Reconceptualising Disability for the Contemporary Church

Frances Mackenney-Jeffs

• Publisher: SCM Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780334059172
• eBook ISBN: 9780334059196
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Even today, there is still an inherent conflict between the way the Gospels speak about disability, and the attitude of the Church. This book seeks to challenge the assumptions which still exist about disability, assumptions which are reflected within the Church.Blending theory, anthropology, theology, pastoral concerns and the lived experience of people with disabilities, Reconceptualising Disability for the Contemporary Church offers an important and thoughtful challenge to the contemporary Church.

1. Disability in Historical Perspective

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Think about the following questions before reading this chapter. After reading Chapter 2 you will return to some modification of them.

• What was your first encounter with disability?
• How did it make you feel or what were your thoughts at the time?
• Have further encounters changed the way you understand disability?

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There is wisdom in the notion that to see more clearly where we are headed we need to take a long hard look at the journey thus far. In this chapter we will look at early civilizations, the Classical world of the Greeks and Romans, and then explore our British culture from Medieval times up to and including the Victorian era, post world wars and into the present. This may not be easy reading for those with twenty-first-century sensibilities of disability that has been radically redefined by the philosophical shifts of post-modernity. This historical overview will enable us to grasp how one model of disability gained a hegemonic dominance until very recent times. Further, Judaeo-Christian thinking will be a point for particular attention, including the historical Jesus, given the criticisms that have frequently been levelled at Judeao-Christian faith by the largely secular Disability Movement (see definition on page 25), and indeed sometimes from within the Judeao-Christian community itself.

It is crucial that the reader understands that while impairment has always been a reality of human life, disability as a category has not, and the moral understanding of the subject has been a matter of dispute for some time and tends to differ across eras and cultures. This chapter therefore requires the reader to be aware of unexamined, subconscious assumptions they may have regarding disability, and to be willing to challenge them. Since religion is part of our worldview, it should not be surprising that some negative values are inscribed in religious texts and traditions, and that these need to be re-examined under the microscope.

Ancient Civilizations

Edwards (1995, p. 166) makes the important point that although western people are accustomed to regarding disabled people as a distinct group, this was not so in the Ancient world. Information about disabled people in the Ancient Near East is difficult to uncover precisely because they were integrated into society. A community model of disability is likely to be the reason, as they were not isolated as a separate group but fully integrated into the rural life.

Starting our brief exploration with ancient civilizations, we note cave paintings dating back as far as 30,000 years which depict the strongest and fittest warriors; and yet juxtaposed with these symbols of strength are people transfigured as part human and part beast; some with additional heads, wings or malformed feet (Wallman 2001, p. 47). Furthermore, ancient Babylonian tablets depict humans who appear to have congenital defects engaged in ritual practice. This is totally counter-intuitive since in Babylonian society the birth of a defective child was generally regarded as an evil omen for the family. Hence, examination of the foetal remains and defects of a born child was a common form of divination seeking to establish the deeper relevance of the birth for the family and wider society. Views typical of the pre-scientific era include the notion that the reason for deformity was either a shock received by the mother during pregnancy or, turning to the father, the quantity of semen (too little or too much) used in conception.

The Sumerian myth of Enki and Ninmah is an attempt to incorporate people with disabilities into the social structure and thus presupposes a community model of disability (Avalos 2007, p. 19). A diviner had to be perfect in body so even squinting eyes and chipped teeth could prove to be barriers to the priesthood, such was the demand for perfection (p. 26).

The Classical World

The Classical world is of particular interest since the foundations of western civilization and culture were laid by the Ancient Greeks and account for a particular bias in western society, as outlined by the blind cleric Jane Wallman:

The value system of the democracy we have inherited was founded on concepts of order and degree; balance, symmetry, images of perfection and beauty. Disablement, by its nature, is the antithesis of much that was held precious in Greek and Roman culture, for it encapsulates dependency, uncertainty and weakness. (2001, p. 51)

The achievement of the Greeks in terms of philosophy, arts and architecture has had a profound effect on western culture. The lack of access for people with mobility impairments has its origins in the influence of Greek architecture on building design in Europe and America. Although the Greeks are credited with asserting citizenship rights and the dignity of the individual, these were never intended to be universally extended either to women or indeed to any non-Athenians.

In this society physical and intellectual fitness was highly prized, so there was no room for those with imperfect bodies. In his study of deformity and disability in the Graeco-Roman world Garland (1995) comments that in the arts the Greeks, and Romans to a lesser degree, gave the impression to an outsider that physiological perfection was consistent with their lived reality. Yet 10 per cent of the population was affected by disability from an early age, a fact of which the culture seemed to be in denial.

In addition, the concept of stigma comes from the Greek custom of marking or burning a person to indicate they were a slave. The Greek obsession with bodily perfection led to excessive measures such as infanticide for children born with impairments, or indirect infanticide through exposure to the elements, as required by law in Sparta.

The Greek gods and goddesses were the models that all were encouraged to emulate, and notably only one had an impairment, a limp: Hephaestes (the son of Hera and Zeus). Zeus effectively practises infanticide by banishing him from heaven. The rest of his fate has implications for some of society’s unfounded assumptions about sexual virility and disability. He was made to marry Aphrodite who was subsequently repeatedly unfaithful to him.

Disability and deformity as subjects for amusement were advanced by Cicero in his treatise ‘On Oratory 2.239’, in which he states that these traits provide good material for making jokes (Avalos et al. 1995, p. 39).

Medieval Era

In tracing the origins of attitudes to disabled people, Finkelstein (1980, 1981) gives a compelling explanation of how disabled people came to be segregated from everyday life. He claims that before the Industrial Revolution, disabled people were easily accommodated in the pastoral life of a feudal society. This meant they were integrated within their communities having a number of legitimate social and economic roles that included ‘the village idiot’ or ‘beggar’, roles that subsequently disappeared. They were part of an undifferentiated mass of poor, but were not excluded from their non-disabled peers and were known as persons. While a number of writers agree with Finkelstein, that life in pre-industrial societies was more accommodating for disabled people, Borsay takes issue with him. Quoting a Quaker cloth merchant in 1714 promoting the work ethic, he concludes: ‘Given such espousal of the work ethic, the pre-industrial labour market may not have been very hospitable to impaired participants’ (2002, p. 104).

The work ethic is one thing, but the introduction of industrial time is quite another. John Swinton enlightens us on this matter in Becoming Friends of Time. He asserts that as the workplace became overpowered by the speed of the free market economy the efficient use of time was assumed to be normative. ‘As time became money so the disabled became a burden and a handicap’ (italics mine) (2016, p. 43).

Coupled with this, the introduction of mechanization led to a more regimented way of working. Equipment was designed for use by a ‘standard’ operator so that people with impairments found themselves increasingly excluded from the workforce and the social milieu. Also the pace of work was less amenable for disabled people. Essentially any flexibility that may have existed previously was squeezed out. Although it is clear that the Industrial Revolution was detrimental to disabled people, Barnes claims that there is evidence of a consistent bias against people with impairments in western society before the advent of capitalism.

So capitalism alone does not seem to offer a full explanation of the bias against disabled people. The matter is worsened by the simple fact that voices of disabled people in history are largely silent. However, let us turn to anthropology and then to feminist theory to discover deeper-rooted reasons for this primeval intolerance.

Anthropologist, Mary Douglas underlines that our perception and attitude to impairment and disability is heavily influenced by a deep-seated psychological fear of the unknown, the ‘abnormal’ and the anomalous. In concord with this psychological view, and going further, feminist theorists speak of ‘othering’, where society is hostile to those they see as simply different from themselves. The concept has its origin in the idea of ‘the male as norm’ in society so that women are seen as a threat because they are ‘other than men’ despite being a known quantity as mothers, sisters, wives, etc. This suspicion of the ‘other’ it is argued, is at the root of racism and a raft of other ‘isms’ common in today’s world.

The Medieval Synthesis

Focusing more now on theology than history, we will consider the Medieval synthesis. Two prominent theologians sought to create a synthesis between Christianity and the Classical worldview: Aquinas merging Christian thought with the work of Aristotle, and Augustine melding Christianity with Plato. It could be argued that much of the liberatory thrust of Christianity was lost in this synthesis. Christianity strayed from what had been handed down by the apostles and taught by the Church Fathers and Mothers. As we have seen Graeco-Roman culture held a very negative view of those disabled from birth. Aristotle introduced the spurious idea of inferior and superior human beings. Critics of Christianity tend to have a Medieval model in mind when they lay all the ills of the modern world at its door. However, we must bear in mind that western culture, which critics often conflate with Christianity, is built on the Classical model and primitive Christianity shared the Oriental influences of Jewish culture, and thus is more eastern than western.

My intention here is to recover the purity of that original Judaeo-Christian vision rather than to jettison it and embrace a secular model that will not be able to deliver as it cannot address the core issue of the human heart and its need of radical reform.

Judaeo-Christian Perspectives

The Judaeo-Christian worldview rests on belief in an infinite and personal God who has spoken directly through the Old Testament prophets and revealed himself fully through the person and teachings of Jesus Christ. The knowledge of God held by Jews and Christians rests on revelation rather than on speculation. They have always lived by values that are absolute, which brought the early Christians into bloody conflict with Rome as they refused to worship Caesar as God, insisting that Jesus Christ alone is to be worshipped.

Some biblical texts are open to very negative interpretations and many writers, including Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong (2007, p. 42), caution against a mere surface reading as the plain interpretation of some texts has been oppressive to people with disabilities over centuries. Yong believes that a ‘redemptive theology of disability for our time’ must go beyond this.

Jewish psychologist Ellen Wertlieb shows how a deeper understanding can sometimes throw up some very unexpected interpretations.

Wertlieb takes seriously the claim, assumption even, that Judaeo-Christian thinking has given rise to a negative construction of disability. It is popular to make such claims, and American disability activist, Nancy Eiseland, states that such fashionable claims fail to take into account the growing body of liberation theology that Christians draw on to reconceptualize disability and insist on God’s preferential option for the poor. Wertlieb insists that these claims with rega...

Table of contents

• Copyright information
• Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Disability in Historical Perspective
• 2. Models of Disability and Research Methodologies
• 3. Being Human and Personhood
• 4. Further Elements in a Constructive Theology of Disability
• 5. Fresh Theological Perspectives
• 6. The Contemporary Scene for Disability and the Church
• 7. Conversations with Parents of Disabled Children
• 8. Pastoral Concerns for Support of Families
• Conclusion
• Glossary