When we try to explain Christianity to modern people we should be prepared that it will probably sound to them both as simple as a child’s fairy tale and as unbelievable as a child’s fairy tale.

It is a mistake to soften this impact, or to dress it up with philosophical imprecision and paradox masquerading as complexity, or to try and diffuse the impact of the strangeness and apparent absurdity of Christianity in a world where nothing is finally believed except that nothing is really real.

Because the bottom line is that Christianity is a story – essentially, the story told by the gospels; extended to including our own personal place in the story – which makes it real – and as a story Christianity  resists explanation in terms of ‘meaning’ (or philosophy) – just as a children’s fairy tale becomes alien and unrecognisable when its supposed meaning is explained by an anthropologist, folklorist, or psychologist.

As so often, Tolkien got to the nub of it: Christianity is a Fairy Story that is true – it is the true Fairy Story. The implication, which Tolkien himself didn’t follow up – but which CS Lewis did – is that Christianity ought to be explained as a Fairy Story, without compromising in the direction of modern notions of plausibility.

From: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/christianity-is-incredible-not.html