The Theological Voice of Wolf Wolfensberger

William C Gaventa, David Coulter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780789013149
• eBook ISBN: 9781135024055
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Anesthesiology & Pain Management

Do people with mental retardation have a special prophetic role?In the field of developmental disabilities, Wolf Wolfensberger is famous for his seminal book Normalization. But Wolfensberger is also a theologian, and the two strands of his thought are inextricable. The Theological Voice of Wolf Wolfensberger showcases his theories on the spiritual meaning of mental retardation and other disabilities.Up until now, Wolfensberger's work has been available only in small, hard-to-find publications, mostly in the field of human services. Thus his theological perspectives have not yet been heard in many religious circles. The Theological Voice of Wolf Wolfensberger brings together his essays and presentations from the past thirty years, giving the reader a unique pathway into his pioneering ideas on the spiritual implications of developmental disabilities. In addition, the volume includes critiques of his thought by several noted scholars and practitioners, along with Wolfensberger's response to those critiques.The Theological Voice of Wolf Wolfensberger expresses powerful opinions, some outrageous, all courageous. You will find yourself intently engaged with his provocative theories, including:

• why installing wheelchair access ramps may actually block full participation of the handicapped in the life of the church
• how the "deathmaking" culture of the modern world prevents Christians from understanding the meaning of suffering
• why people with mental retardation are the prophets of our times
• why most Christians ignore the powerful Biblical call to communality
• which special gifts of grace people with mental retardation may possess
• how handicapped and societally devalued patients can be protected from the neglect (or worse) of hospital staff The Theological Voice of Wolf Wolfensberger is challenging, inspiring, and sometimes infuriating. It is bound to stir up controversy among health care professionals, disability advocates, and anyone concerned with spiritual matters. You may not agree with Wolfensberger, as some of the contributors to this volume do not, but he will make you think . . . hard.

THE THEOLOGICAL PAPERS OF WOLF WOLFENSBERGER

The Prophetic Voice and Presence of Mentally Retarded People in the World Today

Wolf Wolfensberger, PhD

Wolf Wolfensberger was born in Mannheim, Germany, in 1934, and came to the United States at age 16. He majored in philosophy at Siena College in Memphis, received an MA in clinical psychology at St. Louis University, and a PhD in psychology at George Peabody College for Teachers where he specialized in mental retardation and minored in special education. His involvement with handicapped and devalued groups has been very diverse. He formulated the citizen advocacy scheme, contributed to the systematization of the normalization principle, developed methods for evaluating the quality of human services, and has been active in I’Arche. Recent interests include the history of human services, how Christian human services are characterized, and formulation of opposition to the rising endangerment of the lives of certain devalued groups in society. Since 1973, he has been a professor at Syracuse University, Division of Special Education and Rehabilitation.

Edited presentation given to the Religion Subdivision of the American Association of Mental Deficiency (AAMD) at the 100th National Conference, Chicago, May 1976, and to the International Federation of l’Arche, Chateauneuf, France, April 3, 1978. Published previously in shorter and different forms as “The Moral Challenge of Mentally Retarded Persons to Human Services” in Information Service (publication of the Religion Division of AAMD), 1977, 6(3), 6–16; and in International Federation of l’Arche, Springs of New Hope, 1978, 37–80.

Introduction

Problems and Temptations Characteristic of Our Time

The Perception of the World by Non-Christians and Christians

The Prophetic Message of Mentally Retarded Persons

Mentally Retarded Persons Are Becoming Much More Public and Visible

Retarded Persons Are Becoming Internationally Known

Non-Handicapped and Handicapped Persons Are Sharing Their Lives, Often Living Together

Retarded People Are Gentling Others

The Prophetic Manifestation of the Presence of God via Retarded People

Retarded People Speaking in Tongues

Retarded People May Withstand Their Culture

Retarded People May Be Parodying Intellectualism

The Dance of Spiritual Joy

Retarded People Are Beginning to Be Persecuted and Martyred

Implications of the Prophetic Message of the Mentally Retarded

The Bankruptcy of Intellectual and Technological Achievement

The Importance of Shared Worship with Retarded People

The Importance of Other Genuine Sharing with Retarded People

Those Allied with Severely Handicapped People Must Be Prepared to Be Persecuted and Martyred

A Concluding Personal Note

Appendix

INTRODUCTION

The thesis of my presentation is that mentally retarded people play a unique prophetic role in this age. Christians who are allied with the mentally retarded need to fully understand that role, and other Christians (especially human service workers) should be aware of the phenomenon. In my remarks, I will lean heavily on An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land (Stringfellow, 1973).

Christians have always been called to see the world differently from non-Christians, namely, to perceive the world more in the light of God’s word, revelation, and intent; and perhaps in a sense, to perceive the world a little more the way God might perceive it. Prophets and saints have done this traditionally-but always at a high cost. If they perceived the hidden absurdities of their age, and then interpreted these absurdities as absurdities, they were ridiculed for their apparently far-fetched interpretations; and if these interpretations threatened the powerful, the interpreters were frequently persecuted. Indeed, tradition has it that just about every prophet of the Old Testament was martyred. We do not have historical documentation, but Christ himself, as well as the Apostles, repeatedly spoke of this as a fact to their contemporaries.

If we take a long perspective of history, it seems that each era not only recapitulates the same human fall, weaknesses and offenses, but that in addition, Satan manages to present ever new and even unique patterns of problems and temptations, which in turn result in patterns of sins that may also be more specific to that age. For instance, a recurring temptation to, and offense of, the early Jews was idolatry and worship of graven images believed to be God. During the Roman Empire, a characteristic pattern was the deification of Caesar. In the medieval age, an almost universal pattern was the glorification of violence, even by the Church. The Church even justified Christians going to war against Christians. In the light of modern times, slavery (until the mid-1800s) may have been a special patterned evil. Every era was so wrapped up in itself that it was always difficult, even for the faithful, to discern the signs of the time. Therefore, we can ask a provocative question: what might be the specific or even unique problem patterns and temptations of our own age now.

PROBLEMS AND TEMPTATIONS CHARACTERISTIC OF OUR TIME

The one thing that is certainly unique, whatever else there may be about this age, is the deification of a “successful” technology; and technology has achieved a power that, without doubt, is unique in history. This technological power can not only put people on the moon but, for the first time in human history, it can eradicate all human life. This situation is very different from all other ages. There always existed the potential to conduct warfare, but there never existed the potential to eradicate all human life. Contrary to what most people think, this eradication can be achieved not only through nuclear warfare, but through at least five other means, such as bacterial warfare, genetic engineering and accidents, atmospheric and climatic changes and manipulations, etc.

Aside from potential total destruction, it is the very technology at its height that is now creating, or has already created, a non-functional earth which is about to collapse under the weight of the complexity of technology and of its products, such as overpopulation and (what is often overlooked by contemporary people) an unmanageably huge and complex social, political, mechanical and industrial system. The systems we are creating escape the human capability of management.

In the last few years, I have become vastly more sensitized to the messages that are contained in events, occurrences, and phenomena. I no longer see, hear, and read many things merely on the level at which they occur. For example, we all hear a lot of fire engines and police sirens going by; as I sit in my office on the university hill in Syracuse, I hear the sirens go by three and four times a day, and often I hear them at home at night. On the one hand, you may just hear sirens. On the other hand, what does it tell you when sirens scream by four times a day?

One day I asked myself, “Is there a message in all this siren noise?” and I began to no longer hear sirens. I was beginning to hear something being said-or more properly, being screamed. What are sirens, what do they mean, why are they going by? Well, it usually means that there is trouble, there are ambulances going to accidents or even merely pretending to be on important business; there are fires or fire alarms; there are police going to emergencies; and so on. When you have sirens going by an awful lot, it means there are an awful lot of problems. In different societies at different times, there are different numbers and types of problems. When you get too many sirens, maybe there is something wrong with the society. So instead of sirens, I began to hear societal screams; it was as if society was a person screaming out. Thus, when I hear the sirens now, it is no longer a siren to me, but a message-and a potentially ominous one.

But there are so many more messages, symbols, communications. Yet we are a rather literal and prosaic society, and we do not use imagery and symbolism to the degree that some other societies do (although we do more than some others), and we often fail to read the hidden messages that may be contained in various phenomena.

THE PERCEPTION OF THE WORLD BY NON-CHRISTIANS AND CHRISTIANS

The nonfunctionalities of our highly developed societies are a puzzling paradox to non-Christians-at least the westernized ones. We have created a “techno-god” that is expected to bring “techno-salvation.” And surely, the fact that this techno-god is eating its faithful must be, or is, perceived by non-Christians as, a temporary malfunction. The non-Christian hardly has other explanations; there must be a temporary mistake that can be fixed with a little more engineering, or what in computer-language is called “de-bugging.” But to the Christians who relate to the totality of the Bible and of human history, there is no paradox. Quite to the contrary; the human race, as a whole, is only marching where it has always marched-the direction has never changed, only the flags, the clothes, the shoes, the music, the language. The only new thing in the history of mankind is that during the last two thousand years, God has given a few humans the option to march to a different drummer.

At any rate, Biblically-based Christians are apt to perceive, at least in a vague sense, that our age has its version of the tower of Babel; and God is about to confound the human intellectual arrogance that tends to replace Him with science and with reason. Therefore, a Biblically-based Christian would also fully expect the presence of prophetic messages of warning about these things, because much as there seem to be distinct dysfunctionalities and problems in different eras, so each era seems to receive its special form of prophecy which is addressed uniquely to that culture, society, people, time, and needs. The prophecy has an uncanny way of fitting the problem, in terms of the imagery in the messages involved, and in terms of the level of urgency. I remember once lamenting to Jean Vanier about the incredible amount and degree of corruption and evil that exists in New York State and New York City. To me, living in the state of New York is like living at the foot of the throne of Satan: there is corruption from the top to the bottom, at every level of government, all over the state. Yet Vanier reminded me that St. Paul (Romans 5:20) said that wherever evil abounds, grace super-abounds. It is similar with prophecy. Where there is a period of particular problematicness, there we will probably also find a particularly intense level of prophecy.

Prophecy can be a very private thing, and private prophecy is probably both much more common as well as diversified than public prophecy. But I am talking now primarily about public prophecy, i.e., prophecy which is as public as are the problems, and as public as are the patterns of evil and corruption to which it is addressed. It is the public pattern of prophecy that I see as being on the same level, intensity, imagery and so on as the evil, because (and of course, it makes sense) it is this kind of prophecy that is also intended to carry its message as publicly, or at least as nearly publicly, as the message of corruption, dysfunctionality, or collapse of a particular age. It also appears that such public prophecy becomes manifest in the presence of individuals, groups or movements that are very closely tied to the Spirit. All this is fully to be expected, since God has always done these things since Biblical times, and has always sent the warnings that fit the times.

I have to admit that until about 1972, I did not believe that our age was possessed of extraordinary malfunctionalities. Then increasingly, I began to read the signs differently, to the point where I now believe we are at the point where our society is in collapse. Beginning to see things in this way, and trying to read more clearly and consciously the dysfunctionalities of our age, it occurred to me that one way to understand them better is by (oddly enough) using the scientific principle of “obverting.” In science, when you have a statement that expresses some scientific relationship (e.g., X causes Y), sometimes you can reverse the directionality of the statement, giving you a new and revealing way of looking at the relationships implied (e.g., if Y can be observed to be present, is X operative?). So instead of asking “Where or what are the dysfunctionalities?”, one way of discerning dysfunctionalities is to ask “Where or what are the prophecies?”, because if you can identify the prophecy, its form, its messenger, and its message, then that will likely tell you what the problem is.

So I asked myself, what are the prophetic signs which appear to be unique or very special to our day, which are very different from what they have been at other times? By asking, I did not mean to deny that routine and especially private prophecy does not continue; ordinary, run-of-the-mill prophecy seems to be an ongoing phenomenon. But in addition, what are the forms of prophecy which appear to be different in our age than in other ages? Where and how is the Spirit active today in a way that is different from the way it may have been in other eras?

As I posed these questions to myself over the past few years, I began to read both the signs of dysfunctionality and of prophecy in a different and clearer fashion, and I read one very, very powerful prophetic message, coming from mentally retarded people. For instance, I considered that it should not be unexpected if divine messages about the present patterning of offenses should come from people who, in their roles and identities, are exactly the opposite of what our era idolatrates. So who and what is the opposite?

The opposite is a person who is not intellectual, not scientific, not technological, and not academic; who does simple instead of complex things; who cannot cope with complexity and technology which passes him by; and who, possibly, is despised for lack of modernity and intellectuality. Is that not the retarded person of our age?

But if it is, is there any evidence that God has thrust retarded people into a prophetic role? I submit to you that there is indeed, and that there are at least ten such signs.

THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE OF MENTALLY RETARDED PERSONS

Mentally Retarded Persons Are Becoming Much More Public and Visible

There are a number of remarkable things going on in our age that involve and affect mentally retarded people. One of these, though remarkable, would not mean anything by itself if it were not part of a pattern, namely, the remarkable high public visibility of retarded people. That, of course, could just be an interesting secular coincidence, but nevertheless, let us start off with that. Mentally retarded people are now visible; you can see them everywhere. Sometimes, their visibility may be a tragic one, in that we may see the people who have been dumped from the institutions walking the streets, and we can recognize them on sight as being retarded because of the way they are neglected, by their acultural appearance, their odd behaviors, and so on. We may also hear more about abuses committed on retarded people in the community, of which more is said later. On the other hand, we are also seeing more retarded persons in constructive contexts, for example, at conventions. In our field, you formerly never saw retarded people coming to meetings and conventions, but now it is rather routine; and at a lot of both general public as well as professional and parent group events, you do see retarded people where formerly there were none. There is nothing remarkable anymore in seeing retarded people in industry, schools, churches, group homes and neighborhoods, streets, shops, on the city buses, and so on.

So all of these retarded people then become a reminder, through their visibility, of the opposite of the techno-god. The very fact that retarded people, even more than non-retarded people, in many ways look alike is remarkable. To me it is almost like the medieval cathedral–pardon the analogy–from which the gargoyles have been looking down into the marketplace for hundreds and hundreds of years, as if to say: I am always there, looking at the hustle and the bustle and the business. The recurring familiar appearance of so many retarded people seems to tell me that wherever I may go, there I also find the opposite of mental retardation, and especially so complexity. I may walk on the main street of Heidelberg, and there on a corner to a dark sideline stands a retarded man whom I immediately recognize, and he stands simply in the middle of the stream of the loud noises of technology, and conveys the message: I will always be here-unless you slay me. Unless you slay me, I will be here to remind you.

That one can go across the world and encounter so many retarded people who bear an uncanny resemblance to each other might be explained by showing how certain causative factors create distinct syndromes, such as Down’s syndrome, which affect specified structures of the body in a similar manner, and which therefore result in a resemblance among many of the afflicted individuals. One can further argue that common patterns of experiential deprivation may result in similar bodily expressions. Even granted these arguments, there is something that touches one deeply when one encounters an individual to whom one can say mentally: “I know you. I have seen you many times before, among many peoples and races. Y...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Editors
• Preface
• A Note of Appreciation
• Introduction
• The Theological Papers of Wolf Wolfensberger
• Responders
• Book Review
• Wolf Wolfensberger Responds
• Index