"I'm a sinner, I'm a saint/ I do not feel ashamed," Meredith Brooks once sang in her song "Bitch"

There are fundamental denominational differences in Christianity that tackle the question of saint vs. sinner. Arminians believe that everyone is a saint that messes up sometimes. Calvinists believe that everyone is a sinner saved by grace. But it's not mutually exclusive: we can be both saints and sinners, and letting denominational differences divide us.

The fact is there are things we do, by the grace of God, that make us saints, whether it is the work we do in our communities or in our loved ones' lives. But we are all human beings and undeniably sinners who hurt people all the time and have our own fundamental shortcomings. The complications of the human condition make us both. Even Martin Luther King Jr., who was is widely regarded as one of the most saintly men of our nation's consciousness, had a mistress the night before he was killed. When he advocated for a "radical redistribution of wealth" and against the Vietnam War, his popularity sagged terribly.

And by no means does that mean we should condemn him. The good he did outweighs his sin, in a lot of our minds, but why can't we apply that same standard to others, who are less high-profile than a man like Martin Luther King Jr., because who are we to judge? And effective portrayals of all of us means not sanitizing us, being honest about who we are as children of God, and not use us as Hallmark heroes, in the words of Hampton Sides of the Washington Post, as people who are "airbrushed, Photoshopped, simon-pure." Sides urges us to remember King as a man, not a saint, and we, too, should regard ourselves as complicated people who are both saints but also simply human beings.

"King was a human being: flawed, vulnerable, uncertain about the future, subject to appetites and buffeted by the extraordinary stresses of his position," Sides writes. "His civil rights cause was holy, but he was a sinner...We need to see King in all his pathos, imperfection and messy ambiguity...Through his moments of very human doubt and disappointment, King remained true to the message of nonviolence at a time when the world seemed on the brink of self-annihilation."

By seeing King with a halo above him, fully saint and none sinner, "we do him little honor. By fashioning him into a fleshless icon, we place his achievements at a sterile remove. By calling our heroes superhuman we also let ourselves off the hook: Why do the hard work of bettering the world if that's something only saints do?" The Memphis sanitation workers that King advocated for changed the world just as much as he did.

And if Martin Luther King has flaws, we too have similar flaws as sinners, no more or less. Any less of a balanced conversation between saint and sinner, we do ourselves a major disservice.

At the end of the day, we follow the same God in Jesus Christ. There is no reason to have deep divisions or wars in our denominational differences. The differences stem from our approach to our faith rather than our faith and worship itself.

I am a Calvinist, so I have obvious biases in this next statement. While Calvinists might believe in belief and regeneration before obedience, and while Arminians might be more inclined believe in "preach it till you believe it" and obedience before belief and regeneration, at the end of the day it doesn't matter that much. We all have our ways of moving closer to God, whether it's misguided or not.

Eddie Kaufholz of The New Activistwrites that "the answer of what matters about denominations has little to do with what they believe and more to do with how God is shaping and wiring you." We are misguided when we focus on conversations on God Himself to start. "More specifically, what do we know about God, and what is core to being in a right relationship with Him?"

In John 14:6, Jesus told us "I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Yes, Jesus had his opinion about whether we're theologically correct, but the core of Christianity is a relationship with God, not being theologically correct.

And instead of having deep differences about denominational differences, we have to focus on what's core to us. "What hills are you willing to die on?...Discovering what's imperative for a church to adhere to in order for you to be a part of that community," Kaufholz continues. In Heaven, we Christians are going to be with people who approached God and appraoched life in a completely different way than us.

So who cares, then about what our opinion on baptism is, whether it's "supernatural, symbolic, both, neither?" Or even communion for that matter? If there are major disagreements between us and a church, why should that stop us from being engaged in our local community?

Kaulholz urges us to be "bold in [our] beliefs, yet malleable in [our] willingness to learn and change." He himself has wrestled with the role of women in the church, and he is predisposed to engage in a community that maintains a gender-inclusive stance. He supports woman preaching in the church.

"And so for me to be able to pour my life into a church, I need that church to either be in agreement with that, or at least be brave enough to say 'We don't really know, but we're working on figuring it out.' If they say no, that's their prerogative, and I'm glad we'll all meet up in heaven to see who was right."

So who cares? It's not for us to decide, but for God to decide, and the room for ambiguity means we must have open minds about competing beliefs in relation to our beliefs.

As a word of caution about this though, I would not consider all churches (even if they share a denomination) as equal. There are currently, and have always been, divisions within the church as they walk in obedience. If I were you, I'd treat each community as unique, talk to someone who actually goes there, and be open to learning and growing—even if you don't fully agree.

So it's not about what's right. It's about what God is teaching us and what's kind. What's core is Jesus, and what's secondary is these denominational differences. And so the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12:12 that "just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, through many, are one body, so it is with Christ." And that means Catholics, Arminians, Calvinists, Unitarians, Mormons, and every other group of people that follow Christ are members of the same body in Christ as a body of believers.

No matter how we approach obedience, how God sees us is the most important thing.