Has Christianity Become Less Literal?

There is a line of thought that Christian thought has become incredibly less literal as time goes on because literal interpretations are no longer tenable. We are forced to look at the Old Testament and other portions as being purely parable, not because we have always believed as such, but because it is now standing on untenable ground. 

But this really is not the case at all...

The Old Testament has been interpreted very liberally, with almost a sort of mysterious meaning, and the literal meaning has been treated as surface level. 

St. Maximus the Confessor is famous for looking at many Old Testament passages as parables, and you see this in other very early Christians. 

Here is St. Maximus the Confessor writing in the early 7th century:

"Intelligence and reason are to be treated like the bondservants of Hebrew stock who are set free at the end of six years (cf Deut. 15:12). They labor like a servant and a handmaid for everyone who practices the virtues, since they conceive and realize the qualities of active virtue, and their whole strength is as it were drawn up against the demons that oppose the practice of the virtues. When they have completed the stage of practical philosophy - and this completion is represented by the sixth year, for the number six signifies practical philosophy - intelligence and reason are set free to devote themselves to spiritual contemplation, that is to say, they contemplate the inner essences of created beings."

(In the Philokalia)

This quotation comes from the 5th century saint, St. Neilos the Ascetic: 

"Similarly, when a slave has come to love his master and his own wife and children, he may reject true freedom because of his bonds of physical kinship: and so he becomes a slave for ever, allowing his ear to be pierced through with an awl (cf Exod. 21:6). He will never hear the word that can set him free, but will remain perpetually a slave in his love for present things. This is why the Law commanded that a woman's hand should be cut off if she seized hold of the genitals of a man who was fighting with another (cf. Deut. 25:11); in other words, when there was a battle between her thoughts, whether to choose worldly or heavenly blessings, she failed to choose the heavenly and grasped those which are subject to generation and corruption - for by the genitals the Law signifies the things which belong to the realm of change."

(in The Philokalia)

St. Neilos the Ascetic

One of the more grave issues that we face is that this sort of misinformation about the Church fathers and what they thought, coupled with assumptions about historical thought in general, begins to create and foster atheism. It puts all of Christianity on a much weaker footing than it really is by trying to box it into bad theology. 

Because of a lack of familiarity with actual, true Christianity, due to poor, secular public education, the faith has suffered immensely, and we are failing in our duties to put God in His rightful place.