The "Goodness" of Man

I rarely ever see Nightline, but a few months ago I happened upon an interview anchor Cynthia McFadden had with Kay Warren, wife of author and pastor Rick Warren. During the course of the conversation, Kay was explaining how every person born is depraved and in need of a Savior. Cynthia interrupts her and says "really? I would take the opposite approach. I think mankind is basically good."

This is a popular notion in our culture - men and women are born basically good. "Sure, they mess up every once in a while, but overall their good outweighs their bad," is the general thought. But if this were actually true, then how do things like this actually happen?

I'd seen a couple of headlines this past week about this hit and run, but when I finally read the short article I linked to above, I couldn't help but think about the "goodness" of man that our culture talks about. If mankind was generally good, then someone would have walked over and helped this elderly gentleman in less than a minute. In fact, if people are inherently good, then the driver would have immediately stopped to help the 78-year-old he leveled.

So in the lens of the world, this incident is shocking. But from a biblical lens, it isn't shocking a bit. Scripture clearly teaches that "All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one." (Psalm 14:3) and "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23). This is why Kay Warren is right and Cynthia McFadden has bought the lie - mankind is depraved and desperately needs help to overcome it. Thank God for Jesus! :o)