Editing Religion and mythology (section)

===Opposition to categorizing all sacred stories as myths===
====Modern-day opposition====
Some religious believers take offense when what they consider to be historical aspects of their faith are labeled as "myth". Such believers distinguish between religious fables or myths, on one hand, and those sacred narratives which are described by their tradition as being history or revelation, on the other. For instance, [[Priesthood (Catholic Church)|Catholic priest]] Father [[John Hardon|John A. Hardon]] insists that "Christianity is not mythology. What we believe in is not religious fantasies, no matter how pious."<ref>Hardon</ref> Evangelical Christian theologian [[Carl F. H. Henry]] insisted that "Judeo-Christian revelation has nothing in common with the category of myth".<ref>Carl F. H. Henry, quoted by Mohler</ref>

====The roots of the popular meaning of "myth"====
Especially within Christianity, objection to the word "myth" rests on a historical basis. By the time of Christ, the Greco-Roman world had started to use the term "myth" (Greek ''muthos'') to mean "fable, fiction, lie"; as a result, the early Christian theologians used "myth" in this sense.<ref>Eliade, ''Myth and Reality'', 1968, p. 162.</ref> Thus, the derogatory meaning of the word "myth" is the traditional Christian meaning, and the expression "Christian mythology", as used in academic discourse,<ref name=grassie>{{cite journal |last1=Grassie |first1=William |date=March 1998 |title=Science as Epic? Can the modern evolutionary cosmology be a mythic story for our time? |journal=Science & Spirit |volume=9 |issue=1 |quote=The word 'myth' is popularly understood to mean idle fancy, fiction, or falsehood; but there is another meaning of the word in academic discourse. A myth, in this latter sense of the word, is a story that serves to define the fundamental worldview of a culture .... Using the original Greek term ''mythos'' is perhaps a better way to distinguish this more positive and all-encompassing definition of the word.}}</ref> may offend Christians for this reason.

In addition, this early Christian use of the term "myth" passed into popular usage.<ref>Eliade, ''Myths, Dreams and Mysteries'', 1967, p. 23.</ref> Thus, when essential [[sacred mysteries]] and teachings are described as ''myth'', in modern English, the word often still implies that it is "idle fancy, fiction, or falsehood".<ref name=grassie/> This description could be taken as a direct attack on [[religious belief]], quite contrary to the meaning ostensibly intended by the academic use of the term. Further, in academic writing, though "myth" usually means a fundamental worldview story, even there it is occasionally ambiguous or clearly denotes "falsehood", as in the "[[Christ myth theory]]". The original term "[[mythos]]" (which has no pejorative connotation in English) may be a better word to distinguish the positive definition from the negative.<ref name=grassie/>