"The church exists, as it always has, to save souls by elevating people’s values and desires."

I recently came across this quote in an article my friend posted on Facebook. Here is the link.  I agree with the overall sentiment of the article, but this quote disturbs me. Allow me to explain why.

This statement seems true at first glance. Certainly church should be a community where people are redirected from their normal self-absorbed paths to values and desires that are "elevated" and eternal. But our souls are not saved by having good morals. Our souls are not saved by having better values and desires. This would mean that what we are saved from is only a misguided notion of ethics. And what we are saved for is to be good people who can articulate higher ethics. That is it? If that is what the church exists for then we are probably wasting our time with it. When I look at my life, at my heart and my soul I do not see a man who needs a little polishing here and there. I need a new self. I was raised with strong morals and a lively sense of duty. So you could say that my values and desires are already elevated. In that case I don't need saving at all. I've already made it. How disappointing.

Why would I need God in this case? I could just go on my own way without any of the difficult, messy work of trying to know a mysterious God. I could skip discipleship. A lot of institutions, philosophies and religions exist to elevate people's morals. If the church is just another one of these, then its existence is superfluous. Then the church saves souls by a method which many others already know and a process in which God is not needed. Thus, a simple statement by this writer has inadvertently made the church obsolete (and possibly God, too).

Fortunately the God that the Bible talks about is not nearly that simple, dull or small. This is the heart of the matter. God loves us and passionately pursues his people. God is a God who chases after one small sheep to rescue it, who throws a grand party when the son who disowned him returns home and who would rather suffer torture on a cross than break his promise to be faithful to us. This is how souls are saved: by God. And by God alone. By God's love working through God's power. The church, thank God, does not exist to save souls. It exists as a witness to the fact that God saves souls. And saves them not from misguided morals for the purpose of being pretty good people. He saves them from death, isolation, sin, evil and injustice for the purpose of praising,  thanking, and living in joyful obedience to him, the God of wild mercy. We are saved for the purpose of his good pleasure, because God is faithful. That the church would save souls by resetting their moral compass is good. Praise God that the truth is better than good.