Human Flourishing:Toward a Theology of Work and Rest by Danielle Sallade Many people are discussing what constitutes genuine human flourishing.1 One helpful definition comes from theologian Nicholas Wolterstorff, who ties the concept of human flourishing in the Christian tradition to shalom. A flourishing life will be a life lived in right relationship with God, with one’s environment, with neighbors, and with self. “A flourishing life is neither merely an ‘experientially satisfying life,’ as many contemporary Westerners think, nor is it simply a life ‘well-lived,’ as a majority of ancient Western philosophers have claimed.”2 It is a life that both goes well and is lived well. I have the privilege through my vocation in campus ministry of serving current university students. My colleagues and I desire for our students to mature in their Christian faith during their college years. We long for them to flourish, borrowing from Wolterstorff, in right relationship with God (through justification in Christ), with their environment (caring […]
What keeps people from flourishing today? For many college students, busyness not only weighs them down, it causes high levels of anxiety, fear, and depression. But a flourishing life is a life that both goes well and is lived well. This essay offers students a way of hope when they recognize that they will only flourish when they live in right relationship to God, their environment, their neighbors, and themselves. Explore how you, too, can have a flourishing life.