Health and Medicine in the Methodist Tradition

Journey toward Wholeness
E. BROOKS HOLIFIELD

As E. Brooks Holifield notes in his introduction, "John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, would have relished the opportunity to write this volume. He recognized the power of religious traditions, and he thought that issues of health and medicine were profoundly interwoven into the texture of religious faith. All ten themes that have concerned [this series] -- healing and well-being, suffering and madness, passages and sexuality, dying and caring, morality and dignity -- were among the topics that Wesley believed should interest Christians."

In the attempt to show how a Wesleyan understanding of theology might inform a modern Methodist sensibility, the author has structured his treatment of Health and Medicine in the Methodist Tradition around the polarities of health and healing, holiness and happiness, penalty and promise, love and law, restraint and responsibility, and possibility and limit. These are not to be construed as opposites or as mutually exclusive extremes. Each member of each pair both checks and enriches the other. They provide a way of establishing boundaries; they mark the way of a journey--"the way of salvation," or the way of love.

E. BROOKS HOLIFIELD is Charles Howard Chandler Professor of American Church History at the Chandler School of Theology of Emory University. He is the author of The Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, The Gentlemen Theologians: American Theology in Southern Culture, 1795-1860, and A History of Pastoral Care in America: From Salvation to Self-Realization.



Contents

Foreword by Martin E. Marty			ix
Introduction			xiii
Part I: JOURNEY
1.	Wesley and His Tradition		3
	A Methodist Tradition?		4
	Salvation and Health in the Christian Journey		8
	The Uses of Tradition		22
2.	Healing and Health		28
	Wesley as Healer		29
	Tradition: Spiritual Healing		38
	Tradition: Health		47
Part II: VALLEYS OF THE SHADOW
3.	Suffering		63
	Holiness and Happiness		64
	Suffering and Madness		65
	Holiness against Happiness		69
	Holiness and Happiness Revisited		75
	Some Medical Implications		81
4.	Dying and Death		85
	Penalty and Promise		86
	Death as Promise		90
	Penalty and Promise Revisited		95
Part III: GUIDEPOSTS
5.	Morality and Dignity		109
	Creation and Grace		110
	From Rules to Persons		116
	Love and Law Revisited		127
6.	Passages and Sexuality		133
	The Restraint of Impulse		134
	From Restraint to Responsibility		139
	Restraint and Responsibility Revisited		150
7.	Caring and Well-Being		160
	Limit and Possibility		161
	Limit and Possibility Revisited		164
	Caring Institutions		171
	Well-Being		176
Notes			181

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