Human beings are story-telling animals. We create meaning, identity, and

narratives. Many of these narratives, particularly those we call myths, are

explicitly or implicitly religious. In this paper we will present a model of the

dynamic structure of narratives, in which the narrator is a moral agent who

must exercise judgement and responsibility in mediating between the symbols

embodying our temporal experience and actions and those institutional patterns

we call culture and tradition. What is different in the modern world is the

quality of our stories. Too many of our stories are shallow, and we are losing

our ability to tell our own stories. The modern world has entered a crisis of

meaning, and the study of implicit religion is a key tool to help us understand

it. What this model of narrative and agency suggests is that the modern ‘crisis

suggests that through our stories we have the power to move beyond this crisis.