Thoughts from the Summer Institute on Theology and Disability

This week, I am attending the 5th Annual Summer Institute on Theology and Disability hosted by the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University.  Bethesda Institute and Rev. Bill Gaventa have been instrumental in developing this program over the past several years, bringing together the best scholarship and ministry models from around the world.  (For more background, information, and past presentations, click here)

I've decided to blog daily during this conference.  My goals are to give my friends, colleagues, pastors, and local disability ministers a chance to hear what is going on.  Some might ask, what does this conference have to do with my weekly Sunday School special needs program?  A lot!  Many of the speakers and presenters here "doing theology" have been in this field as a person with a disability, a family relative of a person with a disability, or been doing disability ministry in the trenches ever since Willowbrook was closed 42 years ago. The creation of theology is simultaneously done by the trained academy (professors, clergy) and the local church (people, laity).  On rare occasions the two intersect, sparking rich conversations and ground breaking initiatives. This is one of those places!

I've already met some of the new young faces that are the up and coming face of the movement who are breaking new ground in bioethics and in Spanish speaking communities.  I hope to be introducing them on this blog throughout the week.

This marks my 10th year involved in the theology and disability movement. During the course of that time, I have seen a major surge in the interest of churches, pastors, and theologians in disability issues.  The academic discipline really only appeared in 2004 with the Society of Biblical Literature 's creation of a subgroup of scholars.  Since that time, many of the initiatives I called for in 2005 (see the article here) have come into being in the last decade.  As 35 year disability ministry veteran AG pastor Charlie Chivers of Special Touch told me last month, the sovereign Spirit of God has been moving over his people and disability ministries is moving to the forefront in the US and around the world.

I am attending this year in several roles:  As the Executive Treasurer for Friendship Ministries, I am exhibiting some of the best curriculum developed for adults with intellectual disabilities, used on 4 continents, dozens of countries, and available in both Spanish and English.

I am also attending as a student completing my D.Min from AGTS at Evangel University.  I'm looking forward to hearing my project advisor, AG theologian and now Fuller Seminary missiologist Amos Yong kick off the morning plenary session. I'm scheduled to learn from the authors I've read extensively from over the past decade -- Hans Reinders, John Swinton, Stanley Haeurwas, Ben Conner, Tom Reynolds, Jeremy Schipper, and fellow NACSPED colleague and Friendship Ministries board member Erik Carter.

Finally, I'm attending as friend.  Looking through the list of attendees I see colleagues from past courses and even some 2006 Special Touch Summer Getaway (Minnesota) attendees.  I like how Wichita represents -- Myra Jacobs (my fellow Haysville USD 261 special educator) and Tom Racunas, former principal of HeartSpring and current Director of Ministry for Persons with Disability for the Wichita Catholic Diocese.

It's going to be a great week!

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.  Amen!  (Eph. 3.20-21 ESV)

The Bible, Disability, and the Church

BOOK REVIEW

For many years, practical ministry to people with disabilities has continued despite the lack of theologians reflecting on what impact disability has on the church at large.  A brief respite has appeared with the writings of Amos Yong in The Bible, Disability, and the Church: A New Vision of the People of God.  Yong, influenced by growing up in an Assembly of God pastor’s home as the older sibling of a brother with Down Syndrome, has penned five articles which hope to reimagine the church and its relationship alongside people with disabilities. 

This 176 page book, which includes a chapter study guide, is reflective of Yong’s engaging personal speaking style and is targeted to the layperson and local church pastor.  Yong, the J. Rodman Williams Professor of Theology at Regent University School of Divinity, revisits the same themes found in his earlier systematic work entitled Theology and Down Syndrome (2008), yet does so in a manner more accessible for most readers.  While a few of the million dollar theological words remain, they are appropriately defined in context and would not hinder the reader from comprehension.

Yong defines his presuppositions early on: people with disabilities are created in the image of God, they are people first, and they are not evil blemishes to be eliminated or fixed into normal.  He posits that most people read their normal experiences into the Biblical narrative, resulting in the social marginalization of people with disabilities; it is only by recognizing the inherent prejudices that the Biblical reader understands how these passages actually indicate God has fully welcomed people with disabilities into full social inclusion and joint ministry.  Yong continues that it is the person (and church structures) without disabilities that must be saved from practicing discrimination.

Yong moves out of his comfort zone of systematic theology into the realm of biblical theology to make his point.  His line of argument extends from the First Testament with Job, Jacob and Mephibosheth into the New Testament with Zacheus, the Ethiopian Eunuch and Paul.  By asserting that people with disabilities are central to the redemptive history gospel accounts, he concludes that they are also fully part of the post-Pentecost church age and must be a vital functioning part of the body of Christ in order for the church to accomplish its mission.

Yong completes his work with a re-examination of resurrection life.  Many normate understandings presume that resurrected beings have no direct links to the disabled bodies of this age and therefore should be fixed on this side of eternity.  Yong rejects this perspective by looking at the resurrected, yet nail scarred body of Christ.  He boldly claims since people marked with disabilities do have a place in God’s new creation even more so should there be a place for them in the church today.

Yong’s positions are a welcome refrain to those within the disability family.  They also cause appropriate discomfort for those persons outside (or even very close) to that community, yet not currently disabled themselves.  Yong has delicately balanced two evangelical strands of tradition – a yearning for liberation and a yearning for wholeness.  His brief comments on the concept of the church as one body with many members reveal excellent points, but a full scale discussion of how the gifts are fully appropriated without discrimination within the body has not yet been fully developed.  It is this resulting tension which reveals much more work can be done. 

This book is a must read for all pastors and those that minister alongside people with disabilities.  It lays an excellent Biblical foundation on why disability ministry should exist within the local church.  With the enclosed study questions, it can easily be adapted into a small group Bible study for those in your church who wish to catch the vision of a disabled-inclusive congregation.

The Bible, Disability, and the Church: A New Vision of thePeople of God.  Amos Yong (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2011). 176 pp. Paperback, $20.00, ISBN: 978-0-8028-6608-0.