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Part of the problem lies in the lifestyle thrust upon the pastor, who is expected to be active in the community as well as to keep the church's wheels turning. Most pastors give up study first, then prayer usually follows. John Calvin insisted that study is almost as important as prayer. This study, moreover, should entail not only the Bible but theology, for at its best theology is commentary on Scripture for the present age.

The virus that infects our contemporary worship also contaminates much traditional worship. Evangelicals who are rightly unhappy with the poverty of liturgy in their services would for the most part be equally unhappy with Catholic and Orthodox services, which give the impression of burying the Word in liturgical rites rather than allowing the Word to renew and perhaps transform our ceremony.

Earlier evangelicals like John Wesley sounded the call to social holiness, bringing the Word of God to bear upon every aspect of human life. Calvin saw the world as a theater of the glory of God, the arena in which we are called to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.

Much of modern religion turns the soul inward rather than directing it outward to the crying needs of society. Modern evangelicalism has shamefully adapted to the therapeutic society, which makes personal fulfillment the be all and end all of human existence. An eros spirituality, the desire to possess God and his blessings, predominates over a spirituality of the cross, a willingness to serve both God and our neighbor in God's world.

I am by no means discounting the rightful place for the experience of salvation in the life of the Christian. There is nothing wrong with singing, for example, "Spirit of the Living God, Fall Afresh on Me," so long as the focus is not exclusively on "me." Yet Calvin made clear there must be something more to the Christian life than striving to save one's own soul.

We are called to build a holy community in which secular life might be permeated by the values and verities of the law and the gospel. It is not wrong to seek blessings from God as we live out our vocation of being witnesses and ambassadors of our Lord Jesus Christ. These blessings, however, should be sought as the means to glorify God and to advance his kingdom.

The church father Irenaeus showed remarkable perspicacity when he declared, "The glory of God is humanity fully alive." To seek God's glory does not mean the denigration and negation of the human self, but it does entail the subordination of the self to a higher goal—the kingdom of God. Our innermost desires will be satisfied only when we are taken out of ourselves into the promises of God that never deceive (Martin Luther).

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February 5 2001, Vol. 45, No. 2