What is youth ministry? And who is it for? Over the years, various theologians and practitioners in the field have attempted to deepen our answers to these questions by considering the lives of a broader circle of young people. Reflecting on issues of difference, including those of race and gender, has often helped in this regard. In fact, youth ministry is frequently the vanguard to how the church responds to evolving cultural landscapes; in light of the changing social conditions of adolescence, youth ministry continues to explore interpretations of young people’s experiences to advance its understanding of and to discern the church’s role in the lives of young people throughout the world. However, there remains a significant gap in the field. This edition of The Journal of Disability & Religion explores the ways in which the human experience of disability promises to challenge and expand the framework with which practitioners and theologians imagine and operate in youth ministry. If it is to be for all young people and indeed the whole church in its interpretive and normative claims, youth ministry must attend faithfully to disability.
In this issue, six authors explore the distinctive relationship between the concepts of youth and disability, providing an interdisciplinary lens for analyzing the experience and social construction of both. Disability contributes an interpretative corrective for many dubious yet dominant ways in which those in various settings have approached their interaction with young people. Furthermore, the experience of youth illuminates some pervasive yet overlooked elements of the experience of disability in our society. Employing disciplines such as theological anthropology, ethics, hermeneutics, and ethnography, the authors in this issue expose the hegemonic perceptions and postures that have obscured and even obstructed the spiritual formation of all young people, including those with disabilities.
The first two articles are primarily concerned with interpretive judgements regarding youth and disability. Cultural anthropologist Erin Raffety introduces an interdisciplinary framework that embraces difference not as a problem to be solved but as a source of new theological meaning. Such a framework promises to empower attention to the concrete lives of young people as opposed to an abstract theory of experience. Drawing on the field of disability theology, pastor and practical theologian Wesley Ellis considers both how the idea of adolescence itself functions as a hermeneutical category and the dynamics of applying such an interpretation to a young person’s experience. Using the metaphor of diagnosis, Ellis invites us to be oriented not toward “curing adolescents” but rather “caring for young people.”
The next two articles examine the intersection between youth ministry and disability via theological anthropology. The experiences of youth and disability are complicated by substantive accounts of what it means to be human and, thus, marginalize those who do not conform to the standards of “normalcy.” Danish youth worker Christian Noval, a Roman Catholic priest, looks to the theology of David Kelsey in outlining a theological anthropology that promises to hold the stories of all, including young people with disabilities. Theologian Mike Langford uses cultural theory, systematics, and, notably, disability theology to both deconstruct and construct a notion of being human that results in “a theological model of youth that allows for the affirmation of their full humanity and belonging.”
The final two articles focus on our interactions with young people, particularly in the context of youth ministry. Practical theologian Ben Conner exposes the dangers inherent within the paradigm of developmentalism, claiming, “the institution of adolescence creates conditions that disable young people.” If young people are seen only for their deficits with respect to the social category of adulthood, then ministry itself is hindered. Finally, youth minister and practical theologian Amy Jacober offers ethical strategies for the practice of ecclesial ministry among young people with disabilities. In so doing, Jacober invites the practitioner and scholar alike to the address the individual, communal, and eternal dimensions of the adolescent experience.
With special thanks to our peer reviewers—including Andrew Esqueda, J. J. Flag, Amanda Hontz Drury, Andrew Zirschky, Michael Paul Cartledge, and Luke Zerra—we hope that this issue of The Journal of Disability & Religion assists in filling the disability gap in the study and practice of youth ministry. It is our prayer that these articles will help to revitalize the church’s ministry to and with all young people, including those with disabilities, and catalyze further conversations regarding youth, disability, and ministry.
Michael D. Langford School of Theology, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington, USA© 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC