Karl Giberson, a scientist at Eastern Nazerene College and director of the Forum on Faith and Science, wrote in his recent Salon article "What's wrong with science as religion" about the necessity (whether biological or not) of constructing narrative, consequently pulling the new athiests cat out of the bag:

Rational arguments for the truth of theism are no longer supposed to work. Some Christians therefore advise that we should simply share our narrative and invite people to participate in it.
This sort of thinking is guilty of a disastrous misdiagnosis of contemporary culture. The idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a myth. In fact, a postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable. People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering, and technology; rather, they are relativistic and pluralistic in matters of religion and ethics. But, of course, that's not postmodernism; that's modernism! That's just old-line verificationism, which held that anything you can't prove with your five senses is a matter of personal taste. We live in a culture that remains deeply modernist.

---William Lane Craig, from "God Is Not Dead Yet", published online at Christianity Today

According to Craig, we do not live in a post-modern world, but a deeply modernist one. In this type of world, where things are suppose to be rational unless creativity is involved (religion and ethics are creative, or in need of non-analytical thinking, so to speak). If creativity or art is needed it means we are dealing with something there is no data or computer code to replicate, meaning irrationality ensues.

The fact is, the Christian community participates in art, creativity and irrationality, day in and day out. Our community is a narrative we invite people to participate in and learn from, as a person gazing at a painting finds more and more meaning. A person may not believe in a painting's value until he or she reads an essay that explains the artist's approach and the meaning behind the work. So to, a person in church may need to be persuaded by a good sermon or a caring, loving, and sharing friend, but those actions are the minority of the Christian community's life. The majority of the community's time is spent in the irrational, the creative, the order of service, the liturgy, prayer, song, dance---all things that are part of a narrative and not in the analytical or scientific.

Every time we go to church we participate in something that is irrational. ... more

The overarching theme of art is that it is the continuation of the human story.  Specific to Christianity, the liturgy is how our story continues from the past, to the Scriptures, to the present day.  Liturgy, as any well done Christian service should show, is the sharing of the Christian story over again: the water (Creation/Baptism), the communion elements (the Death of Christ), the presence of the Word (the Bible), and the celebration of new life (the Resurrection and Reign of Christ).  To this end, our faith should be realized in the continuing story of Christ and his Kingdom on earth (as it is in the heavenlies).

The point of the liturgical narrative is to draw individuals out of the personal, individualized religious framework of legalism and dogmatic fundamentals and into a communal story. Communities in and of themselves are detrimental to a proper understanding of the sociological aspects of faith, thus Grenz and Franke rightly define a new unit of sociological focus called the individual-in-community. The individual and community must be equally balanced in order to maintain a proper understanding of discipleship, worship, and justification (N.T. Wright’s commentary on justification of individuals within faith communities, particularly in What Saint Paul Really Said is helpful).

Often, the Christian story is divided between individuals and community in terms of obedience and sacrifice.  We are to be obedient Christians during the week and make our sacrifice on Sundays.  This dualism, the separation of obedience from sacrifice is symptomatic of an Enlightenment understanding of the separation of exegesis, theology, and orthodoxy (what you describe as fundamentals) from lectio divina, theo-praxis/spiritual theology, and ortho-praxis. It is not enough to live in obedience of faith, as James writes faith without works is dead. The point must be conceded that works without faith are dead as well. Therefore, the dualism of obedience (textualization of faith) and sacrifice (the liturgical and communal aspects of religious life) must be deconstructed as an Enlightenment determination of facts that undermines emotional, local knowledge, and mosaic of knowledge. ... more