A number of years ago, I attended an interdenominational conference. The theme was ‘The Nature and Implications of Original Sin’. There were three days of speakers. All of them were exegetical authorities. All of them were published and all of them were respected experts in their fields of interest. Without exception, they all agreed that, independent of its specific nature, the tragic outcome of ‘original sin’ was the loss of innocence and, because of that loss, the necessary expulsion from Eden.
The last speaker, on Sunday afternoon, was a North American Native Elder. When he reached the podium, he leaned forward and said, “I 'm so sorry to hear that you have all been kicked out of the ‘Garden of Eden’ . . . We still live there.”
Well, it is Spring here in Victoria. The Iris is blooming behind my house. Flowers are everywhere, birds are singing, and the lake is glinting in the morning sunlight . . .