An excerpt from the Theology Forum that took place during the 2009 Interfaith Disability Connection Summit on Sunday August 9, 2009.
The question posed by forum moderator The Reverend Benno D. Pattison was: Does your tradition provide guidance about who people with disabilities are or why people have disabilities? Does this explanation help or hinder congregations in your tradition as they seek to welcome and include people with disabilities?
Responding to this question are:
Reverend Guy Pujol, Executive Director, AIDS Alliance for Faith and Health and Faculty Member, Interdenominational Theological Center
Dr. Khalid Siddiq, Atlanta Islamic Community Leader
Rabbi Mark Zimmerman, Congregation Beth Shalom, Dunwoody, GA
Check out the most recent episode of PBS’ Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. The episode features Reverend Bill Gaventa and people with disabilities and their families from Christian, Jewish and Muslim congregations
I am late to the party on this and for that I apologize, but yesterday I came across an episode of the Interfaith Voices Podcast. The podcast includes a number of interesting stories about Pesach (Passover).
The second episode of the Interfaith Disability Connection podcast features an interview by Mark Crenshaw of Reverend Bill Gaventa; keynote speaker of the upcoming 2009 IDC Summit. The conversation provides a preview of the 2009 IDC Summit and it gives listeners a glimpse of Reverend Gaventa’s passion for the full-inclusion of people with disabilities in congregational life.
Reverend Gaventa serves as the Coordinator of Community and Congregational Supports at the Boggs Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Click the play button on the player below to listen to the podcast.
People from all over the religious spectrum and all over the world have come together to draft The Charter for Compassion. Read more about it and get involved here.
What are you thoughts as you read about the project and watch the videos?
Reading and then meeting Dr. Nancy Eiesland brought about a transformation of thought and a transformation of possibility for me. She was a wonderful mentor, conversation partner, and friend. I am most grateful for her prophetic advocacy in the classroom, from the pulpit and in the larger world. She was capable of painting a picture of the already and the not quite yet for people with disabilities with equal measure of hope, grace and urgency. She did not shy away from inviting G-d into the fray or to request an account of the church’s failure to respond to the gifts and the needs of people with disabilities.
(Ret.) Archbishop Desmond Tutu speaks about the concept of ubuntu. Watch Tutu speak about ubuntu:
I understand ubuntu because of Dr. Eiesland. I would not be who I am apart from her contributions as teacher, writer, mentor, and friend. I assume that many people who met, heard and interacted with Nancy felt similarly.
Nancy’s books The Disabled God and Human Disability and The Service of G-d (Edited with Don Saliers) provide some of the most well conceived scholarship at the intersection of theology and disability even though it has been more than a decade since their publication.
Nancy will missed, but she leaves a hundreds of students and friends who will work to carry on the conversation in her absence.
Nancy’s words, deeds and friendship transformed the world for people like me, who were privileged to spend time with her. I ask that I may be an agent of that continued transformation so that Nancy’s legacy might live many years past her time here on Earth.
Nancy’s husband Terry and her daughter will remain in my prayers.
If you would like to attend a memorial service in honor of Dr. Eiesland there will be one held in the Cannon Chapel at Emory University on Sunday, March 22, 2009 at 2 PM.
Links to other pieces written about Nancy:
Links to Articles that Nancy wrote that help tell her story:
I have just begun reading This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities & Biblical Studies. At this point I am impressed. If you are interested the book provides a wide range of perspectives both from scholars in disability studies and biblical studies. I think the book provides some interesting and helpful scholarship that seeks to counter some of the most prevalent nations about disability and the biblical story.
I was grateful to be included in an exciting conversation yesterday,via Facebook, about the pastoral issues that are raised when clergy present sermons and teaching related to healing stories in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament.
A fellow Candler alum was writing for a commentary on the Book of Isiah chapter 35. This passage beginning at verse 5 reads:
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like deer, and the tongue of the dumb shall shout aloud; For waters will burst forth in the desert , Streams in the wilderness.
Given this pronouncement the questioner wanted to know:
I’m trying to finish up an essay on Isaiah 35 for one of the Feasting on the Word commentaries (I’m doing the pastoral perspective, as opposed to homiletical, theological, or exegetical) and am struggling over the promise that the blind will see, deaf will hear, lame will leap, mute will sing. I realize that this is a theme that echoes throughout Scripture, including with Jesus’ own life. But I am also aware of the growing understanding of people living with disabilities being differently-abled as opposed to disabled. I know that the Deaf Culture, for instance, has a strong sense of their deafness as something to be embraced, not to be fixed.
What I’m wrestling with is how big of a pastoral concern this understanding might be for a preacher dealing with Isaiah 35 (or any other healing story). I know that my own mother, who has paraplegia, would much prefer to walk - there is no question that her paralysis is something she would wish healing for. I know that her desire is not necessarily a universal desire, as the biblical writers might assume, but I am guessing that it would be the majority view.
What I’m looking for from those of you who have tagged is a couple of things:
1 - do you think it’s a valid pastoral issue when preaching healing texts, to at least consider the fact that many of those who are differently-abled are not looking to be fixed?
2 - could you point me to any resources that might explore this further? .
I am interested to know what some of you who preach and teach on these stories think?
I have said countless times before: the meaning of the Exodus is that anything is possible, that there is no status quo that cannot be overturned. Imagine a world in which you are a slave, and your father was a slave, and his mother before him, and so on for generations. And then, seemingly suddenly, God intervenes and you are no longer a slave. To be sure, the journey ahead will be long and arduous. Indeed, there will be moments when things seem so frightening and unsettling that you will even find yourself longing for the way things were before. But there is no returning to the way things wereâ?? not ultimately, anyway. The Exodus is a rupture, a break in history, a moment after which all things are new, a moment in and through which all things are possible.
I have a very personal confession to make: over the past couple of years, as my struggle with chronic illness has continued and in many ways intensified, I have found myself less able to talk about the Exodus in this way. Is there really no status quo that cannot be overturned? I have asked myself. What about the pain and fatigue that wrack your body each day? What about the degradations and devastations that pervade the globe and seemingly make a mockery of human dignity and of lifeâ??s meaningfulness? Perhaps all this talk of the Exodus as paradigmatic for human history was just loose talk, just so much Pollyanna nonsense. I have wondered, and lamented the depths to which life seems resistant to, indifferent to, the stories we tell and the narratives we strive to live by.
This morning I feel something I have not felt in quite a long time: I believeâ?? but really believeâ?? in the Exodus again. That which was utterly impossible, indeed unimaginable, will become a reality in just a few short minutes. The United States of America, the great beacon of freedom and democracy, has always been tainted by the monstrous legacy of slavery and the ways it denied that black men and women, too, were created in the image of God and were thus every bit as infinitely valuable as their white counterparts. Today these same United States will swear in its first black president, a black man who will occupy the very house that slaves built so long ago. The status quo has been overturned, repudiated, one might even say redeemed. (This, I hasten to add, remains true regardless of oneâ??s political commitments or affiliations.)
We ought not be deceived. Just as the Israelites faced a long and torturous road to the Promised Land, so also do we Americans face a long and difficult road ahead (and on more fronts than I can begin to list). The Hasidic masters teach that each year we are obligated to re-live the Exodus, to tap into the liberatory energy that the Exodus represents, to reclaim and deepen our own freedom and dignity as Godâ??s creatures. I cannot help but feel that the Exodus is being re-enacted and re-experienced in our day, today.
To be sure, many of the worldâ??s problems will remain as intractable tomorrow as they seem today. On a personal note, my own battle with illness is not likely to disappear soon. Iâ??m still not sure about every status quo being overturnedâ?? at least not before the Messiah comes and enacts a kind of cosmic Exodus for us all. But what Iâ??ve learned this morning is that much of what we take as given and immutable is in fact neither. So I go back to what I have said and taught over and over again: to take Judaism seriously is to believe that the world as it is is not yet the world as it must be, and to know that we are implicated in the sacred task of closing the gap between them. May all of our faith in the possibility of redemption and transformation be renewed and revitalized by this extraordinary day.
â??This is the day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice and delight in it.â?
God bless all of you, and God bless the United States of America.
The bold emphasis has been added by me.
I appreciate the point of Rabbi Held’s writing because I sense something new in the air, but I find myself intrigued by the paragraph I highlighted.
The onset of chronic pain and disability can affect a person’s ability to believe in one’s G-d and in oneself!The onset of chronic pain and disability can and does alter our experiences of community. Chronic pain and disability can and does change those who live with it in so many ways.
This raises several important questions for our congregations, I think.
1. Are we asking people how we can help them?
2. Are we willing to be present to the pain and grief without trying to explain it?
3. Are there ways our congregations can support people in their journeys of questioning and discovery?
4. Do our congregations have care teams and other support mechanisms in place to remain connected to people who are struggling with the onset of chronic pain and disability?
Are there other questions I am forgetting?
It is my hope and prayer that our congregations begin and continue to offer love, support and connection in the difficult and pain-full times in the lives of the members of our communities.
Christian Century offers and article written by Dr. Brian Volck. He reviews 3 contemporary contributions concerning Christian Theology and Disability and he discusses the ways that each book contributes to the discussion about how people with and without disabilities are called to live in community together. The books Volck considers are :
Volck does a good job pointing out the strengths of each of the contributions and he also discusses the points of each text that Christians should consider.
I would love to hear what you think about the article and the texts under consideration?
