John Calvin on Wriggling in Worship

In the conservative Christian culture in which I grew up, wiggling during times of worship was severely frowned upon. Regular admonishments to “sit still” for the duration of Sunday sermons and mid-week prayer meetings were reinforced by various means, some more dubious than others. So, for instance, I recall regularly listening—outside of times of worship—to one particular song on cassette tape which urged youngsters such as myself to “squash the wiggle worm” whenever we might “feel the urge to squirm.”

That song, perhaps because of its rather catchy tune by the musical standards of my childhood context, has become permanently etched upon my brain. It invariably pops into my head when I’m least in the mood for it (very often in church, in fact). In light of this, I was intrigued to discover recently in John Calvin an exhortation against “wriggling” in worship which superficially resembled the well-meant admonition of that song. Calvin’s rebuke of those who would squirm during worship—or more specifically, during times of prayer, which Calvin calls “the chief part of [God’s] worship”—occurs in the midst of his lengthy chapter on prayer in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. It follows immediately upon consideration of both God’s commandment to us to pray and God’s promise to hear us when we do. “When these two things have been established,” Calvin writes, “it is certain that those who try to wriggle out of coming directly to God [in prayer] are not only rebellious and stubborn but are also convicted of unbelief because they distrust the promises.”

Though these words from Calvin quickly had me humming the tune to the song noted above, it should be immediately clear that the kind of “wriggling” in (or, rather, “out of”) prayer that Calvin has in mind is different in kind from the wiggling which children might be prone to during worship. For one thing, the squirming Calvin has in mind would seem to pertain as much, if not more, to private prayer than corporate prayer. For another, it would seem to flow more from an attitude of one’s heart than from ants in one’s pants. Thus Calvin names this wriggling a symptom of rebellion, obstinacy, and ultimately unbelief. This wriggling, then, is a serious matter, and worth exploring a bit more. What is Calvin urging us to avoid? Keep reading