weird, wild, stuff

As I am teaching a course on the introduction to western civilization I have been trying to introduce the ideas that have helped shape the way the west thinks differently than the east. I have gotten to the part about christ and the whole christianity part and to my surprise the students here, while they have heard of jesus they know nothing about the life or teaching or beliefs or anything. Now I am an atheist. I have a very strong belief in nothing. I dont want to teach the students about christianity, but it is a really important part of the shaping of the west. So how much do I tell them? Do I present it as a story, some peoples beliefs? Is it important that he is born of immaculate conception? Really hard choices for me to make. I think that I will go with the pure history of it. The belief system is up to them to figure out. I will teach them the actual history, try not to put too much bias into my explanation. But it is really odd that these students have never been exposed. It really is such a huge part of the culture of the west. We have fights still about this in our courts and it influences so much of our discourse. It is no wonder why we as different cultures have so many misunderstanding. I have a hard job out ahead. How to make them understand without advocating for any particular belief system.