“As the 21st century unfolds, perhaps religions will undergo a radical shift: to become more hybrid in nature and flexible in narrative.” Susan L. Smalley, professor and behavior geneticist at UCLA, writes on the malleability of myths: “Green plants are tender and filled with sap. 
At their death they are withered and dry. Therefore the stiff and unbending is the way of death. 
The gentle and yielding is the way of life. In our country—a largely Christian nation—it means examining the Bible with flexible open-minds, allowing fact to move to fiction but not throwing out the essence of a teaching.”