It feels a little weird to make the claim that people are inherently good.

Don’t know about you, but my whole religious upbringing argues against it. In fact the Christianity that dominates today’s landscape claims just the opposite. People are bad – separated from God – sinners from the word “go.”

They quote the Bible on that too.

Well isn’t that special?

One of the problems with so-called “biblical Christianity” is that its not really very biblical at all. My “bible believing” friends don’t realize it – bless their sin-pickin’ hearts – but what they actually do is reduce the Bible to paraphrased decontextualized interpretations of the text that are mostly the product of cranky old men from the world of long-ago – people who were just as mixed up and confused as most of us are today.

The result is that many of us begin our Christian journey with that fantastic headline of Genesis 3 ringing in our heads: “The Fall of Man.” Of course, the words “The Fall of Man” are not found anywhere in the text of Genesis 3. In fact this little phrase is nowhere to be found in the Bible.

Go ahead – go and look it up for yourself!

And yet this non-biblical “Fall of Man” idea lies at the heart of so much Christian dogma. It forms the foundation for the doctrine of “original sin.” And do you know what? The words “original sin” aren’t in the Bible either! They were made up by a Turkish guy named Irenaeus some 100-plus years after Jesus left the house. Another 100-plus years later an Algerian fellow named Augustine dressed up the concept. And then this completely non-biblical phrase was passed down from generation to generation right up to this very day when the “biblical Christians” among us tell us the Bible teaches original sin which – of course – it doesn’t.

Go ahead – go and look it up for yourself!

And “go and look it up for yourself” is an important skill we people of faith need to develop. For too long, we’ve been swallowing whole what others have told us about the Bible, about faith, about God, about Jesus – and about US!

What do you suppose would happen if we grew up and became spiritual adults, daring to boldly and relentlessly seek after truth rather than regurgitate everybody else’s “facts” that often are not so much facts as misguided human opinions?

Well, for one thing, we’d discover that people are created good!

Very good!

Genesis 1:26:Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

Isn’t that fantastic? EVERYTHING God created was good! And VERY good to boot!

People are created GOOD!

And not only that, but did you catch the words in verse 28?

“And God blessed them.”

Long before those guys made up the doctrine of “original sin”, God gave people “original blessing.”

You are blessed…and good!

Isn’t that refreshing to hear?

So who ya gonna believe? God? Or a bunch of old men with their panties in a bunch?

More on “original goodness” stuff next time!