Page 177 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 8

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This indigenous sensitivity was in harmony with biblical teaching that
later came to our tribe through Christianity. In Church, we learnt that
God is sovereign. He made everything and owns everything. In relati-
onship to the Almighty, the human being is his creation and, in God’s
world, merely a steward whose life should be lived in harmony with the
Creator, the self and with others. Failure to live in this relationship results
in a broken relationship between God and humanity and this affects even
the weather and so people’s livelihoods. We were happy to read passages
like 2 Chronicles 7:13 – “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no
rain, or commend locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my
people, if my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves
and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I
hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

The main part of holistic personhood is therefore comprised of the
individual’s healthy relationship with God. My Christian roots are Me-
thodist and my understanding of wholeness is informed by Wesleyan
theology. In Kenya, the Methodist Church is unashamedly evangelical
and so we embrace Wesleyan spirituality to the letter. John Wesley belie-
ved the biblical truth that through the sin and disobedience of Adam, sin
entered the human race (Romans 5:12). Our ancestor therefore declared
himself independent from God by going contrary to the command of
the Almighty. Humanity continues in the same defiance – trying to live
in disregard of the Creator. This causes us to run and run in search of
harmony and fulfillment. However, for as long as we live away from the
Creator, we are lost, thirsty for belonging and for ever wanting to disco-
ver who we are and where we are going.

However, God loved humanity so much that he gave himself to redeem
us back to himself (John 3:16). When an individual recognizes his way-
wardness and seeks a fully restored relationship with the Triune God, he
experiences sanctification. Sanctification is not just forgiveness of sin but
includes reconciliation and re-establishment of a broken relationship.

This relationship with God is dynamic just like any other bond that needs
consistent replenishing and revitalization. This dynamic relationship in-
creasingly becomes part of our personhood as we are “marked, oriented
and re-oriented by love.” Tennent adds that the Christian faith in Jesus
1
Christ provides sanctification as we enter into full relationship where our
whole life: body, mind and spirit become re-oriented “towards the joyful
company of the Triune God.”

John Wesley believed that this experience transforms an individual into
a new holistic person whose desire is to live out the totality of the Crea-
tor. Living out this totality is the true principle of personhood. Wesley
described his own experience thus:

1 Timoth Tennent. Sanctification, A Reorientation of the Heart: Why I am a Methodist
and an Evangelical. Asbury Theological Seminary. Thursday, July 14th, 2011 http://ti-
mothytennent.com/2011/07/14/sanctification-reorientation-of-the-heart-why-i-am-a-
methodist-and-an-evangelical-part-5/

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