Together Whole: A Participatory Understanding of Health from a Wesleyan Perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article argues for a participatory understanding of health from a Wesleyan perspective. Such an understanding needs to be rooted in Wesley's soteriology of the renewal of creation. Health from that perspective also has communal, social, and ecological dimensions. Such participatory understanding of health then is exemplified by looking at the social and communal significance of Jesus' healing ministry, which never focuses solely on the health of individuals. It follows John Swinton in his examination of depression and dementia as phenomena that need to be looked at theologically anew from a participatory perspective, since they are always more than just conditions attached to individuals. The second half of the article highlights Wesley's soteriology shaped by an understanding of salvation/health as participation in the divine, deals critically with a too narrow understanding of the relation between health and holiness, and finally affirms the Eucharist as a paradigmatic and non-individualistic expression of health as participation with not only communal but also ecological implications.