The Grand Narrative: The Importance of Myth Today

Today we think in terms of myths as much as we always have. Jacques Ellul, through The New Demons (trans. C. Edward Hopkin, 1975), will guide us in our discernment of this.

     
An Olympian civilization spans the globe. This civilization is based on Olympianity: the religion of power. The sacred foundation of this religion and civilization are three pairs of gods, each pair including one god of order and another of disorder. Using their Roman names, these three pairs of gods are Jupiter (god of politics) and Mars (god of war), Vulcan (god of technology) and Venus (god of sex), and Pluto (god of money) and Bacchus (god of consumption). Societies, cultures, and personalities around the globe devote themselves to these gods. (Sadly, Christians and churches around the globe do so also.)

     
Shared devotion to these gods is only possible through an Olympian worldview disseminated through the corporate media and affirmed by each person everywhere. The corporate media and its primary narrators are the authoritative speakers and interpreters of this Olympian worldview.

     
Every religion has its own distinct worldview. As a religion, Olympianity—just like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—has a worldview that is mythical in nature.

One Method for Discerning Today's Most Popular Yet Least Recognized Religion

Here in the West, we live in a dechristianized society. For the last 50 years, this has been wrongly understood—especially by Christian intellectuals—to mean that we live in a secular society. That incorrect assumption has been further misunderstood to mean that we modern humans now set our own standards as the autonomous, rational, good, and mature creatures we are.

     
While it is true that only a dwindling number of people in the West continue to affirm their faithfulness to Jesus Christ, the one odd god/man of truth, freedom, love, and vitality, that doesn’t mean the majority of Westerners believe in no god at all. While even a dwindling number of Christians affirm the Bible as their standard for understanding the truth, that doesn’t stop most Westerners from affirming other myths to live by. While increasingly fewer Christians participate in the weekly celebration of their god through word and action, that doesn’t stop them or others from being meaningful participants in the world’s oldest, most popular, yet least recognized religion.