Rethinking Disability in the Church

It was 1991 or thereabouts. My Dad's cousin had come for a visit, and we had the glorious opportunity of bringing Jane to church with us. We had recently made a major church transition -- from Christian Reformed to (wildly) charismatic. Our new church had lively worship, dancing in the aisles, prophetic words, and (cue dramatic music) healing prayer. The latter was of particular interest to us because Jane had been in a car accident as a teenager and become a quadriplegic. 

Everyone loved Jane. She was the glue that held the extended family together. Her penmanship was stellar, even without the use of her hands. She carefully held her pens in her mouth to write letters that were pages long. She drew incredible art with her mouth -- beautiful enough to print and sell as greeting cards. Jane was keeper of memories, planner of reunions, and our family's favorite destination in Southern California (ok, Disney was fun, too, and if Aunt Jane came along, you could get to the front of every line!). 

Traveling with a wheelchair was not easy, so her visit to Colorado to see our family was highly anticipated. Her parents drove out with their wheelchair-accessible van for a visit. My grandfather built a ramp so that she could easily access the house. Jane's parents and my grandparents were not interested in visiting our church. (They were convinced we had fallen off the deep end!) But my Dad was allowed to borrow the van to bring Jane with us to church.

Although it was 30 years ago, I can still vividly remember our drive to church. My anticipation soared. I had seen a person in a wheelchair go forward for prayer, and I had watched them get up and walk. I was utterly convinced that Jane would leave church walking on her own two feet. All the way to church my brother and I gushed about what the Holy Spirit would do. We couldn't wait to witness a miracle!

Photo by Hans Moerman on Unsplash

I was only 14 or so at the time. Chalk it up to immaturity, but I never once considered how our effusive faith might have felt to Jane. It never occurred to me that our excitement might have been painful or awkward to her. We never asked whether she wanted healing prayer. We just assumed. I never wondered what would happen to her faith or to ours if she didn't walk out of that service on her own two feet.

I don't clearly remember the service or the drive home, but we were sober. Quiet. Disappointed. I wonder how Jane felt. A few days later we went on an outing to a park. A group of Christians approached and surrounded her wheelchair and asked if they could pray for healing. That was the first time I realized how awkward it must be to have so much attention from well-meaning people--even strangers--who wanted to "fix" her broken body.

During those years in a charismatic context, I mainly thought about disability as a physical problem that needed medical or miraculous healing. While I still believe that Jesus can and does heal, I 've begun thinking differently about disability. Perhaps the places where healing is most urgently needed are our attitudes and our communities.

Twenty years after that "unsuccessful" healing service, I was in seminary. Gordon-Conwell offered seminars each semester on special topics. One was on disability in the church. Our focus was on accessibility and inclusion. One assignment was to interview someone with a disability to find out what barriers prevented their full participation in the life of the church. It was eye-opening to think for the first time about how much body strain a wheelchair user may experience when their wheelchair is parked on a slope or when conversation partners are standing. I learned that churches rarely have accessible platforms and that sometimes the fellowship hall or classrooms are impossible to reach. I learned that I should always ask first before pushing someone's wheelchair.

When someone using a wheelchair or walker enters our community, if we're paying attention, we quickly discover ways we have failed to make our institutions accessible to all. Thankfully, building codes ensure accessibility for new construction projects, but churches and schools often have older buildings. We were so blessed to have a student in a wheelchair a few years ago at Prairie College. She had a can-do attitude about participating in the community, so I didn't hear her complain that the only bathroom she could access was on a different floor of the dorm than her bedroom, or that a couple of guys had to carry her upstairs in her wheelchair to reach the campus social events, or that the wheelchair ramps weren't always shoveled after snowstorms. Most classrooms could not be reached by elevator, so the registrar had to schedule hers in the the rooms she could access. Her presence gave us eyes to see where we needed to prioritize renovations. 

Bethany McKinney Fox does not consider herself disabled, but she has offered a similar gift to the church by opening our eyes to the ways we cause unintentional hurt or fail to remove barriers to inclusion. Her book, Disability and the Way of Jesus: Holistic Healing in the Gospels and the Church investigates Jesus' healing stories from the perspective of disability. By sharing her experiences as a friend of those with disabilities, Fox has helped me to see areas where I need to grow. 

For one, I had never considered how the healing stories in the Gospels might be painful or awkward for people with disabilities. Even more, the way we teach these stories can cause harm. Fox walks readers through biblical stories from various points of view -- medical practitioners, people with disabilities, pastors and church leaders -- showing how what we see depends on who we are. She demonstrates how Jesus' healing ministry involves far more than bodily restoration. Jesus's healing addresses the whole person and their community. It says as much or more about who he is than about the disabled person.

Her last chapter casts a vision for church communities that include a wide range of people from able to disabled, participating fully. She challenges churches to think not only about providing access but also reshaping corporate worship to better meet the needs of the entire congregation. In a recent article for Christianity Today magazine, Fox and Rosalba Rios consider how the pandemic has expanded our vision of what is possible. They suggest, "Now that we are in an extended season of adaptation, churches that have been less flexible or unwilling to change their structures may be called to a new sense of imagination."

Improving accessibility for people with obvious disabilities yields benefits for so many others whose disabilities are less obvious. This is true in schools as well as the church. For example, at Biola University, when we post a scanned book chapter for students, it must be an accessible pdf (one page at a time, rather than a 2-page spread, with extra space trimmed away and optical character recognition so that e-readers can successfully read them). This obviously benefits blind students, but it also benefits the significant percentage of students we serve with dyslexia, whose reading comprehension is much higher when they can hear the text. 

Fox's congregation includes people with physical and intellectual disabilities on staff. They've reshaped their services around shared meals and community. Multisensory experiences and interpersonal interaction are essential to effective teaching in her context. Fox's vision presents new possibilities for the full participation of all its members. The result is messy, but beautiful.

Fox describes able-bodied people as "temporarily abled." We're all dependent as babies, and we'll be dependent again at the end of life. Any of us could be just moments away from some debilitating injury or disease. Rather than thinking of the able-bodied as normative, we could think along a spectrum of abilities. Many people who appear able-bodied carry hidden disabilities such as chronic pain, learning disabilities, or social anxiety.

Some people with disabilities long for healing. Others embrace their embodied limitations as part of their identity -- whether blind or Downs syndrome or wheelchair bound. Yes, Jesus could heal their bodies, but he hasn't chosen to do so. Perhaps Jesus' greater hope is to heal the community from our inattention to the ways we have made it difficult for others to fully participate. One treasure in Fox's book is the stories she includes, told in first-person by disabled friends about their experiences in the church. This is one reason I've shared Jane's story.

Being God's Image:
Why Creation Still Matters
Coming May 2023 from IVP

In 2018, Jane went home to be with Jesus after 45 years after her accident. At the time she was the longest surviving quadriplegic in California history. Maybe that was the miracle? She, her parents, and her other caregivers figured out the right routines to keep her hydrated and nourished and to ensure that she didn't get bed sores. The community of care gathered around her was rich in love. She often told us that she didn't feel like she belonged in her broken body, like she was trapped. Maybe today she's walking streets of gold. But maybe, just maybe, Jesus is pushing Jane's wheelchair and feeding her manna and Jane finally feels fully at home in her own skin. I don't know exactly how these things work in the new creation, but I'm open to a wider range of possibilities than before.

I explore this and many other aspects of what it means to be human in my forthcoming book, Being God's Image: Why Creation Still Matters (IVP, May 2023). I learned so much while researching and writing this book. I hope it helps others the way it helped me!