![Sample our Health and Social Care journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5938/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Health-Social-Care.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The authors explore the potential of the Special Olympic movement to act as a counternarrative and prophetic message to the big-business world of professional sports. Drawing on the work of pioneers in the field of theology of disability, such as Jean Vanier, John Swinton, Brian Brock, Amos Yong, and Stanley Hauerwas, the authors provide a brief overview of the key themes within the theology of disability, which are then deployed to analyze the Special Olympics. This section is prefaced with a succinct account of the modern sporting institution and its key characteristics from a theological standpoint. We conclude that “those that are excluded … those at the edge of the system” (Rohr, Citation1995, p. 28)—Special Olympians—have an important and timely message for those within the system of big-business professional sport.
Acknowledgments
Some sections and ideas within this article are based on a previous publication: Watson, N. J. (Citation2012). Sport, disability and the Olympics. The Bible in Transmission, Spring, 14–16.
All biblical citations within the text are taken from: Holy Bible: New living translation, (2nd Ed.). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Publishers, 2004.
Notes
1. The website of Loretta Claiborne can be accessed at http://www.lorettaclaiborne.com/
2. L'Arche (French for Ark) is a Catholic, yet wholly ecumenical, international federation of 140 communities in over 40 countries, where people with and without learning difficulties live in community. Its founder is Jean Vanier, a pioneer and celebrated philosopher, writer and practitioner in this area.
3. This quote was taken from John Paul II (Citation2010b).
4. This quote is constructed from pages 19, 23–24 and 44–45 of chapter 1: The Social Setting of First-Century Corinth: An Historical Examination (1953).