Everything Messed Up

Awhile back I suggested that you could tour the Bible in an hour or so (July 3, 2005). For the past couple of posts, I've walked you through the first of the Bible passages I suggested. Now we come to Genesis 3.

Wow, forbidden fruit and a deceitful serpent. The mythology of the whole thing is really powerful. But the message is interesting. God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit, but the serpent persuaded them that God was just trying to prevent them from being all they could be, from being truly free. So they ate the forbidden fruit, experienced guilt and shame, blamed it on anyone but themselves, and fell under God's judgment.

The whole thing seems so alien to here and now, but it does answer one question: If God, indeed, is responsible for us being here, and we are royally messed up, then either God isn't very good at the creation thing or something happened to our initial perfection.

We are royally messed up, you know. I'm writing this not even 24 hours since those malicious lunatics bombed London. We can get all self-righteous and distance ourselves from terrorists, but I don't see any of us acing this living thing. We fight with one another, look out for number one, get lonely, get bitter, get whatever (you fill in the blanks). How did we turn into this? The Bible says we decided to separate ourselves from God and, left to our own devices, we messed everything up.

I hope you don't mind this dismal little tome. I'm feeling a little jaded as I look at a photo of one of those terrific double decked London buses ripped open like a tin can.