Christianity functions as the foundational myth of Western civilization. Myths provide the framework through which we interpret reality and make sense of our lives. In the West, Christianity has long supplied that framework.
For centuries, the Bible stood at the center of cultural and intellectual life. Its language, symbols, and narratives shaped the imagination and influenced countless other works. It provided the shared vocabulary through which meaning was expressed.
But being foundational does not mean being literally true. The Bible is not best understood as strict history. Rather, it operates as myth, a symbolic structure that organizes meaning, value, and purpose.
This is why Carl Jung argued that complete liberation from Christianity is an illusion. Its patterns remain embedded in the Western psyche. The task, then, is not to discard it, but to engage it properly in order to transcend it.
Christianity can be approached as myth without reducing it to literalism. In that sense, it remains true, not as history, but as a living framework for understanding human experience and Western civilization.
