Erskine Wellness Model

Definition of Wellness

Wellness refers to the desire to enhance one’s total wellbeing through positive health behaviors and preventive practices. It is a process of acquiring a lifestyle that seeks balance in all areas of human life and existence. Components of wellness include physical fitness, stress management, health maintenance, weight management, meditation, healthy diet, and many other similar concerns. Achieving wellness involves a series of personal decisions over time about how one will live in relation to all dimensions of human existence and awareness. For a Christian, wellness means treating oneself and others as God’s handiwork, as persons created in God’s image and likeness.

The Bible teaches that when God created humanity he created humans to represent or reflect the wholeness that was characteristic of the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Incarnation of Jesus Christ in human form manifested the original wholeness of God’s creative masterpiece. Luke describes the human dimensions of Jesus by observing that he “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:42). I. Howard Marshall (Commentary on Luke) observes that “The intended picture is one of perfect development” (130). Jesus models (among other things) the paragon of perfect humanity in all of its original wholeness. (Jesus models more than this, of course, but our purpose here is not to exhaust Christology but simply to make this point.)

When Paul prays for the church at Thessalonica, he prays that “God himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1Thess 5:23). Anthony Hoekema (Created in God’s Image) states that “. . . the emphasis of the text is on the whole person” (208). What this verse teaches is that there is a very close relationship between holiness and wholeness. This is seen most vividly in the Book of Leviticus where the concept of holiness is most fully explained. Gordon J. Wenham (The Book of Leviticus) writes, “The idea of wholeness. . . is the notion implicitly assumed to be essential to holiness” (18).

The Erskine Wellness Model understands wellness to include the concept of human wholeness and to represent a movement toward whole person maturity and completeness as envisioned in the Scriptures and enunciated in various theological traditions represented on the Erskine campus (see for example John Wesley’s Primitive Physic). In addition, the Erskine Wellness Model understands that the Christian concept of wellness as wholeness can be further informed by the social sciences and that part of the task of Christian institutions of higher education is to define the relationship between these two fields of inquiry.

Indeed, the purpose of Christian higher education is to assist students in the pursuit of the integration of faith and learning on the assumption that these two realms of inquiry are in need of unification and indeed can and should be unified under the Lordship of Christ. As Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper put it: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”

To be sure, the Scriptures offer a pre-scientific view of the world and humanity. However, this does not make the Scriptures unscientific. The language of wholeness is characteristic of both the Scriptures and the social sciences. H. Newton Malony Wholeness and Holiness: Readings in the Theology, Psychology of Mental Health) observes: "Scripture teaches that the human person functions in psychosomatic wholeness. Hence, the Hebrew viewpoint of man as a unitary organism is basically a clinical understanding. The modern development of psychosomatic medicine is recognition of the unity of the human organism in medical science". (40, 48).

Although both religion and the social sciences use terms and descriptors that emphasize the various aspects that go to make up the whole person, the final picture is still of a whole individual seen from his/her constituent parts.

The Erskine Wellness Model suggests that there are six personal domains or dimensions that can be said to characterize all humans across all cultures. These six dimensions of the human person are:

1.	Physical
2.	Intellectual
3.	Emotional
4.	Social
5.	Moral
6.	Spiritual

These six dimensions are used because they are supported by empirical evidence from the social sciences as partaking of developmental unfolding across the lifespan.

The Erskine Wellness Model conceives of the whole person as a personal ecosystem with the six dimensions representing the diversity of organisms that comprise each person’s ecosystem. A basic tenet of ecosystem theory is that the more diverse the ecosystem, the stronger that ecosystem is and the better able it is to withstand both internal and external forces that seek to destroy its balance and wholeness. The individual Christian represents a personal ecosystem seeking to maintain equilibrium among the various human aspects (physical, intellectual, social, etc.) so that he/she continues to grow and develop toward greater and greater levels of maturation and wholeness. Since Erskine seeks to prepare leaders both for society and the church, it would seem logical to conclude that the Erskine experience should seek to facilitate whole person development among its students.

The Erskine Wellness Model also posits that the personal ecosystem is nested within a larger communal macrosystem comprised of various contexts, settings, social units, communities, and institutions. For instance, the average student comes to Erskine from a family of origin and possibly has formed his/her own family with a spouse and possibly children. In addition, students may be a part of a church family with various levels of responsibility and involvement. Furthermore, students are a part of a community in which they reside with neighbors and friends who have an influence on their development and maturation as persons. This potential whole person, as a student at Erskine, is a part of an academic community that seeks to have a positive influence on further growth and development as a whole person. All of these different components of a given student’s ecosystem form an interlocking web of influence and relationships. The interaction between the student and his/her communal macrosystem produces positive or negative results in terms of the student’s development as a whole person. Human ecosystem theory has very elaborate descriptions of how these ecosystems are formed and function. (See Urie Broffenbrenner, The Ecology of Human Development and Making Human Beings Human: Bioecological Perspectives on Human Development.)

The Erskine Wellness Model envisions an ideal balance among the various dimensions of the personal ecosystem and a healthy equilibrium among the various components of the communal macrosystem. Although we are a Christian institution concerned about the spiritual welfare of our students and seeking to promote their spiritual development, we understand that an exclusive focus and concern only for the so-called spiritual dimension truncates the biblical ideal and reduces the whole person to a soul and the institution’s mission to a myopic spirituality. If our goal is to be compatible with what is given in Scripture and with what can be learned from the social sciences, then our concern must be for the student as a whole person including but not limited to the six dimensions posited in the Erskine Wellness Model. Therefore, our concern must be not just the formation of student spiritually but the development of the whole person encompassing but not limited to all six dimensions of the Erskine Wellness Model. This means that we are just as intentional about physical development as we are about spiritual development. The purpose of an Erskine education is to develop the whole person in cooperation with the divine purpose to produce in all those who profess faith in Christ whole person conformity to the image of Christ.