Studies in Religion, Theology, and Disability – serie

Madness is a sin. Those with emotional disabilities are shunned. Mental illness is not the church's problem.All three claims are wrong.In Madness, Heather H. Vacek traces the history of Protestant reactions to mental illness in America. She reveals how two distinct forces combined to thwart Christian care for the whole person. The professionalization of medicine worked to restrict the sphere of Christian authority to the private and spiritual realms, consigning healing and care—both physical and mental—to secular, medical specialists. Equally influential, a theological legacy that linked illness with sin deepened the social stigma surrounding people with a mental illness. The Protestant church, reluctant to engage sufferers lest it, too, be tainted by association, willingly abdicated care for people with a mental illness to secular professionals.While inattention formed the general rule, five historical exceptions to the pattern of benign neglect exemplify Protestant efforts to claim a distinctly Christian response. A close examination of the lives and work of colonial clergyman Cotton Mather, Revolutionary era physician Benjamin Rush, nineteenth-century activist Dorothea Dix, pastor and patient Anton Boisen, and psychiatrist Karl Menninger maps both the range and the progression of attentive Protestant care. Vacek chronicles Protestant attempts to make theological sense of sickness (Mather), to craft care as Christian vocation (Rush), to advocate for the helpless (Dix), to reclaim religious authority (Boisen), and to plead for people with a mental illness (Menninger).Vacek's historical narrative forms the basis for her theological reflection about contemporary Christian care of people with a mental illness and Christian understanding of mental illness. By demonstrating the gravity of what appeared—and failed to appear—on clerical and congregational agendas, Vacek explores how Christians should navigate the ever-shifting lines of cultural authority as they care for those who suffer.

Human disability raises the hardest questions of human existence and leads directly to the problem of causality—the underlying intuition that someone, divine or human, must have been at fault.Christian theology has responded with almost singular attention to Providence, the expression of divine will in the world as the cause of all things. This preoccupation holds captive the Christian imagination, leaving the Church ill equipped to engage the human reality of disability. Theological reflection, argues Hans Reinders, can arise only as a second-order activity that follows after real attention to the experience of disability.Disability, Providence, and Ethics offers a more excellent way to address this difficult subject. Reinders guides readers away from an identification of disability with tragedy—via lament—to the possibility of theological hope and its expression of God's presence. In particular, Reinders reconsiders two of the main traditional sources in Christian thought about Providence, the biblical text of Job and the theological work of John Calvin. Throughout the book, first-person accounts of disability open up biblical texts and Christian theology—rather than the other way around. In the end, a theology of Providence begins with the presence of the Spirit, not with the problem of causality.

Disability and spirituality have traditionally been understood as two distinct spheres: disability is physical and thus belongs to health care professionals, while spirituality is religious and belongs to the church, synagogue, or mosque and their theologians, clergy, rabbis, and imams. This division leads to stunted theoretical understanding, limited collaboration, and segregated practices, all of which contribute to a lack of capacity to see people with disabilities as whole human beings and full members of a diverse human family. Contesting the assumptions that separate disability and spirituality, William Gaventa argues for the integration of these two worlds. As Gaventa shows, the quest to understand disability inevitably leads from historical and scientific models into the world of spirituality - to the ways that values, attitudes, and beliefs shape our understanding of the meaning of disability. The reverse is also true. The path to understanding spirituality is a journey that leads to disability - to experiences of limitation and vulnerability, where the core questions of what it means to be human are often starkly and profoundly clear. In Disability and Spirituality Gaventa constructs this whole and human path before turning to examine spirituality in the lives of those individuals with disabilities, their families and those providing care, their friends and extended relationships, and finally the communities to which we all belong. At each point Gaventa shows that disability and spirituality are part of one another from the very beginning of creation. Recovering wholeness encompasses their reunion - a cohesion that changes our vision and enables us to everyone as fully human.

Time is central to all that humans do. Time structures days, provides goals, shapes dreams - and limits lives. Time appears to be tangible, real, and progressive, but, in the end, time proves illusory. Though mercurial, time can be deadly for those with disabilities. To participate fully in human society has come to mean yielding to the criterion of the clock. The absence of thinking rapidly, living punctually, and biographical narration leaves persons with disabilities vulnerable. A worldview driven by the demands the clock makes on the lives of those with dementia or profound neurological and intellectual disabilities seems pointless.And yet, Jesus comes to the world to transform time. Jesus calls us to slow down, take time, and learn to recognize the strangeness of living within God's time. He calls us to be gentle, patient, kind; to walk slowly and timefully with those whom society desires to leave behind.In Becoming Friends of Time, John Swinton crafts a theology of time that draws us toward a perspective wherein time is a gift and a calling. Time is not a commodity nor is time to be mastered. Time is a gift of God to humans, but is also a gift given back to God by humans.Swinton wrestles with critical questions that emerge from theological reflection on time and disability: rethinking doctrine for those who can never grasp Jesus with their intellects; reimagining discipleship and vocation for those who have forgotten who Jesus is; reconsidering salvation for those who, due to neurological damage, can be one person at one time and then be someone else in an instant. In the end, Swinton invites the reader to spend time with the experiences of people with profound neurological disability, people who can change our perceptions of time, enable us to grasp the fruitful rhythms of God's time, and help us learn to live in ways that are unimaginable within the boundaries of the time of the clock.Not for sale in the United Kingdom.

Crippled Grace combines disability studies, Christian theology, philosophy, and psychology to explore what constitutes happiness and how it is achieved. The virtue tradition construes happiness as whole-of-life flourishing earned by practiced habits of virtue. Drawing upon this particular understanding of happiness, Clifton contends that the experience of disability offers significant insight into the practice of virtue, and thereby the good life. With its origins in the author's experience of adjusting to the challenges of quadriplegia, Crippled Grace considers the diverse experiences of people with a disability as a lens through which to understand happiness and its attainment. Drawing upon the virtue tradition as much as contesting it, Clifton explores the virtues that help to negotiate dependency, resist paternalism, and maximize personal agency. Through his engagement with sources from Aristotle to modern positive psychology, Clifton is able to probe fundamental questions of pain and suffering, reflect on the value of friendship, seek creative ways of conceiving of sexual flourishing, and outline the particular virtues needed to live with unique bodies and brains in a society poorly fitted to their diverse functioning. Crippled Grace is about and for people with disabilities. Yet, Clifton also understands disability as symbolic of the human condition - human fragility, vulnerability, and embodied limits. First unmasking disability as a bodily and sociocultural construct, Clifton moves on to construct a deeper and more expansive account of flourishing that learns from those with disability, rather than excluding them. In so doing, Clifton shows that the experience of disability has something profound to say about all bodies, about the fragility and happiness of all humans, and about the deeper truths offered us by the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.

The Bible and Disability: A Commentary (BDC) is the first comprehensive commentary on the Bible from the perspective of disability. The BDC examines how the Bible constructs or reflects human wholeness, impairment, and disability in all their expressions. Biblical texts do envision the ideal body, but they also present visions of the body that deviate from this ideal, whether physically or through cognitive impairments or mental illness. The BDC engages the full range of these depictions of body and mind, exploring their meaning through close readings and comparative analysis.The BDC enshrines the distinctive interpretive imagination required to span the worlds of biblical studies and disability studies. Each of the fourteen contributors has worked at this intersection; and through their combined expertise, the very best of both biblical studies and disability studies culminates in detailed textual work of description, interpretation, and application to provide a synthetic and synoptic whole. The result is a close reading of the Bible that gives long-overdue attention to the fullness of human identity narrated in the Scriptures.Not for sale in the UK.

Time is central to all that humans do. Time structures days, provides goals, shapes dreams - and limits lives. Time appears to be tangible, real, and progressive, but, in the end, time proves illusory. Though mercurial, time can be deadly for those with disabilities. To participate fully in human society has come to mean yielding to the criterion of the clock. The absence of thinking rapidly, living punctually, and biographical narration leaves persons with disabilities vulnerable. A worldview driven by the demands the clock makes on the lives of those with dementia or profound neurological and intellectual disabilities seems pointless.And yet, Jesus comes to the world to transform time. Jesus calls us to slow down, take time, and learn to recognize the strangeness of living within God's time. He calls us to be gentle, patient, kind; to walk slowly and timefully with those whom society desires to leave behind.In Becoming Friends of Time, John Swinton crafts a theology of time that draws us toward a perspective wherein time is a gift and a calling. Time is not a commodity nor is time to be mastered. Time is a gift of God to humans, but is also a gift given back to God by humans.Swinton wrestles with critical questions that emerge from theological reflection on time and disability: rethinking doctrine for those who can never grasp Jesus with their intellects; reimagining discipleship and vocation for those who have forgotten who Jesus is; reconsidering salvation for those who, due to neurological damage, can be one person at one time and then be someone else in an instant. In the end, Swinton invites the reader to spend time with the experiences of people with profound neurological disability, people who can change our perceptions of time, enable us to grasp the fruitful rhythms of God's time, and help us learn to live in ways that are unimaginable within the boundaries of the time of the clock.Not for sales in the United Kingdom.

Disability and spirituality have traditionally been understood as two distinct spheres: disability is physical and thus belongs to health care professionals, while spirituality is religious and belongs to the church, synagogue, or mosque and their theologians, clergy, rabbis, and imams. This division leads to stunted theoretical understanding, limited collaboration, and segregated practices, all of which contribute to a lack of capacity to see people with disabilities as whole human beings and full members of a diverse human family. Contesting the assumptions that separate disability and spirituality, William Gaventa argues for the integration of these two worlds. As Gaventa shows, the quest to understand disability inevitably leads from historical and scientific models into the world of spirituality - to the ways that values, attitudes, and beliefs shape our understanding of the meaning of disability. The reverse is also true. The path to understanding spirituality is a journey that leads to disability - to experiences of limitation and vulnerability, where the core questions of what it means to be human are often starkly and profoundly clear. In Disability and Spirituality Gaventa constructs this whole and human path before turning to examine spirituality in the lives of those individuals with disabilities, their families and those providing care, their friends and extended relationships, and finally the communities to which we all belong. At each point Gaventa shows that disability and spirituality are part of one another from the very beginning of creation. Recovering wholeness encompasses their reunion - a cohesion that changes our vision and enables us to everyone as fully human.

The church welcomes all - or it should.The church has long proven itself a safe refuge despite the sad reality that it can be, and has been, unwelcoming toward those perceived as different. This is especially true of the contemporary church's response to those with disabilities-a response often at surprising variance with its historic practices of care. The church once helped shape western morality to cherish these individuals with love and acceptance. It is thus ironic when today's church neglects this care, or practices care with no awareness of the rich theological history out of which such moral sensibilities originally emerged. In  Wondrously Wounded, Brian Brock reclaims the church's historic theology of disability and extends it to demonstrate that people with disabilities, like all created in God's image, are servants of God's redemptive work.Brock divides his volume into five parts. Part one chronicles how early Christianity valued and cared for those with disabilities, putting into practice Jesus' teachings about divine mercy in decidedly countercultural ways. Part two details how a rise in the fear of disability tempted the church away from these merciful practices as well as its confession of the infinite worth of all God has created. Part three traces how the fear of difference continues to negatively shape contemporary practices in today's schools, churches, and politics. Part four lays the foundations of a vision of Christian life that is resistant to this pervasive fear. Finally, Part five shows how the recognition of all people as part of the body of Christ not only demonstrates the love of Christ but displaces the fear of disability in a manner that invites the church beyond even the most ambitious contemporary hopes for full inclusion.Brock interweaves his historical and theological analysis with the narrative of his own disabled son, Adam. These stories vividly bring into view the vulnerability, as well as the power, of the disabled in contemporary society. Ultimately, Brock argues, those with disabilities are conduits of spiritual gifts that the church desperately needs.  Wondrously Wounded is an appeal to the church to find itself broken and remade by the presence of Christ on offer in the lives of those society has labeled ‘disabled.’

At first glance it may seem that the Hebrew prophets offer little resolution on contemporary concerns of inclusivity and defense for persons deemed "other." Bound by their time and culture, the prophets' message seems obscure and irrelevant. However, on closer look, we see that the prophets offer a call to justice for those who are wrongly oppressed and marginalized, those on the fringes of society—the downcast and the disabled.In Prophetic Disability, Sarah Melcher opens our eyes to the prophetic corpus' ongoing theological relevance in the first book-length treatment of disability in the Bible's prophetic literature. Melcher takes a deep exegetical dive into Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve, analyzing passages that mention disability explicitly and those that offer complementary relevance. With careful and detailed exegetical work, she shows us the profound relationship between disability and the sovereignty of God, the latter being the dominant theme shaping all other motifs in the prophets. Influenced by the prominent work in disability studies by Tom Shakespeare's critical realism, she sets forth her own method in conversation with rhetorical and literary criticism. Melcher's engagement with these ancient texts is informed throughout by a respect for the context and circumstances that generated the texts relevant to disability, as well as a sensitivity to the lived experiences of people with disabilities.To that end, Prophetic Disability maintains the central theme from Shakespeare: that labels describe, but do not "constitute," disease. Who we are is a reality beyond our distinct experience with disability and impairment. What emerges from Melcher's analysis are ways in which the theological implications arising from the prophetic corpus might guide us toward more ethical practice in our encounters with disabilities.

Depression is difficult to define. It is commonly described as a chemical imbalance, a subjective experience of despondency, or even a semiotic construct. The various theories of depression—biochemical, psychological, cultural—often reflect one's philosophical anthropology. How one defines the human person is telling in how one defines mental disorder. Philosophy and the sciences tend to offer reductive explanations of what it means to be human, and such approaches rarely consider that we may be spiritual beings and so fail to entertain a theological approach.Peter J. Bellini invites us to reimagine the person in light of the image of God in Christ, the divine enfleshed in human weakness. The Cerulean Soul responds to real challenges in the sciences and philosophy and offers a relational theological anthropology shaped by a cruciform framework that assumes and affirms human contingency, limitation, and fallenness. With reference to Christ's incarnation, Bellini reveals how depression is inexorably tied to our relationship with God as his created beings: original, fallen, and renewed. Despondency serves as a biosocial and spiritual marker for our human weakness, brokenness, and spiritual struggle for meaning and wholeness. Further, it is a call to grow, to be restored, and to be made holy in the image of God in Christ. What emerges is a therapeia of the imago for depression that fills the gaps in our present attempts to determine the malady's etiology and treatment.Taking the missio Dei of union with the risen Christ as its goal, The Cerulean Soul opens up the perennial problem of human despondency to an eschatological trajectory of hope and peace, redemption and transformation, given freely in Christ through the healing and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. Christoformity, informed by the subversive kingdom of God, gives new form to all persons, "abled" and "disabled".

Joy, pain, celebration, and grief are constant companions on the journey of caregiving. While remaining detached might seem the preferable option, it is not possible to disentangle the threads of our interwoven stories. Our lives are shaped by each other. We are transformed by our encounters.In Formed Together, Keith Dow explores the questions of why we should, and why we do, care for one another. He considers what it means for human beings to be interdependent, created in the image of a loving God. Dow recounts personal experiences of supporting people with intellectual disabilities while drawing upon theological and philosophical sources to discover the ethical underpinnings of Christian care. Formed Together reveals that human beings care for one another not merely by choice, but because every person relies upon others. People are called together in mutually formative practices of care, and human flourishing means learning to care well. Dow suggests five virtues that mark ethical caregiving, such as humble courage and quiet attentiveness. These practices can help guide caregivers in responding to the divine call to care.Dow demonstrates that ethical practices of care do not depend upon intelligence or rational ability. Many are called to the vocation of tending to and being present in the needs of others. To be formed together in the divine image means that caregivers never entirely comprehend themselves, others, or God. Rather, caring well means that humans are to accompany one another in and through experiences of profound mystery and revelation.

The atonement—where God in Jesus Christ addresses sin and the whole of the human predicament—lies at the heart of the Christian faith and life. Its saving power is for all people, and yet a deep hesitancy has prevented meaningful discussion of the cross' relevance for people with disabilities. Speaking of disability and the multifaceted concept of the atonement has created an unresolvable tension, not least because sin and disability often seem to be associated within the biblical text. While work in disability theology has made great progress in developing a positive theological framework for disability as an integral part of human diversity, it has so far fallen short of grappling with this particular set of interpretive challenges presented by the cross.In  Accessible Atonement, reflecting on his experience as both a pastor and a theologian, David McLachlan brings the themes and objectives of disability theology into close conversation with traditional ideas of the cross as Jesus' sacrifice, justice, and victory. From this conversation emerges an account of the atonement as God's deepest, once-for-all participation in both the moral and contingent risk of creation, where all that alienates us from God and each other is addressed. Such an atonement is inherently inclusive of all people and is not one that is extended to disability as a "special case." This approach to the atonement opens up space to address both the redemption of sin and the possibilities of spiritual and bodily healing.What McLachlan leads us to discover is that, when revisited in this way, the cross—perhaps surprisingly—becomes the cornerstone of Christian disability theology and the foundation of many of its arguments. Far from excluding those who find themselves physically or mentally outside of assumed "norms," the atoning death of Christ creates a vital space of inclusion and affirmation for such persons within the life of the church.

While the struggle for disability rights has transformed secular ethics and public policy, traditional Christian teaching has been slow to account for disability in its theological imagination. Amos Yong crafts both a theology of disability and a theology informed by disability. The result is a Christian theology that not only connects with our present social, medical, and scientific understanding of disability but also one that empowers a set of best practices appropriate to our late modern context.

Baptism offers the distinctive practice of Christian initiation, rooted in Jesus' own baptism, ministry, death, and resurrection. Too often, however, people with intellectual disabilities are excluded from this core Christian practice and so barred from full inclusion in the life of discipleship. How can the work of the Triune God in baptism renew Christian imagination toward an embrace of baptismal identities and vocations among disabled Christians?In Becoming the Baptized Body Sarah Barton explores how baptismal theologies and practices shape Christian imagination, identity, and community. Privileging perspectives informed by disability experience through theological qualitative research, Becoming the Baptized Body demonstrates how theology done together can expansively enliven imagination around baptismal practices and how they intersect with the human experience of disability. Through a lively tapestry of stories, theological insights, and partnerships with Christians who experience intellectual disability, Barton resists theological abstraction and engages and expands the field of disability theology.With a methodological commitment to inclusive research and a focus on ecclesial practice, Barton brings theologians of disability, biblical accounts of baptism, baptismal liturgies, and theological voices from across the ecumenical spectrum in conversation with Christians shaped by intellectual disability. Becoming the Baptized Body explores how the real-world experiences of disabled Christians enrich and expand received Christian theological traditions and illustrates avenues for vibrant participation and formation for all believers.

Baptism offers the distinctive practice of Christian initiation, rooted in Jesus' own baptism, ministry, death, and resurrection. Too often, however, people with intellectual disabilities are excluded from this core Christian practice and so barred from full inclusion in the life of discipleship. How can the work of the Triune God in baptism renew Christian imagination toward an embrace of baptismal identities and vocations among disabled Christians?In Becoming the Baptized Body Sarah Jean Barton explores how baptismal theologies and practices shape Christian imagination, identity, and community. Privileging perspectives informed by disability experience through theological qualitative research, Becoming the Baptized Body demonstrates how theology done together can expansively enliven imagination around baptismal practices and how they intersect with the human experience of disability. Through a lively tapestry of stories, theological insights, and partnerships with Christians who experience intellectual disability, Barton resists theological abstraction and engages and expands the field of disability theology.With a methodological commitment to inclusive research and a focus on ecclesial practice, Barton brings theologians of disability, biblical accounts of baptism, baptismal liturgies, and theological voices from across the ecumenical spectrum in conversation with Christians shaped by intellectual disability. Becoming the Baptized Body explores how the real-world experiences of disabled Christians enrich and expand received Christian theological traditions and illustrates avenues for vibrant participation and formation for all believers.

American Christianity tends to view disabled persons as problems to be solved rather than people with experiences and gifts that enrich the church. Churches have generated policies, programs, and curricula geared toward "including" disabled people while still maintaining "able-bodied" theologies, ministries, care, and leadership. Ableism—not lack of ramps, of finances, or of accessible worship—is the biggest obstacle for disabled ministry in America. In From Inclusion to Justice, Erin Raffety argues that what our churches need is not more programs for disabled people but rather the pastoral tools to repent of able-bodied theologies and practices, listen to people with disabilities, lament ableism and injustice, and be transformed by God's ministry through disabled leadership. Without a paradigm shift from ministries of inclusion to ministries of justice, our practical theology falls short.Drawing on ethnographic research with congregations and families, pastoral experience with disabled people, teaching in theological education, and parenting a disabled child, Raffety, an able-bodied Christian writing to able-bodied churches, confesses her struggle to repent from ableism in hopes of convincing others to do the same. At the same time, Raffety draws on her interactions with disabled Christian leaders to testify to what God is still doing in the pews and the pulpit, uplifting and amplifying the ministry and leadership of people with disabilities as a vision toward justice in the kingdom of God.

One of the central and novel convictions of the early Christian movement compared to the existing Greco-Roman beliefs was the dogma of bodily resurrection. The Stoics esteemed temperance, disciplining the body to curb the flesh; the Epicureans embraced pleasure, indulging their worldly desires. However, Paul's letters to the Corinthians convey a countercultural idea: what you do with your body matters because it will still be with you in the resurrection. But when many contemporary Christians consider the new creation, they imagine the new Jerusalem filled with unblemished people living with normalized and idealized resurrected bodies: "healing" is assumed as a fundamental reality of the resurrection. In Perfect in Weakness, Maja I. Whitaker develops the proposition that people with disabilities might retain their diverse embodiment in the new creation—that the resurrected body might still be "disabled." This theological claim is based in the accounts of the resurrected Christ appearing with the stigmata, and it is supported by the intuitions of those persons with disabilities who consider that their unique embodiment is identity-forming and entirely unproblematic in itself. If the human person is an essentially embodied metaphysical unity, then there may be features of our particular bodies that must be continuous through the transformation of resurrection for personal identity to be secured. However, this "retention view" has faced conceptual objections on the grounds of theological anthropology, continuity of identity, and biblical conceptions of flourishing human life. Whitaker confronts these objections, integrating philosophical, biblical, and theological methodologies in order to present a reasonable and coherent defense of the retention view. The possibility of persons with diverse embodiment enjoying fullness of life in the new creation can expose negative attitudes towards disability and unlock a critique of ableist bias in Christian thought and practice in the modern church. Moreover, it can function as an eschatological parable to subvert the powers of this age that idolize success, mastery, and autonomy to the neglect of theologies of weakness, limitation, and dependency. In this way, Perfect in Weakness is important not only in the realm of disability studies but also in the wider Christian community that is mired within the cultural ideologies of our time.

Human beings are relationally dependent, regardless of race, gender, or functionality, and while persons with disability may seem to epitomize dependency, they are neither more nor less dependent than those without disabilities. Many people deny, if not absolutely reject, any claim of dependence on others once maturity is reached; however, this position contradicts reality—disabled and nondisabled alike are dependent on others for the provision of both basic and complex services. Acknowledging one's dependence can facilitate relief from the hardships everyone experiences over the course of a lifetime: sickness, injury, disease, and the difficulties of aging.With Radical Dependence, Mary Jo Iozzio approaches concerns of and for disabled persons by presenting a Trinitarian theological anthropology of relationality and the radical dependence that such a reality presumes. Iozzio demonstrates the influence such a theology can have on the ways that institutions—healthcare, schools, social services, civic organizations, and churches—can practice solidarity and subsidiarity alongside people with disability who have been too long oppressed, sequestered, and forgotten.Disability studies is increasingly engaging theology and ethics. Colleagues in systematics have offered keen insights and challenges to theological anthropology inclusive of people with disability. This text builds on some of that work, expands it through a Trinitarian lens, and approaches each imago Dei as inherently dependent upon others. Radical Dependence considers the contours of an ethics that uses a disability hermeneutic while it engages the Scriptures, systematic theology, virtue ethics, and Catholic Social Teaching applied to questions that arise in formal, informal, and intimate contexts. This is an ethical vision for people with disability and the nondisabled alike, for all who wish to embrace the radical fullness of human existence.

At a Texas Hill Country ranch, Melody Escobar and her young son meet Bo, the retired racehorse that becomes his "go-to" sage in a remarkable equine program for children with disabilities. The weekly ritual in the riding arena ignites an inner transformation for Escobar and an ethnographic study of everyday caregiving. In  Revelations of Divine Care, Escobar explores Julian of Norwich's vision of unconditional love and the innovative ways in which all people--with or without disability--can challenge dynamics of power and control to nurture communities in which love compels others to love. Escobar presents a fresh reading of Julian's revolutionary teachings and connects the fourteenth-century mystic with first-person narratives of mothers who are caregivers. She calls us to re-vision our understanding of kenosis and advocate for the mutual flourishing of every being, following the pattern of generative trinitarian relationship where each is in and for the other. Escobar invites us to bring our own stories into conversation with members of our communities, providing theological language for what it means to live a spirituality of solidarity guided by faith, one in which "active mercy," i.e., committed works of charity, is considered a universal practice instead of the experience of a select few.Relevant for ministers, theologians, activists, and caregivers alike,  Revelations of Divine Care presents a model for community in which compassionate care becomes "life giving and making." Escobar offers new, practical applications for being "church," such as placing persons with disabilities at the "speaking center," countering ableist programming with creative liturgical practices, and prioritizing respite care for the blossoming life of the whole community. She draws from the wells of wisdom of the Christian mystical tradition to illuminate the interdependence of all people--which we ignore at our own peril--reminding us of the urgency and beauty of unconditional love and care, whether in the riding arena, the church, or the public sphere.

Throughout its history, evangelicalism has neglected to consider the spiritual lives of people with profound intellectual disabilities and how their experiences might contribute to a fuller understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. Both the historic and modern constructions of evangelical discipleship have led to particular ministry strategies and practices that rarely consider the presence of people with profound intellectual disabilities.In Held in the Love of God, Phil Letizia attends to this oversight in the discipleship of the evangelical church by investigating the historical development of evangelicalism and its particular characteristics that, as he argues, make it difficult for the intellectually disabled to be perceived as followers of Jesus. Letizia draws upon a rich cross section of research, stories and firsthand accounts from families of disability, and works from evangelicalism and disability theologians to raise questions requiring reflection on the part of evangelicals. The methods used strive to uncover stories of disability and discipleship while also examining the most common context for evangelical discipleship, the local church.Employing thoughtful theological reflection, Letizia argues for a broader theology of discipleship within popular evangelicalism that includes the spiritual lives of people with profound intellectual disabilities. This can only be achieved through embracing renewed emphasis on a theology of the cross to address hardship and suffering and the conviction that we are held in the trustful love of God that seals our eternal purpose in the divine kingdom. Held in the Love of God explores the contours of evangelical discipleship in a way that provokes deep theological inquiry, while also leading local congregations, pastors, and lay leaders to consider the implications for ministry within the body of Christ.

A Disruptive Witness: Intellectual Disability and the Christian Life develops a constructive theological account of the Christian witness of people with intellectual disabilities. Rempel proposes that people with intellectual disabilities witness to the God who has acted in history on our behalf, as they are empowered by God to do so. Finding an ally in Karl Barth's theology of witness, the claim of this book is not that Christians need to find new ways to empower people with intellectual disabilities in the practice of witness, but rather levies a challenge to Christians to presume that people with intellectual disabilities are currently witnessing even today. It is thus a call to pay attention to the mysterious ways God may be at work through people with intellectual disabilities.The book is developed in two parts. The first part sets forth "the ontology of witness," or what God instantiates in the life of the believer in order to make witness possible. Rempel demonstrates how the Christian is called by God into a life of participating in Christ, and it is this calling and participation which enable the task of witness. Then, the second part develops "the activity of witness," which tracks the centrifugal motion of witness, working outwards from one's participation in Christ as they are thrust into the public sphere. In doing so, Rempel shows not only how it is possible for people with intellectual disabilities to witness, but how this witness occurs (and is occurring) all around us, if only we might pay attention.

While the struggle for disability rights has transformed secular ethics and public policy, traditional Christian teaching has been slow to account for disability in its theological imagination. Amos Yong crafts both a theology of disability and a theology informed by disability. The result is a Christian theology that not only connects with our present social, medical, and scientific understanding of disability but also one that empowers a set of best practices appropriate to our late modern context.

Flannery O'Connor is one of America's most unique Southern authors. Shortly after she began her writing career she was diagnosed with lupus. Despite her illness, O'Connor authored more than two dozen short stories and two novels. Her highly regionalized Southern Gothic stories often involve grotesque characters.Literature critic and theologian Timothy J. Basselin consults O'Connor's life and work to illustrate the profound connections existing between the theme of the grotesque and Christian theology. O'Connor's own disability, Basselin argues, inspired a theology that leads readers toward greater recognition of God's activity in a sinfully grotesque world. By combining disability studies, literary critique, and theological reflection, Basselin discovers a new vision for approaching the disabled, the grotesque, and the other in society. Flannery O'Connor reignites O'Connor's own critiques of the modern affinity for perfection, self-sufficiency, and a clear separation between "good" and "bad.

The Bible and Disability: A Commentary (BDC) is the first comprehensive commentary on the Bible from the perspective of disability. The BDC examines how the Bible constructs or reflects human wholeness, impairment, and disability in all their expressions. Biblical texts do envision the ideal body, but they also present visions of the body that deviate from this ideal, whether physically or through cognitive impairments or mental illness. The BDC engages the full range of these depictions of body and mind, exploring their meaning through close readings and comparative analysis.The BDC enshrines the distinctive interpretive imagination required to span the worlds of biblical studies and disability studies. Each of the fourteen contributors has worked at this intersection; and through their combined expertise, the very best of both biblical studies and disability studies culminates in detailed textual work of description, interpretation, and application to provide a synthetic and synoptic whole. The result is a close reading of the Bible that gives long-overdue attention to the fullness of human identity narrated in the Scriptures.Not for sale in the UK.