in
terms of neuro-physiological processes traceable to religious experi-
ences of trance, meditation, revelation, and so forth. But these have no
real explanatory power at all—the fact that a certain area of the brain
is associated with a certain religious experience such as meditation
provides no insight into what or why religion is.
Performance theories attend to the psychodynamics of liturgy and
ritual practice, focusing on normative functions of ceremonial prac-
tices, but neglect “cognitive processes of categorization, reasoning, and
decision making that underlie all religious beliefs and commitments
and that make such beliefs and commitments comprehensible” (Atran
2002,14).
The point here is that much effort has gone into explaining re-
ligion, yet it remains difficult to explain, and in fact remains an em-
barrassment. As Atran puts it, the psychology that causes such beliefs
is “common to us all.” Cognitive scientists widely agree that religious
perceptions of the world occur commonly to believers and unbelievers
alike. Indeed it is demonstrably more difficult to sustain a purely scien-
tific worldview than to sustain a religious worldview; commitment to a
non-theistic scientific viewpoint requires dedicated effort and a tightly
controlled system of formal education and social support, whereas re-
ligion seems to just spring up everywhere (cf. Barrett 2004). It is an
embarrassment, or at least an uncomfortable fact for many scientific
thinkers that we humans (all) have an overwhelming propensity to be-
lieve in and live by counterfactual and counterintuitive understandings
of the world.
There are two seemingly contrary propositions in this claim that
scientific thinkers experience embarrassment or discomfort when
THEODORE BRELSFORD 271

faced with the fact of human propensity to counterintuitive under-

standing. Together these two contrary propositions illumine my cen-
tral point that intuitive and counterintuitive understandings are both
prominent in most human minds and certainly in Western culture.
The first proposition is that a majority of modern Western persons
are scientific thinkers, even if they consider themselves religious. We
contemporary Westerners tend to live very much in and according
to the immediate material world, and we depend on the technology
of our science to support our everyday existence (for example, auto-
mobiles, electronic communications devices and cooking appliances,
and climate controlled buildings). So we tend to think of ourselves
and our world primarily in terms of and through these life supporting
technological systems. We live in the rhythms of commuter traffic,
and electronic news and entertainment, and microwave meals. Few
of us actually live our lives oriented around and regularly thinking
in terms of the sacred and metaphysical aspects of our existence, as
for example might be the case with Christian monastics praying daily
the full Liturgy of the Hours, or Orthodox Jews rigorously observing
kosher codes, or even observant Muslims being called to prayer five
times a day. Modern Western culture is very much modern, and is a
science-based culture.
At the same time, the second proposition in the above claim is that
religious thinking is widely characteristic of all persons and cultures,
including modern Western persons and culture. Religion is thoroughly
a part of American culture. Some 90 percent of Americans say they
believe in God. The market in popular religion books is extraordinar-
ily strong and growing. The average American home has at least three
Bibles. It is difficult to imagine a “non-believer” being elected to any
visible public office. Modern Western culture remains thoroughly and
relentlessly religious. Being relentlessly religious and thoroughly sci-
entific creates discomfort, at least at times, for many of us as intuitive
and counterintuitive beliefs come into view as apparent contradictions.
Even professional theologians may face discomfort. How does one
explain that God is well understood as a divine loving and good parent,
while some 30,000 children starve to death each day? Or that God is
omnipresent and never seen, or three persons in one? Etc. Or, perhaps
even more difficult, what does a highly educated theologian make of
the fact that the vast majority of Christians around the world and in the
U.S. are in large degree biblical literalists requiring and enjoying such
explanations as how the seven “days” of creation might be understood
as seven “periods of indeterminate time,” or how scientific research on
272 MYTHICAL REALIST ORIENTATION FOR RE

natural cycles of locust gestation and infestation along the Nile might
reinforce a literal understanding of the plague of locusts described in
Exodus 10?

RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS MYTHICAL REALIST

I suggest that it is helpful to understand (1) religious beliefs as

primarily mythic, and (2) mythic beliefs as ironic, paradoxical, and
mystical. That is, (1) we call beliefs “religious” precisely when and be-
cause they are rooted in some grand narrative that may be categorized
as mythic, and (2) religious believers both do and do not believe the
counterfactual and counterintuitive claims of the myths to which they
commit themselves. It may be helpful to restate this second proposi-
tion a few more ways to explicitly illumine its paradoxical, ironic, and
mystical aspects: when we hold a religious belief as true, we believe
both the fact and the counterfact to be true (paradox). Put another way,
when we hold a mythic belief we believe that it both means and does
not mean what it says (irony). One more way of putting it: we usually
understand (often unconsciously) that we both know and do not know
what our mythic beliefs mean (mystical). For example, while a young
child may believe “literally” that angels fly down from heaven to serve
as protectors and messengers, he or she also knows very well (and
quite intuitively) that, aside from invisible angels, persons (anything
to which human-like personality traits may be ascribed) do not fly and
are not invisible. This suggests that we hold counterintuitive beliefs as
special limited and unverifiable violations of otherwise universal and
enduring intuitive truths (cf. Boyer 2001). The primary point, however,
is that we do and we must hold counterintuitive beliefs together simul-
taneously with the intuitive beliefs they violate. Because doing so is
routine, typically performed subconsciously, and often psychologically
confusing, disruptive, or embarrassing when raised to consciousness,
we tend not to focus on this as a religious and intellectual practice or as
a matter to be addressed in formal or informal religious education en-
deavors. Thus, conflicts between intuitive and counterintuitive beliefs
tend to be resolved unthinkingly and unreflectively.
Some studies show that intuitive beliefs commonly override coun-
terintuitive beliefs in moments of crisis or even when reflecting on
moments of crisis. For example, when faced with a hypothetical sce-
nario of being stranded on a deserted island with a broken life raft,
persons who profess belief that God is all-powerful and not limited
THEODORE BRELSFORD 273

by ordinary laws of physics will nonetheless report that they would be

more likely to pray that someone on a distant passing boat would see
them than that God would repair the life raft. This is because it is intu-
itively more likely that a person’s attention might be turned in a certain
direction than it is that physical matter (the life raft) might be redi-
rected (cf. Sloane 2004, cited in Brelsford 2005). Intuitive beliefs tend
to trump the counterintuitive in a crisis (whether or not they should
do so is a relevant but separate issue). The phenomenon known as “no
atheists in fox holes” may seem to suggest the opposite—that we turn
to counterintuitive metaphysical beliefs in moments of crisis. How-
ever, the non-atheist praying in the fox hole is in the fox hole, and is no
doubt covering his/her head and trying to physically avoid fire. A truer
counter phenomenon would be “believers placidly kneeling in prayer
in the midst of gun fire on the battle field.” In most healthy minds
counterintuitive beliefs supplement but do not over-assert themselves
or override intuitive beliefs.
On the other hand, if counterintuitive beliefs do not significantly
inform and influence a person’s actions then it seems functionally in-
accurate or meaningless to call them beliefs. There are times when
counterintuitive beliefs really should trump the intuitive. For exam-
ple, when I encounter a person who looks very different from me I
am reflexively cautious (even defensive and suspicious) due to the in-
tuitive sense that persons who are not recognizable members of “my
kind” may be members of an “enemy kind” and/or I may experience a
dangerous inability to read the meanings and motives in their actions.
Long practice in “loving my neighbors as my self” and loving even “my
enemies” may enable me to quickly override my intuitive reflex with
my counterintuitive commitment to love of strangers. Yet this does not
mean that I want my seventeen-year-old daughter to encounter and
respond to hooded figures on a dark street the same way should would
encounter and respond to friends in the school parking lot. And in
fact any person who does not discriminate at all between friendly and
dangerous “others” significantly increases their risk of physical harm.
Healthy religious thinking and believing entails the ability to per-
ceive, commit to and live by counterintuitive and intuitive understand-
ings of the world simultaneously. This is a complex and highly sophisti-
cated form of thinking. Perhaps religious heroes may be understood as
persons who do this extraordinarily well. For example, Thomas Mer-
ton, with his deep love and appreciation for nature and science and
philosophy, and his deep investment in a contemplative life lived and
understood in explicitly Christian (and often explicitly mythical) terms.
274 MYTHICAL REALIST ORIENTATION FOR RE

Perhaps it is also the case that extraordinary religious heroes tend to

be persons who live so fully in accordance with counterintuitive un-
derstandings of the world, flouting the intuitive, that they flirt with
insanity and often meet untimely death. Some examples would be Je-
sus, the Buddha, Joseph Smith, or even Gandhi and Mother Teresa.
But for most of us the challenge is to live more fully in accordance with
our counterintuitive beliefs and to hold them constructively together
with our intuitive beliefs.
Healthy religious belief entails deep appreciation for and com-
mitment to both mythic (counterintuitive) and scientific (intuitive)
understanding. Excessive and exclusive commitment to counterintu-
itive sensibilities about the world, which override intuitive sensibil-
ities, can lead to dangerous fanaticism and lunacy (e.g., religiously
motivated suicides or murder, or declination of life saving medical in-
tervention, or failure to care for one’s own body).3 Commitment to
intuitive understanding of the world to the exclusion and dismissal of
the counterintuitive can lead to an artless dispirited existence.
In this perspective formal (or systematic, or secondary) theology
may be understood as formal articulations and elaborations of the
myth. Practical theology may be understood as articulations of ways
the mythic interacts with everyday life, and/or ways of practicing the
myth on the ground. And primary theology may be understood as
enactments or embodiments of the myth (for example in the Eucharist,
or baptism, . . . or Jihad). To think and live theologically is to perceive
and experience the world more or less continuously in terms of a
particular myth or set of myths, while at the same time perceiving and
experiencing the world in terms of its intuitive realities.

MYTHICAL REALIST RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

A fundamental goal of Christian religious education ought to be

that of promoting and nurturing capacities to (1) perceive and ap-
preciate the mythical depth dimensions of reality-as-experienced-in-
the-world in specifically Christian terms, (2) in ways that complement,
enrich, and enhance experiences of intuitive realities, and (3) live faith-
fully according to such understandings. This is what I am terming a

3
The difference between religious fanaticism and religious heroism is sometimes
a delicate judgment and is always a matter of perspective. Joseph Smith, for example,
is a hero to Mormons and a fanatic to many non-Mormons.
THEODORE BRELSFORD 275

“mythical realist” approach to religious education. By holding together

“mythical” and “realism” I do not intend to claim that myths in general
or Christian myths in particular are actually true accounts of reality
(as is sometimes attempted via critical realism). Neither do I intend
to claim that all accounts of reality are merely mythical (as some post-
modernists claim). Rather, by linking these two terms I intend to point
to a way of thinking and understanding that holds together simultane-
ous commitments to intuitive and counterintuitive understanding of
the same (complex and multidimensional) reality.4
Such mythical realist thinking is profoundly commonplace. It is
prominently and dominantly present in all human cultures past and
present in varying forms of religious beliefs. I am suggesting that
we should work at understanding the world well in mythical realist
terms—we should nurture this capacity in ourselves and in others. I
am suggesting that a fundamental goal of religious education is to help
persons and communities and cultures do this well. Put another way,
persons are naturally religious; religious education has to do with edu-
cating that religiousness in order to promote doing it well rather than
poorly.

A FEW PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

AND SUGGESTIONS

One way to nurture the capacity for mythical realism is through

nurturing appreciation for stories. Stories are central in religion and

4
Several months after presenting this article at the November 2006 REA meeting,
and after the article was already accepted for publication in this journal, I discovered
in a conversation with a colleague in another field that Paul Avis uses the term “mythic
realism” toward the end of his book God and the Creative Imagination (1999). Al-
though Avis does not provide a definition of the term and does not address any of the
pedagogical concerns that are the focus of my attention, his use of “mythic realism”
and my use of “mythical realism” seem to cohere well. For Avis “mythic realism” has
to do with acknowledging “the metaphorical, symbolic and mythological status of the
language of faith without letting go of the point that such language can be believed
with a good conscience through an act of imaginative assent” (169). Further, he ar-
gues (against Bultmann and Hick) that there are intrinsic connections between biblical
myths and divine reality and that we must respect “the givenness of the historical forms
of divine revelation” (163). In other words he advocates frank acknowledgement that
we are thinking and speaking mythically whenever we think and speak of God, but
because myth “is the only way in which the most significant aspects of human history
can be presented to us” we must trust in and rely on such myths for meaningful un-
derstanding of God. I am in basic agreement with Avis and may have drawn on him
more significantly in this article if I had read his work sooner.
276 MYTHICAL REALIST ORIENTATION FOR RE

their value and importance are well known to religious educators. The
Bible begins with stories of creation and such stories have been a
primary medium for passing on faith and carrying forth tradition for
millennia. Anne Wimberly’s focus on “story linking” strategies (2005);
Thomas Groome’s attention to the centrality of “Christian Story and
Vision” (1998); and Walter Breuggemann’s insistence on the primacy
of story modes for Torah education (1982) are a few examples of keen
awareness of the profound importance of stories and story telling and
narrative pedagogies in religious education.
I wish only to note that our basic Christian stories are primarily
mythic in nature and that to learn the stories is to learn the myth; to
learn to relate one’s life story to the larger story is to learn to con-
nect oneself to the myth; to learn to see the world of one’s everyday
experience in relation to the stories of Christian faith is to learn to
live life through Christian myths. A primary goal of Christian educa-
tion is to help persons become skillful at doing this. And, in order to
do this well and thoroughly it is helpful to recognize that in doing so
we are nurturing counterintuitive thinking. Recognizing that we are
nurturing counterintuitive thinking and recognizing that counterintu-
itive thinking must co-exist with intuitive thinking may enable us to
find ways to help persons hold counterintuitive and intuitive beliefs
together constructively, rather than fleeing from the stories of faith in
order to “graduate out of church” as adults and into the “real” world,
or retreat from the real world into forms of fundamentalism where
myths are conflated with reality.
Another way to nurture mythical realism is to nurture wonder,
awe, and imagination. Anabel Proffit’s focus on wonder (1998) and
Maria Harris’s work on religious imagination (1991) are examples of
religious educators who have strongly sensed the values of this kind
of religious education. Wonder is the capacity to sense the sacred in
the world of our experiences—to perceive manifestations of the myth
within the reality around us. The capacity for imagination is, quite
literally, the capacity to see in one’s mind what is not before one’s eyes.
If one cannot imagine well, one can never well see the metaphysical
dramas at play in the physical world or even in the textual world of
the Bible. We must nurture imagination and wonder and awe if we
are to nurture mythical sensibilities at all. But we must also hold the
imagination accountable to material and experiential realities if we are
to nurture mythical realism.
A third way of nurturing mythical realism is to nurture the prac-
tice of holding religious/mythic imagination and intuitive awareness
THEODORE BRELSFORD 277

of experiential realities accountable to each other. Perhaps this is one

way to characterize wisdom. The Psalms and other wisdom literature
demonstrate and celebrate such attentiveness to both mythic and ma-
terial perceptions of the world. The Psalmists often make painfully
clear, for example, that God has abandoned them and they are being
destroyed by their enemies, while at the same time God is an ever
present comfort and faithful protector. There is a distinctive world-
liness in much wisdom literature, which is held together with keen
sensitivity to invisible (counterintuitive) realities. The work of Charles
Melchert has highlighted already the value of the wisdom literature
and wisdom itself/herself in religious education (1998).
Other connections to other religious education theories and ap-
proaches could be made and further developed. My intention here has
been only to suggest a few pedagogical implications of a mythical real-
ist approach to religious education and to show how such an approach
might draw on, compliment and supplement other approaches.

CONCLUSION

The primary intention of this article has been to articulate a con-

cept of mythical realism as a way of understanding some important
aspects of religious belief and as a constructive way of orienting reli-
gious education in the twenty-first-century West. The focus has been
on belief as one important aspect of religious faith. I have sought to es-
tablish mythical realist religious understanding as a fundamental goal
of religious education and to clarify meanings and implications of this
theologically and pedagogically.

Theodore Brelsford is assistant professor of Religion and Education

at Emory University and director of the Religious Education Program
at Emory’s Candler School of Theology. E-mail: theodore.brelsford@
emory.edu

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