In the ultimate sense,

is the "good life" about virtue or pleasure?

►   To those caught up in our American secular society, the important measures of life are wealth, fame or popularity, health and good looks, comfort and enjoyment.  The basic rule for them is "minimize pain and maximize pleasure."  The closest they may get to a calculation of ultimate worth may be, "The one with the most toys wins."  Jesus said that those who are preoccupied with the selfish pursuit of their own happiness will surely lose out on the fulfilling life God intended for us.

►   Is it possible that church-as-usual in America seeks to satisfy that same basic self-serving impulse (called sin), merely substituting spiritual gratification - a smugly pious feeling of religious comfort and security - for the secular types?

►   The Bible makes it clear that the good life is summed up by our virtue, faith, and character, not in our status or personal success and happiness.

►   Until we as the Church and as individual Christians are seen really holding up true heroes of the faith as role models worthy of emulation, then the world Christ died to save will continue to rightly judge that we value and strive for the same pagan idolatries that they do, just in a different package.