Book Review: Disability and the Church by Dr. Lamar Hardwick

 BOOK REVIEW

The last decade has seen an abundance of serious academic scholarship focused on disability theology, coupled with an increase amount of first-person literature on disability experience within the church. Lamar Hardwick brings forth fresh nuanced perspective in this latter category in a very accessible read entitled Disability and the Church: A Vision for Diversity and Inclusion.    

In a genre replete with disability theologians and parent advocates, his voice as a pastor with a disability (diagnosed with Autism in 2014 at age 36), places him within the vanguard of a new wave of insight.  His latest work  is a direct message to reimagining what church can be, particularly in light of the dueling challenges of a global pandemic and racial inequality.  Make no mistake – this is not just a challenge to open up sacred space to those who experience disability – it is a prophetic cry, coupled with a pragmatic framework,  to allow those without power to become a voice from the pulpit.

SUMMARY

This work is divided into a tripart  structure: birth, barriers ,and the building the body.  Hardwick makes it abundantly clear that he writes from pastor’s perspective who believes firmly in the role of the local church in building true Christian community revealed in Revelation 7. He weaves stories, anecdotes, contemporary memes, and scriptural refences as a masterful narrator – the crescendoing wave powerfully landing his points.  To the experienced disability theologian, there is not much new exegetical insight, but the notes have been re-arranged, re-mastered, and re-sung in a stronger  key.  The first 3 chapters utilizes disability presentations on television, interpreted through his own personal experiences and artistically segues  into the birth narrative of the church (Acts 2) and its predictive precursor – the Lukan banquet where persons with disabilities are given preference.

In perhaps the most striking and pivotal chapter, Hardwick emphasizes a theme that is interwoven throughout the chapters.  Most disability literature unintentionally imagines the disabled body as white.  The chapter on Barriers to Inclusion bridges both disability and diversity and critiques this ideal in  stark vividity.  The reader is reminded that the body of people with disabilities and those of African Americans both bear the marks of a society and too often a church that rejects them in pursuit of a perfect body – instead of the body of Christ.

Having presented the problem, Hardwick draws upon the Parable of the Sower to paint the broad strokes of creating an inclusive church.  Drawing upon leadership literature, he recognizes the change can only be permanent of the culture itself is rebuilt.  He devotes three chapters to practical steps in creating an inclusive church, moving from programs to people, to developing leaders from the ranks of disabled self-advocates.

Hardwick concludes the book with a series of affirmations – primarily for people with disabilities who question their call to leadership within the church.  Strategies are presented to help existing churches mentor leaders into their roles.  Only when all are utilizing their gifts, will the church be complete.

COMMENTS & CRITIQUE

Disability and the Church is an excellent primer for the local church pastor who desires to be purposefully building a diverse and inclusive community.  It contains many practical and engaging ways for special needs lay leaders and others to change culture.  And most importantly, it illustrates a path forward for people who are identified with disabilities to serve in leadership roles in their local church.  It is rare for a book to cover as many aspects of pastoral care ministry as this one does; it should become a standard text not just in disability contexts, but in general pastoral leadership.

 

Disability and the Church: A vision for Diversity and Inclusion (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2021). 208 pp. Paperback, $18.00   ISBN: 978-0-8308-4160-8

Book Review: Disability and Christian Theology

Book Review

In the last dozen years, theologians have seriously attempted to examine human disability and its implications on anthropology, culture, religion, and society.  Deborah Creamer (director, accreditation and institutional accreditation for ATS) tackles these issues head on in Disability and Christian Theology, first by rejecting traditional perspectives on disability, both medical and social, considering recent proposals of liberation theology, and then introducing a newly constructed theology of limits. Her target audience is the theological academy – she calls for a re-examination of long held assumptions informed by the normalcy of disability.  Only once humanity is seen within its finite scope, does the experience of disability become a normative lens through which to examine all other inquiries.

Book Review: Disability in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Disability in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam collects eleven articles organized around two central questions:  First, how does disability fit into the meta-narrative of God among the peoples of the book, and second, how do sacred scriptures challenge discriminatory practices and encourage inclusion.  Editors Darla Schumm (associate professor, Hollins University) and Michael Stoltzfus (professor Valdosta State University) organize the articles into two thematic sections.  The first focuses on textual interpretations of sacred writings and the final section examines social and philosophical concerns which arise from hermeneutic tradition.  

Book Review: Disability Studies and Hebrew Literature

Book Review

Disability Studies and Hebrew Literature compiles twelve articles reflecting current scholarship on disability as portrayed in the Bible and early Christian thought.  Edited by Candida R. Moss, PhD (associate professor, University of Notre Dame) and Jeremy Schipper, PhD (associate professor, Temple University), the essays are organized in rough epochal order. Each contributor utilizes his or her primary methodology to lift nuance and make visible disability imagery common in antiquity through close analysis of the text. Critical readings include textual, post-colonial, feminist, and gendered perspectives.

Disability & Isaiah's Suffering Servant

BOOK REVIEW

Within the worshiping community, the suffering servant language from Isaiah 53 is so commonly interwoven throughout the Holy Week tradition that many forget the rich history of interpretation has only recently identified the servant as a Messianic figure. From as early as the writings of the early church, the servant has been identified as one of dozens of characters, including Job, Moses, or one of Israel’s kings.

Immeasurably More: Embracing Life with Down Syndrome

From generation to generation… tell the works of the Lord. (Joel 1:3)

Effective parenting includes handing down stories — letting the young learn from the journeys of their forerunners.  These narratives shape our cultural attitudes, construct our ethical frameworks and orient our moral compass.  As a child, I remember travelers stopping by our house and spinning tales – my vivid imagination ran wild with the limitless future possibilities of exploring and encountering new adventures.  I was grateful that someone had gone ahead of me, charting the treacherous course and encouraging my journey.

Book Review: Divine Towels

Most current theologies of disability construct new possibilities by rejecting previous philosophies as unsuited for the modern world.  Every once in a while, however, an author will rely on the historical tradition of faith and call people to a new, yet centuries old way of living. 

Divine Towels in an intriguing book: while not strictly a theological treatise, it does contain multiple reflections on the transcendence, immanence, and character of God.  Technically, the style of writing arises somewhere in a vortex of inspirational literature, parable, and Christian mysticism – a cross between the 19th century George MacDonald and The Shack’s William P. Young.  Do not read this as a novel; the action is interspersed with long devotional thought.

While not explicitly stating as such, this twelve-years long labor by novice author Beau Jason McGlynn draws upon his own experience as an adult with Cerebral Palsy (CP) and his relationship with his own mother to craft a modern retelling of the Madonna and Child.  In parabolic form, Jesus is successfully re-imagined as an adult with a disability who has the motivation to heal others yet understands his own limitations necessitated by the purpose of the cross.

As true in most pietistic literature, the Christian laity is called to become more engaged in both praxis and service outside of the worship service.  Furthermore, existing institutional structures of church and medicine are considered corrupt:  the church is redeemable but the reliance on a biomedical framework is rejected.

Many evangelicals will embrace the devotional flavor, but find difficulty with mystical rituals. Disability theologians will applaud the rejection of medicine as healer, but will find an Augustinian Christian worldview difficult to accept.  Editors will undoubtedly want to tighten and strengthen the movement.  Yet Divine Towels proves to be valuable as an expression of what it means for a person with a disability to be used by God to minister to others.  People with disabilities are not only important parts of the body of Christ – they can be active parts as well.

Divine Towels. Beau Jason McGlynn. (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012) 278 pp. Paperback, $12.00 ISBN: 978-1475093827

Book Review: A Constructive Theology of Intellectual Disability

What does it mean to be human? Disability theology has long sought to access the biases of anthropology in the understanding of the formation of the imago Dei in those with profound intellectual disability. Molly C. Haslam (PhD.-Vanderbilt) advocates for a new perspective in A Constructive Theology of Intellectual Disability: Human Being as Mutuality and Response. Haslam reflects upon her more than twenty years’ experience as a physical therapist in this first theological work.

This 134 page treatise integrates a phenomenological example which gives voice to the critique of common anthropological models in Christianity. Haslam is concerned that disability theology continues to utilize outmoded anthropology, which requires a conceptualized distinct agential self and its corresponding intellectual aptitude. The author suggests that anthropology be constructed in terms of mutual relation instead of capacity. Utilizing the dialogical model of Martin Buber’s [I-It] and [I-Thou] relationships, the author posits that the image of God is discerned in the mutual relationships between created beings and their mutual responsiveness, even in non-symbolic ways.

Haslam begins her critique by engaging Gordon Kaufman’s theological anthropology which privileges the imago Dei in the agential capacity of co-creators with God. She rejects this option as not broad enough to embrace those with profound intellectual disability who lack the ability for purposeful action and self-reflection. The author continues by assessing George Lindbeck’s anthropology; humans are defined as those with the capacity to decipher linguistics and symbolic expressions in order to understand the covenantal story of God and his people. Haslam goes further when questioning the motive of Stanley Hauerwas’ disability theology; does it serve individuals with disability or are persons with disability subservient to the story? She chooses to embrace Kaufman’s concept of biohistoricity – appreciating all religious claims as locally valid in time and space over against an unchanging narrative.

Utilizing her vast experience of working with profoundly intellectually disabled persons, Haslam draws out illustrations of non-communicable and pre-linguistic individuals unable to differentiate self. Those same individuals, however, show responsiveness in the presence of others, eliciting a dynamic of mutual response, and resulting in the cultivation of ongoing relationship. These scenarios give force to her development of anthropology based on Buber’s idea; the existence of human being can only be defined in mutual relations and the pursuit of knowing God through [I-Thou] relational presence. For Haslam, this model is most relevant as it relies on relationships through the interplay of will and grace outside the control of self. As this model does not see the other as an object, it eliminates all self- serving acts and allows the focus to be on mutual helping and healing.

Haslam concludes with a re-examination of the historical construction of Imago Dei. She rejects the substantialist conception found in both Aquinas and Calvin, whom both elevated intellectual reason as the discrete marker of God reflected in humanity. Informed by Martin Luther and Buber, she embraces a mutually participatory relational concept which includes God as a participant. Her un-anthropomorphized concept of God as yearning itself, however, is informed by the mystical writings of the 5th century Pseudo Dionysius. Only in this context, does she believe that individuals with profound disability can participate fully as image bearers of God.

Haslam’s analysis of traditional anthropology reveal some shortcomings. Christian theologians have been reluctant to address items related to the anthropology and the necessarily related soteriology in terms of individuals with profound disabilities. The development of a framework of mutuality and response through selfless relationship bears promise as it relies on the inner working of the Trinity.

Some evangelical readers will rightly wonder if the rejection of the narrative drama of redemption in favor of one informed by mysticism is preferable while developing such an anthropology. Haslam premises the work with an acceptance of a modern notion of the universe which understands God as a concept within the realm of knowledge and not as an actor on history. Her suggestion that this anthropology can extend to all animals and inanimate objects in the universe potentially under-privileges the very population she desires to serve. The heart of this work, however, is valid. The author, by illustrating the failures of current thought and practice points us towards a direction in which mutual responsiveness and authentic relationships are required for being human.

A Constructive Theology of Intellectual Disability: Human Being as Mutuality and Response. Molly C. Haslam. (New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2012). 134 pp. Paperback,$26.00 ISBN: 978-0-2832-3941-2.

Book Review: Lessons From Katherine

In recent years, a new genre in disability related literature has emerged.  While not scholarly in nature, lessons can yet be extracted.  This new narrative emerges from the perspective of the parent of a child with disability - most often the mother.  One such story is Lessons from Katherine, written in an easy conversational style by Glenda W. Prins, an ordained United Church of Christ minister.

Lessons from Katherine is not a recounted biography of the adopted daughter Katherine, but an up close and vulnerable 157 page diary of the author’s spiritual struggles through life in a context tempered by disability.  In fact the story is not focused on the multiple disabilities of Katherine, but on the inability of the author to cope with lost dreams.

Inability defines this work – inability to achieve ordination as a female, to conceive a child, to navigate the complex bio-medical world successfully, to keep a business afloat, to sustain a marital relationship, and to communicate openly with God.  Yet despite these disabling conditions, the author eventually finds resolution within the tension: ordination is achieved, businesses become restored, relationships are reconciled and new life emerges.  The human journey is messy yet redeemable.

Lessons from Katherine unveils a seldom lifted curtain on the emotional stress families affected by disability undergo.  It reveals the mindset behind a parent doing whatever it takes for their child.  Do not look for pithy comforting statements in this book – it is full of anguish and emotion.  Nor is this a guidebook – lessons learned are not articulated to be replicated.  Perhaps the major insight gleaned is reflected in the epilogue – experience with disability does not make one a better person, but a different one.

As a parent of a child with a disability, I can relate all too well to these genuine scenarios. As a disability advocate, I see how much further society must go. As I read and compare the blogs of young moms today, however, I am struck by the difference in tone and hope.  This book is an important historical reminder of the accomplishments made through the pain of the previous generation.

For professionals in the special education or human disability service sector who desire to understand real family dynamics, this book provides a partial glimpse.  Yet this is not just for professionals or those impacted by disability.  It is a journal of how a person develops a faithful spiritually, tears and all, during times of continual crisis. Spiritual journeys are often personal.  This memoir will comfort some and create questions in others – but can be worth the time to read.

Lessons from Katherine. Glenda W. Prins. (Winchester, UK: CirclePress |John Hunt Publishing, 2013). 157 pp. Paperback, $20.00 ISBN: 978-1-78099-451-2

[This review is updated  from the one provided to the publisher - for original review, click here.]

Disability in the Hebrew Bible

BOOK REVIEW

Language Matters.  Those who have taken the R-Word pledge understand the disabling effects of words.  In order to adequately develop theologies of disability, attention must be paid to both the social context in which Biblical passages emerged and to the very words themselves.

In Disability In the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences, Saul M. Olyan (PhD – Harvard), professor of Judaic Studies at Brown University in Providence Rhode Island, investigates the earliest textual representations from a philological perspective.  By examining the words and their related cognate forms in other languages, he articulates some insight into how disability obtained meaning in ancient writings.

The study begins by examining the physical characteristics that mark either beauty or ugliness in the ideal male and female and then relates the contrast between blemish and perfection.  While there is major overlap, the categories are not exclusively congruent, particularly in the Wisdom literature.

Olyan examines blemish further and proposes there was another broader taxonomy inclusive of disability based in weakness, vulnerability, and dependence.  He discovers that mental disabilities and some physical disabilities did not fall into the blemish category, but all shared marginalization and stigmatization as evidenced by surrounding textual information.  He acknowledges that much of the prophetic utopian vision uses persons with disability to demonstrate YHWH’s purpose and power.  While some of the text indicates continued marginalization, there is a strong thread that also shows the opposite.  Those with disabilities, both ambulatory and non-ambulatory, are welcomed back from exile, into worship, and made beautiful in their disability.

Olyan refocuses his attention from persons with blemish to the relationship between wholeness and holiness.  The same stigmatizing language used for people were also utilized for building materials and sacrifices deemed unsuitable for the temple.  He concludes his work by examining how the Qumran community actually broadened the category of defect and increased marginalization, prohibiting any from entering the community assembly.

Olyan accomplished his purpose of reconstructing disability taxonomy through the analysis of the text.  The philological method utilized in this book is an important key in reshaping our contextual notions in the interpretation of certain passages from the Hebrew Bible.  The limits of this method are acknowledged -- it is impossible to determine motive behind the textual fragment.  Isolating text can give insight, but also removes it from the larger context of the Biblical tradition and redemptive history.  His work does, however, demonstrate that the religious trajectory has been more exclusive than even the original writers intended and is in specific contrast to a line of prophetic utopian envisioning which seeks to privilege disability.  Further scholarship, particularly in the eschatological passages, will be welcomed.

Disability In the Hebrew Bible is relevant particularly to those engaged in Hebrew Bible or disability studies, as well as those seeking to understand the Judean context into which Christ spoke and performed healings.

Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 200pp. Paperback, $45.00 ISBN: 978-1-1074-0498-4

Amplifying Our Witness: Giving Voice to Adolescents with Developmental Disabilities

Book Review

The integration of disability theology and ministry is a relatively new field of study with most attention focused first on de-institutionalized adults in the late 20th century and then on the inclusion of children with special needs in the first decade of this one.  Children naturally grow towards adolescence and emerge into the natural chaos of youth groups.

Benjamin T. Conner (PhD-Princeton), Associate Professor of Christian Discipleship at Western Seminary in Holland, MI, draws upon a twenty year experience of youth ministry and his training as a missiologist to inform Amplifying Our Witness: Giving Voice to Adolescents with Developmental Disabilities.   Having both offered and received ministry from numerous youth across a wide ability spectrum, he articulates a missional paradigm of friendship-based, inclusive youth ministry in this very accessible 116 page practical guide.

Conner’s key concepts are reflected in the title: As the faith community needs to hear all prophetic voices in order to bear full witness of Christ, the role of the youth minister is to ensure that those not normally respected must be given opportunity to fully participate and be heard.  He takes a practice centered approach, advocating the creation of appropriate environments and welcoming spaces for faith to be nurtured by the Spirit.  Recognizing that many with development disabilities have difficulty keeping up with the pace of youth culture, he challenges the notion that faith development and human development are in strict tandem alliance.

Conner urges fellow ministers to seek the Visio Dei – seeing life through God’s images.  That approach peers beyond impairments and gives new imagination in doing relational ministry of friendship.  He continues by exploring the Imago Dei, asserting the face of God is more about encountering Him through friendship than conceptualizing Him through reason.  Similarly, as agents of Christ, we are called to be sacramental by developing intentional grace filled friendships as opposed to instrumentally utilizing people to fulfill ministry responsibilities.  He challenges our incomplete understanding of the Missio Dei – the role of the church in participating in God’s redemptive story .  We must allow those with profound disabilities to transform our faith and witness by offering them a place to appear.  He concludes by articulating the Opus Dei – the work of God – as it relates for mutual ministry with adolescents with disability.  Here he turns from a theoretical structure and outlines practical steps for implementing changes in youth groups and their hosting congregations.

Conner’s work engages the best in current evangelical and pentecostal scholarship. Those within the reformed tradition will feel especially at home.  Those outside that tradition will only need to extract the intentions behind his analysis of the sacraments and redesign the application to fit their communities. 

Amplifying Our Witness is an excellent readable resource for any minister or lay youth worker and should become an essential supplemental text in any introductory youth ministry course.

Amplifying Our Witness: Giving Voice to Adolescents with Developmental Disabilities. Benjamin T. Conner. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing, 2012). 116 pp. Paperback, $16.00  ISBN: 978-0-8028-6721-6.

Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality

BOOK REVIEW

Over the years repeated studies of the social habits of persons with disabilities and their related families have been done. The one constant, despite changing attitudes in education and employment, indicates that families remain isolated outside of community and the church due to perceived differences. Thomas E. Reynolds (PhD.-Vanderbilt), the Associate Professor of Theology at Emmanuel College in Toronto, Canada seeks to chart a path towards inclusion that does not begin with self-sufficiency but human vulnerability. Reynolds writes VulnerableCommunion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality not only as a theologian but also as a father of a child with significant disabilities. His ideal audience is neither the typical lay disability minister nor family of persons with disability, but pastor theologians responsible for creating local church community.

This 256 page book delves deeply into theological and social constructs yet remains rooted in the real experiences of theologian as father. While the focus is certainly not on his family’s story, the occasional vignettes shared lend credence to critical thought within the work. It is in part this passion that provides an impetus to reconstructing a theology of disability that begins with vulnerability – thereby offering inclusion to all humanity by privileging disability and culminating with hospitable community. This prophetic beam into the cult of normalcy illustrates redemption through the paradox of Christ’s power in weakness.

Reynolds begins his discussion by summarizing the current progress of disability theology, quickly discarding the medical model and clearly articulating that while impairments may be physical, disability is a social construct. He pushes beyond the sticky answers of theodicy questions by arguing that theological understandings are held sway by that same construct and must be re-examined through the lens of privileged disability. He grounds his hermeneutic of disability within the larger redemptive narrative, arguing that all persons in their vulnerability co-exist in God’s presence.

Rethinking disability must begin by challenging the cult of normalcy, Reynolds asserts. He defines true community as the place where personhood of all is welcomed and allowed to flourish with purpose within a structured framework. He argues that all social cultures create a sense of normal which imposes control on those that are abnormal while acknowledging that dominant Christian understandings of holiness (wholeness) has contributed to the overarching pejorative social norms. Reynolds rebels against this construct due to his rejection of its fundamental premises. Normalization does not equate to independence, free choice, and utility; those are subsets of yet deeper holistic goals. He argues against society’s reasoned perception by which personhood is determined through the participation of the free, equal, and independent. He continues by illustrating the faults inherent within the productive imperative – the societal pressure which promotes consumerism by creating efficient capital – which further marginalizes those with disabilities.

Reynolds posits an alternative ideal, drawing upon redemptive hope that lies within the relational embodiment of welcome and the moral embrace of love. He sketches out a new anthropology, illustrating an economy of exchange, not based on body capital but upon gracious gifts of God distributed throughout Christ’s body. All beings are therefore incomplete and vulnerable – wholeness and personhood is only found through coexistence within Christ. Vulnerability necessitates all persons are at times needy and endure suffering, facilitating genuine bidirectional, enabling, welcoming, and available love.

Reynolds reexamines God’s continuing redemptive loving relationship towards his creation. His analysis of the creation story yields that all created beings are welcomed as good, despite what human economies might attribute. Furthermore, he asserts that the creation story illustrates the interdependence and vulnerability of creation upon itself. It is this vulnerability which attracts the ensuing shadow of tragedy in which God too suffers. Yet it is through this suffering that the culmination of the redemptive story is enabled.

Reynolds presents the providential grace that upholds the created order as the antidote for the cult of normalcy. He argues that the image of God signifies that humans have the capacity to share in relation, creation, and the agency of God’s work. Sinfulness disrupts this capacity, but the redemptive suffering of Christ, sharing in our vulnerability, allows for reconciliation. It is this redemption that transforms vulnerability into communion with God – foreshadowing the future eschatological glory. This Reynolds states, validates his thesis – disability bearing the image of God, perceived as part of creations vulnerability and not as a deficiency, is an affirmation of God’s redemptive love.

Reynolds concludes his work by seeking to empower the church (ecclesia) as a hospitable place – a vulnerable community. The task of the local church is to work out this new anthropological economy living out as the body of Christ by means of embodied relationships. It is in this space that genuine healing takes place through the welcoming of the weak and vulnerable hiding within the margins of society. Church growth occurs as welcome leads to welcome. In essence, the church can only become a redemptive space by empowering those with disabilities to find a welcomed place at the table.

Reynolds successfully articulates his position that the paradox of the cross and vulnerability are the nexus of community. Some may justifiably find his identification of market capital enterprise and the rise of eighteenth century reason as the locus of continued marginalization untenable, as persons with disability were not privileged prior to that time either. Yet his point resonates within the lower echelons of society and is vital in his juxtaposition of the powers of this world with the frailty of humanity.

While Reynolds navigates deep theological and philosophical threads through the majority of the book, the transition towards a hospitable communion of love seemed ragged. It was here that he turned away from a reasoned arguments towards a narrative approach derived from his personal experience, classic Dostoevsky literature and both Lukan and Pauline biblical theology to explain how love transforms perceived deficits into welcoming hospitality. His return to the idea of a new economy within the body of Christ that had been introduced earlier could have been explored further. He briefly touches on the impact that vulnerability could have on the Christian response to the alien, stranger, and others in the margins but never completely develops those thoughts in this work. His conclusions, though valid, appeared to be underdeveloped as compared to the rest of the book. Perhaps that is where the role moves from the theologian to the pastor.

Vulnerable Communion is an important foundation for local church leaders. Rather than explaining why disability ministry should occur, it successfully remembers the fact that all are disabled and all have gifts. Only in the mutuality of shared vulnerability can the household of God affect the world. If the concepts illustrated in this book are implemented in the local church, all modes of ministry will look radically different.

Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality. Thomas E Reynolds. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2008). 256 pp. Paperback, $20.00 ISBN: 978-1-58743-177-7

Including People with Disabilities in Faith Communities

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 20^th 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.

Including People with Disabilities in Faith Communities: A Guide for Service Providers, Families,& Congregations. Erik W. Carter. (Baltimore, Md.: Paul H. Brookes Pub. Co., 2007). 236 pp. Paperback, $28.00, ISBN: 978-1-55766-743-4

Amplifying Our Witness

As my daughter prepares for middle school, I've been waiting for the childrens ministry discussions to make it into youth ministry hot topics.  Thanks to Ben Conner, here is an important first work.  It's on my next book to review list, but it looks good!  Eerdmans' snapshot is below.

DESCRIPTION

Nearly twenty percent of adolescents have developmental disabilities, yet far too often they are marginalized within churches. Amplifying Our Witness challenges congregations to adopt a new, practice-centered approach to congregational ministry — one that includes and amplifies the witness of adolescents with developmental disabilities. Replete with stories taken from Benjamin Conner's own extensive experience with befriending and discipling adolescents with developmental disabilities, Amplifying Our Witness

• Shows how churches exclude the mentally disabled in various structural and even theological ways
• Stresses the intrinsic value of kids with developmental disabilities
• Reconceptualizes evangelism to adolescents with developmental disabilities, emphasizing hospitality and friendship.

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.

Book Review

Book Review