Holistic Holiness: A Vision of the World as Our Parish

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

Over the years of my academic career I have enjoyed occasional visits to my alma mater, Houghton College (now University). Among the many memories stimulated on those visits have been enduring ideas that were impressed upon me during my undergraduate studies there. One key lesson came from my favorite Houghton teacher, Dr. Josephine Rickard—“Doc Jo,” we all called her— an English professor who impressed upon all of us who majored in her field of study the importance of gaining a “holistic” view of reality. She was very fond of quoting a line from Matthew Arnold’s poem “To a Friend” about a friend of his “Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole.” 

The other reminder was of several chapel addresses by Bible professors who helped to correct my Calvinist misconceptions about Wesleyan theology. John Wesley’s understanding of holiness, they insisted, went well beyond the idea of a highly individualized notion of “sinless perfection.” It meant the kind of holy living that encompassed all of life. Wesley’s ministry, they pointed out, encompassed both evangelism and social justice.

These ideas from the poet Arnold and the theologian Wesley came together in my youthful mind as an emphasis on holistic holiness. And that notion of a many-faceted Christian life has stuck with me. When later in my life I discovered the Dutch Calvinist Abraham Kuyper’s wonderful manifesto that Jesus Christ says “Mine!” about “every square inch of creation,” I saw that as echoing the expansive Wesleyan understanding of true holiness. Real holiness means caring about everything and everyone that belongs to Jesus.

I certainly had seen the ways that the expansive view had been hidden in Wesleyanism during the twentieth century. But now the Wesleyan theologians were pointing to a more robust conception of holiness that is grounded in Wesley’s theology. I came to see this understanding, for example, in Wesley’s oft-quoted “The world is my parish” declaration. It has the same kind of grand scope as Kuyper’s “every square inch” manifesto. Wesley gives us the sense of the largeness of his vision when he goes on to observe that God’s Word requires him to “go about doing good” in the world. God wants us to see the whole world as a “parish” in which we promote the good things that please the Lord.

Of course, the condemnation of “worldliness” has been a key holiness theme, and properly understood, the condemnation is legitimate. We can certainly find biblical warnings against a too-friendly relationship to “the world,” as in, “Do not love the world or the things in the world” (1 John 2:15). But we are also told in Scripture that God still loves the world that he originally declared good. Jesus Christ came not only to save sinners. The Gospel is also about God’s response to the effects of sin that come to bear on the whole of the world that God has made. 

I came away from Houghton with good holiness themes enriching my Reformed theology. But I also came away with holiness music feeding my soul. For one thing, I have sung “And Can it Be?” in many worship settings since then, but nothing has matched the singing of it in a Houghton chapel service. However, the hymns that were unique to my Houghton experience were those that featured the “thirst” theme. These two stand out for me. One is “Ho, Every One That Is Thirsty In Spirit,” with its wonderful Refrain:

I will pour water on him that is thirsty;
I will pour floods upon the dry ground.
Open your heart for the gifts I am bringing;
While ye are seeking Me I will be found.

The other, though, is my all-time favorite:

All my life long I had panted
For a draught from some cool spring,
That I hoped would quench the burning
Of the thirst I felt within.

 Hallelujah! I have found Him
Whom my soul so long has craved!
Jesus satisfies my longings;
Through His life I now am saved.

I came to see that this thirst imagery was closely linked to the holiness motif. There is a parallel to this in the imagery of Augustine’s well-known prayer: “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” We were created for fellowship with the Holy One, and we yearn for the holiness that can only be found by abiding in him. When we are restored to that holiness we find the satisfaction which “so long my soul has craved.”

I attended a Rolling Stones concert at the Rose Bowl once and witnessed 90,000 chanting with Mick Jagger, “Can’t get no satisfaction! Can’t get no satisfaction!” I did not chant with them. Instead, I thanked the Lord that I had learned at Houghton to sing about a thirst deep in my soul that can only be satisfied by the God who pours the waters of holiness on all the square inches of the dry ground of our sinful condition.

Richard Mouw is Senior Professor of Faith and Public Life at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he served as President from 1993-2013.