BOOK REVIEW
Persons with disability have co-existed within culture in a parallel
universe – only recently have these two domains collided with each other. Normalization
and inclusion have slowly advanced in many social and education settings, but
grind to a mere crawl for many persons by early adulthood. A crucial bridge is
needed to anchor the transition into adulthood to guarantee full participation
in the community. The answer which Erik W. Carter posits in
Including People with Disabilities in Faith Communities may lie in the one social institution
even more resistant to change – congregational communities. This work develops
a prophetic picture of the ideal – a mutual interchange between social service
providers and the church as community. Seeing this book as a practical guide,
Carter drifts from his role as a recognized special educator and emerges as an
aspiring practical theologian.
This Best Special
Needs Title 2007 awarded by Exceptional
Parent Magazine, captures the essence of Carter’s desire to integrate
traditional special education transitional services alongside faith
communities. Carter, (Wheaton College, PhD-Vanderbilt), a former high school transitional
specialist and now Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education
at Peabody College/Vanderbilt University approaches this 236 page volume from the
perspective of one who was brought into a faith community through the witness
of a person with intellectual disability. His approach, therefore, immediately
places social valuation on the effectiveness of the contributions of persons
with disability in the larger dominant domain and never looks back. He examines
the symbiotic roles both religious institutions and social service providers
can mutually undertake and highlights the changes each institution will need to
undergo in order to exponentially expand the integration of persons with disability
into the larger community.
Carter intends for this book to be used as guide map for a
congregational journey towards full inclusion. He clearly states the problem – only
an insignificant percentage of people with disabilities are active in faith communities.
The following seven chapters and two in depth appendixes of resources provide
clear markers on where to go and what to do.
For those unfamiliar with the developments in recent disability
history, Carter offers a brief recap of the rise of disability rights and
education in the 20th century and the remaining barriers persons
with disability have to gain full inclusion. He then turns his attention to
what signals a welcoming congregation through the lens of a person with a
disability. In a convicting taxonomy, he establishes a metric for congregations
to measure their progress in developing an inclusive church and then suggests
systems and procedures that can propel a congregation in forward movement
through critical reflection and response.
Not content to just challenge a congregation, Carter spends
the next three chapters developing resources, questions, and proposing
solutions for the three main arenas of church life: corporate worship services,
personal religious education, and daily fellowship and support. He asserts that
congregations who think they are welcoming may not be perceived in that manner.
He advocates that deliberate and targeted intentionality be added to mission
statements, greeting programs and outreach events. Multiple sample surveys and
vignettes are provided in order to help develop a vision team which assesses
the congregation’s readiness and willingness as well as examining what potential
partnership resources already exist in the larger local community. Lest
participants think everything can be program driven, he issues a key admonition
– focus on prayer and people. An important reminder is also given – as congregations
tend to change over every five years, successful implementation of cultural
change will need to take place over the long term during several cycles for
positive integration.
Carter moves his focus from the facility and corporate
culture of the church to that of individualized personal religious action
programs and plans with a focus on equipping lay volunteers. He cautions that a
program which merely segregates students at ability level does not take
advantage of the mutuality of the richness of community – the most important faith
lessons, he asserts, occurs in the relationships that develop between teacher
and student. He suggests that religious education workers receive professional development
and insight from public school and social service professionals on appropriate
curricular accommodations and modifications within the faith goals of the
congregation. Inversely, he recommends that the separate domains of Sunday school
and public school be bridged – inviting religious workers to request observation
time of the student in a daily educational setting.
Recognizing that people’s faith journeys do not occur only
on the Sabbath, Carter spends extensive time looking at how the church can help
during the other six days. Many families and adults touched by disabilities
live in a realm of artificial paid supports and services. Carter asserts that
natural lifelong supports already existing in the congregation have the
potential to develop enduring relationships and real friendships within the
community. For this to happen, however, requires an intentional effort on the
part of the congregation and a change in visitation polices in pastoral care
guidelines. He further recommends that congregations seek ways to develop
vocation – meaningful work and service – in the lives of people with
disabilities and urges them to lead by example. He advises a congregational
review of every weekday ministry the church sponsors through the lens of
disability. He offers numerous ideas on how congregations can develop spiritual
and emotional support at major life transition times as well as through common
respite events. After systematically tearing down objections to potential
ministry, Carter concludes with a final prophetic injunction – the congregation
must respond personally in some way.
Carter, writing from within the social service tradition,
does not lay all the blame for lack on inclusion at the foyer of the church. He
knows all too well that the service provider industry has not traditionally taken
steps to facilitate the appropriate spiritual growth of its clients. He takes
to task and then challenges those within the profession to invest the time with
their clients to find out their desire. He liberates providers and addresses
their reluctance head on by pointing to research that indicates persons with
disabilities with spiritual supports have more meaningful expressions and
relationships in the other domains for their lives. He provides numerous resources:
surveys, person center planning approaches, revisited policy statements and new
best practices guidelines that can aid service providers in crafting a
different support approach.
Carter concludes his book by melding both sectors together. He
recognizes clearly that future success at true inclusion and integration will
only come about through established partnerships between the social service
sector and the local congregation within a broader community network. He
recommends a process of strengths based community mapping which identifies current
assets and focuses on networking them together. He also recommends that
congregations create mutual disability gatherings – working together to
transform the community. It is through these collaborative efforts, Carter
believes, that persons with disabilities will be able to become fully
integrated and included in the local community.
In authoring this book, Carter brought an important witness
to bear in the larger Christian community. Without question, he appropriately identified
one of the largest hidden social justice issues in the contemporary Christian
community today; moreover, he offered a practical solution. The author accomplished
his stated intention – providing numerous reproducible resources and a flexible
framework to assist any local congregation in developing a collaborative effort
for mutual integration.
Furthermore, it was written in an easily understandable
fashion without falling into the trap of over using either theological jargon
or clinical language. That asset, however, may have been one of its weaknesses.
While it is clear Carter writes from a Christian religious perspective, it is
also evident that he approaches this interfaith textbook from a clinical lay
persons eye; he remains an outsider without inclusive access to clergy. While
service provider and educational institutions are required to implement and
often embrace best practices fairly quickly, congregational dynamics make
change tediously slow. His arguments resound within the disability and service
provider community, but they do not tend to convict congregations whom remain
convinced they already do too much. Unless one is already attuned, his prophetic
notes fall flat without a deeper exposition into contemporary expressions of
theology. The Christian community becomes moved through narrative and testimony,
connecting a daily spiritual experience within the larger scope of covenant
history and redemption, yet very few connecting vignettes appeared outside of
the introduction. This approach is undoubtedly due to the editorial requirement
of the publisher rather than the actual experience of the author.
After grappling with the issue and solution presented in
this book, pastor leaders should be able to rethink their role and must let it
affect their life prior to proclamation and presentation. This is not a task to
be entered into lightly, as it will serve as a cultural shift in a congregation’s
missional strategy. Nevertheless, it remains a critical book for church leaders
to comprehend as the onus of deciphering this into the language of faith lies
squarely upon the local church pastor.