Disability and the Gospel


Book Description

Michael Beates's concern with disability issues began nearly 30 years ago when his eldest child was born with multiple profound disabilities. Now, as more families like Michael's are affected by a growing number of difficulties ranging from down syndrome to autism to food allergies, the need for church programs and personal paradigm shifts is greater than ever. Working through key Bible passages on brokenness and disability while answering hard questions, Michael offers here helpful principles for believers and their churches. He shows us how to embrace our own brokenness and then to embrace those who are more physically and visibly broken, bringing hope and vision to those of us who need it most.




Of Such is the Kingdom


Book Description

Disability is not a boundary to holiness, because God is with us. But it can sometimes be an obstacle to full participation in the life of the Church, simply because many do not understand what is needed to help people with disabilities overcome any physical, mental, or interpersonal challenges they may face in church and in leading an Orthodox Christian life. This book addresses the question from theological, practical, and experiential perspectives, giving individuals and families with disabilities the opportunity to voice their needs and suggest some things the rest of us can do to make them welcome in the household of God.




Disability and Christian Theology Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities


Book Description

Attention to embodiment and the religious significance of bodies is one of the most significant shifts in contemporary theology. In the midst of this, however, experiences of disability have received little attention. This book explores possibilities for theological engagement with disability, focusing on three primary alternatives: challenging existing theological models to engage with the disabled body, considering possibilities for a disability liberation theology, and exploring new theological options based on an understanding of the unsurprisingness of human limits. The overarching perspective of this book is that limits are an unavoidable aspect of being human, a fact we often seem to forget or deny. Yet not only do all humans experience limits, most of us also experience limits that take the form of disability at some point in our lives; in this way, disability is more "normal" than non-disability. If we take such experiences seriously and refuse to reduce them to mere instances of suffering, we discover insights that are lost when we take a perfect or generic body as our starting point for theological reflections. While possible applications of this insight are vast, this work focuses on two areas of particular interest: theological anthropology and metaphors for God. This project challenges theology to consider the undeniable diversity of human embodiment. It also enriches previous disability work by providing an alternative to the dominant medical and minority models, both of which fail to acknowledge the full diversity of disability experiences. Most notably, this project offers new images and possibilities for theological construction that attend appropriately and creatively to diversity in human embodiment.




Theology, Disability and the New Genetics


Book Description

A unique text which focuses on the theory and practice of the church, as it engages with the complex issues that are emerging in response to new genetic technology.




Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas' Theology of Disability


Book Description

Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas' Theology of Disability: Disabling Society, Enabling Theology examines the influential writings of one of the most important contemporary theologians. Over the past thirty years, Time Magazine Theologian of the Year (2001) Dr. Stanley Hauerwas has consistently presented a theological position which values the deep theological significance of people with developmental disabilities, as well as their importance to the life and the faithfulness of the church. Ten key Hauerwas essays on disability are brought together in a single volumeessays which reflect and illustrate his thinking on the theology of disability, along with responses to each essay from multidisciplinary authoritative sources including Jean Vanier, Michael Bérubé, John O'Brien and Ray S. Anderson.




Vulnerable Communion


Book Description

A theologian and father of a child with disabilities reveals how disability highlights our common brokenness and need for grace.




Theology and the Experience of Disability


Book Description

The Christian gospel compels humanity to embrace deeper ways of being human together that will overcome false divisions and exclusions in search of flourishing and graced communities. Presenting both short narratives emerging out of theological reflection on experience and analytical essays arising from engagement in scholarly conversations Theology and the Experience of Disability is a conscious attempt to develop theology by and with people with disabilities instead of theology about people with disabilities. A mixture of academic, professional, practical, and/or lived experience is brought to the topic in search of constructive multi-disciplinary proposals for church and society. The result is an interdisciplinary engagement with the constructive possibilities that emerge from a distinctly Christian understanding of disability as lived experience.




Theology and Down Syndrome


Book Description

"While the struggle for disability rights has transformed secular ethics and public policy, traditional Christian teaching has been slow to account for disability in its theological imagination. Amos Yong crafts both a theology of disability and a theology informed by disability. The result is a Christian theology that not only connects with our present social, medical, and scientific understanding of disability but also one that empowers a set of best practices appropriate to our late modern context"--Publisher description.




The Disabled God


Book Description

Draws on themes of the disability-rights movement to identify people with disabilities as members of a socially disadvantaged minority group rather than as individuals who need to adjust. Highlights the hidden history of people with disabilities in church and society. Proclaiming the emancipatory presence of the disabled God, the author maintains the vital importance of the relationship between Christology and social change. Eiesland contends that in the Eucharist, Christians encounter the disabled God and may participate in new imaginations of wholeness and new embodiments of justice.




Wondrously Wounded


Book Description