Faith and Disability: Engaging Theologically

One feature that often marks conversations about faith and disability is the wide variety of stakeholders involved. It is not uncommon for theologians and academics, pastors and clergy, special educators and researchers, medical professionals and social service providers, families and individuals with disabilities to interact and converse about disability and specifically how disability relates to flourishing. Each of the various stakeholders, especially the individual with disability, brings something unique and important to the conversation. While this diversity and variety of perspectives can enrich the conversation, it can also complexify it. As conversations at the intersection of faith and disability have increased, so have the variety of faith perspectives brought to bear on thinking critically about disability. Different religions have their own sacred texts and traditions that offer different ideas about the origin and meaning of disability that can uniquely shape and suggest different responses to people with disability and their role in society.

I have devoted my professional life to challenging what I call the “disability as tragedy narrative.” This narrative assumes that the experience of having a disability is best described in terms of a tragedy. Thus, when a child is born with a congenital disability, like Down syndrome or cerebral palsy, the assumption that a tragedy has occurred typically overshadows the inclination to rejoice at the miracle of a new life. Similarly, viewing an acquired disability through the lens of tragedy, such as an amputated limb or brain injury, can narrowly frame that experience in ways that can interfere with adaptive coping and healing.

On all these fronts, it is clear that faith reshapes how one understands and responds to disability in important ways. This special issue explores disability through a lens of faith, and specifically, faith in the God of the bible. The articles in this issue, therefore, address disability through a biblical lens by engaging this topic theologically. A companion special issue will extend these scripturally oriented reflections by engaging faith and disability empirically and practically. While different faiths may look at disability differently depending on their sacred texts and traditions, the articles in this issue explore the following four core questions with an eye toward biblical and theological reflection about disability from a broad Christian perspective.

What is human flourishing?

The first article examines the need for theological contributions to expand the limited landscape of empirically derived knowledge. Thomas Boehm addresses the broad question of how to define human flourishing, especially in the face of serious disability. After summarizing the literature on family quality of life as one approach to defining human flourishing, Boehm traces the limits of empirical methodology by summarizing its major methods and assumptions.

Boehm proposes two theological contributions. First, he offers a three-sphered definition of faith as foundational to understanding and accessing true flourishing. Second, he proposes a taxonomy of relational depth to understand, access, and engage this primary relationship. This taxonomy describes intimacy with God as the key component of true flourishing that moves along a trajectory of relational depth from more surface-level engagement to more transformational engagement. Specifically, relational depth dynamics with God are described as moving through three levels of deepening intimacy. The more superficial level of intimacy is seeking God’s hands for the gifts one can receive. The next level of intimacy is seeking God’s face for the fruits that flow from the countenance of love. The deepest level of relational intimacy is seeking and hearing God’s voice. Thus, by seeking God’s hands, face, and voice, one’s relationship with God can lead to faithful following and true flourishing.

What is disability?

The second article extends the conversation about disability by looking through a faith-informed lens more deeply. Specifically, Brian Brock addresses this basic question: What is disability and how does engaging theologically help us go beyond the limits of human knowledge to illuminate God’s wisdom? Brock sets out to restore a biblical lens on disability with emphasis on the Academy’s prophetic role of hearing God’s voice and answering the question, “What is God saying to His people today?”

Brock begins by describing the current state of disability theology, highlighting the differences between empirical and theological approaches to disability. The main thrust of the article then offers five theses, or methodological observations. These five theses are designed to help the reader deconstruct aspects of contemporary disability theology that are not aligned with God’s word—as revealed in the bible and through the witness of previous generations of those looking to the bible as God’s word.

How can we think biblically about disability?

Grant Macaskill deepens the examination of disability through a biblical lens by offering an interpretive framework intended to reframe the work of exegesis. He begins by illustrating the challenges of trying to “think biblically” about autism—a modern label describing a behavioral profile likely present, though perhaps less common, in biblical times. By employing classical accounts of “the rule of faith” (regula fidei), informed by contemporary scholarship on biblical interpretation, Macaskill masterfully exposes shortcomings in efforts to think more biblically about disability. In the final thesis of the previous article in this issue, Brock addressed the need for recapturing the wisdom from generations past by recovering a diachronic investigative horizon. Macaskill extends this salve to the shortcomings of modern sensibilities by presenting six practices to equip clergy and laity to think more biblically about disability and act more lovingly toward people with disability. Furthermore, by highlighting “the capacity of the Bible to speak as a living voice into our ever-changing circumstances” (p. x), Macaskill points toward the relational depth and flourishing available through seeking and following God’s voice, rather than merely engaging the bible as lifeless words on a page.

How does biblical wisdom surpass Greek philosophy?

Keith Dow contributes a scoping review and interrogating analysis of the Western intellectual tradition and its attempts to engage disability through a biblical lens. Christian theological traditions, especially in the West, are definitively shaped by the thinking of Augustine and Aquinas. Both thinkers, Dow suggests, privilege rationality in a manner that too often dishonors people with cognitive disabilities by devaluing the glorious image of God that they reflect and rejecting the vital gifts that they bring. Too often the effect has been that people with disabilities are too often disenfranchised from access to meaningful relationships that can contribute to true flourishing. Building on Boehm’s definition of faith earlier in this issue, people with disabilities are not, however, disenfranchised from access to relationship with God because of their disability. God’s initiating love toward humans is a bedrock of relational access and security for all who call upon God’s Name and follow God’s voice—even beyond human cognitive capacity. In other words, while people with cognitive impairments may not be able to give mental ascent to theological truths, their ability to gain relational ascent into a deeper intimacy with God is a different issue.

Dow’s contribution demonstrates how unbiblical elements in Greek philosophy, rooted in human logic, shaped Augustine and Aquinas’ thinking. Dow boldly asserts that to look at disability through a truly biblical lens, we need a conceptual framework inherited from Paul and Moses rather than Plato and Aristotle—a framework anchored to Jesus as divine wisdom, rather than to virtue and human logic alone.