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Like Job, Americans do not like to admit that they are sinners, but rather like to think of themselves as good and righteous. A 2000 poll conducted by The New York Times found that 73% of the American public thinks people are good. A more recent Barna Group survey echoes these sentiments, as the data compiled indicates that 3 in 4 Americans think salvation is earned by how we live (presumably most think they are getting there).
This feeling that we have to defend our goodness is isolating. To paraphrase the old Billy Joel rock song "Only the Good Die Young," most times "we'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints." Why is it more fun to laugh with the sinners? They are not so pretentious; they are more spiritual, because they need God and other people more than the self-righteous saints. Keep this and the wisdom of seventeenth-century French intellectual Blaise Pascal in mind next time you don't want to confess your sinfulness: "Man's greatness comes from knowing he is wretched" (Pensees, p. 59).
This feeling that we have to defend our goodness is isolating. To paraphrase the old Billy Joel rock song "Only the Good Die Young," most times "we'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints." Why is it more fun to laugh with the sinners? They are not so pretentious; they are more spiritual, because they need God and other people more than the self-righteous saints. Keep this and the wisdom of seventeenth-century French intellectual Blaise Pascal in mind next time you don't want to confess your sinfulness: "Man's greatness comes from knowing he is wretched" (Pensees, p. 59).
