THEME: Disability
What does ‘disability’ really mean? To what extent are people disabled just because the world is geared toward the ‘able’? Who are disabled people in the eyes of God, and should the efforts and prayers of the ‘able’ be focused on making them ‘well’? And what does the Bible say?

CONTEXT: The word of God
In a fascinating reflection on the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8, Helen Paynter (page 26) unpacks the power of Isaiah’s prophecy for a man deliberately disabled by others. Ian Paul looks at modern objections to what scripture is assumed to say about disability, and finds they don’t hold water. Most of us are on a spectrum of disability, and we can live in hope that ‘when perfection comes, what is partial will pass away’ (page 58).

APPLICATION
Katie Tupling (page 14), who has cerebral palsy and sits down to preach, points out that one in five UK adults have some form of disability or physical challenge. Others are neuro-divergent and learn in different ways. How does this affect how we conduct services, how we use amplification, what sort of language we use? Cavan Wood (page 49) picks up this theme in his article on autism-friendly churches, while James Catford (page 46) takes the experience of people with hearing loss as his point of departure.

SUB-THEMES
Martin Hobgen (page 9) encourages us to think of how we use language in unintentionally discriminatory ways. Other columnists, like Amy Kenny (page 40), challenge the view that disabled people are to be objects of pity and passive recipients of care; ‘my disabled body is made in the image of the divine’, says Kenny.

CASE STUDIES
Marsha de Cordova MP (page 10), who has nystagmus and is registered blind, is driven by a desire to change what’s wrong in the world, and finds strength and courage in her faith. John Naudé (page 20), a pastor who uses a wheelchair, writes of how the church marginalises people like him; the Bible, though, tells a different story. But he finds it ‘offensive’ that people should assume he’s incomplete and wants to be healed; ‘What would transform me more into the image of Christ is not being able to walk but sinning less.’ Bernice Hardie (page 28) writes of an inspirational movement aimed at including learning disabled people in the life of the church, while Charmaine Yip (page 44) profiles three differently disabled people at her church.

PREACHING POINTS
If we choose to preach on disability, we will do so with extreme care. Non-disabled preachers may wish to consult with someone who is disabled and who has reflected theologically on that. Different Bible passages contribute different perspectives on disability. John 9 reminds us that disability is not a punishment. Genesis 32 ends with Jacob limping after an encounter with God, a story rich in meaning. Paul was given a ‘thorn in the flesh’, an unspecified disability that was part of how he came to serve God mightily.

READING

· At the Gates: Disability, Justice and the Church, by Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Emily Richardson (DLT, 2022)

· The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability by Nancy Eiesland (Abingdon Press, 1994)

· The Bible and Disability: A Commentary edited by Sarah Melcher, Mikeal C Parsons, Amos Young (SCM, 2018)

· Autistic Thinking in the life of the church by Stewart Rapley (SCM, August 2021)

· My Body is Not a Prayer Request by Amy Kenny (Baker, 2022)

ONLINE

· Ability Ministry, abilityministry.com, mythbusting videos on what the Bible says, and disability ministry training videos.

· Holding Space, holding-space.org, a place to reflect for people affected by disability.

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Preaching from Preach magazine, Issue 32, Disability

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