I’D RATHER LAUGH WITH THE SINNERS THAN CRY WITH THE SAINTS, THE SINNERS ARE MUCH MORE FUN: Jesus would have hung out in a dive bar—and not just to convert its patrons.

But one of the things that non-Christians — and for that matter all too many Christians — make is, that from Jesus’s perspective even the saints are sinners. You can’t reach Heaven through your own goodness; original sin — which is perhaps best understood as being like a kind of hereditary disease — means that by virtue of being human you’re unworthy of Heaven no matter what you do. Only divine grace can get you in the door. “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all,” and that includes the saints. (Though presumably they get a leg up on the divine grace front). Humans want to rank themselves in terms of goodness, because humans by nature want to rank themselves against other humans. Those differences are less significant to God.

Yeah, I’m a preacher’s kid. How could you tell?