Your Top Three Responses To "A Voice Of One Calling"
I'm writing to those of you from the various groups who read my recent article and were interested in a conversation about disability and the church. Thank you! Your responses and thoughts have helped me clarify my thinking on the subject.
Here are my reflections on your top three responses to “A Voice Of One Calling.” If you haven’t read it yet, please click the link and start there before reading this post.
1. Some made the point that "every time" is the right time for the church to engage with those in need.
2. Some expressed interest in practical advice
3. Some shared examples of disability ministry
1. Some made the point that "every time" is the right time for the church to engage with those in need.
True, I agree the church should, at all times, be a place of welcome to those in need. In the article, I wrote, "The calling of Christian communities is always to be a place of welcome for the marginalized. However, I strongly sense God activating the church toward ministry with and for people with disabilities right now."
Let me elaborate.
We've all experienced a pandemic, and our worlds have been shaken and rattled; many are left wondering how they can re-imagine their lives and faith communities. The pandemic has led to what is widely recognized as an enormous "cultural shift." So, now is the time to "strike while the iron is hot" and engage in a conversation with Christian leaders about how they can reshape faith communities to benefit those we have historically excluded.
Dr. Wolfensberger emphasizes the necessity of considering what can be done when deciding on what measures to take:
"Pursue the implementation of a system that incorporates ideologies that are as positive as very weak human beings are able to adopt."
My point in "A Voice" is that now is a time – more than at other times in recent history – when people are likely to adopt ideas that would benefit devalued people groups in churches, namely people with disabilities.
Last weekend, we remembered Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One of his focuses in the civil rights movement was voting rights for African Americans. Voting rights must have been an issue that, in his time, he believed was a doable next step for the movement toward equality.
It is consistent with his message to have wanted to change all sorts of other issues related to justice for all, but which may have been less achievable in his time. Dr. King knew that if African Americans could vote, other laws and policies benefiting African Americans would at least have a chance to be put into place.
Another example: one could rightly say we need Good Samaritans who look out for wounded people at all times. Yet Dr. Wolfensberger conceived of Citizen Advocacy (btw. Do For One is a Citizen Advocacy-based program) at a time when families and human service leaders asked, "where will disabled people go to receive protection and find a place to belong in the community once they are let out of these large segregated institutions?"
Despite a lot of resistance, in 1970, when mental institutions started closing, the concept of Citizen Advocacy became a national – and later an international – movement. Timing and the historical context matter.
As in 1970, we are in the midst of another significant cultural shift. I'm proposing that now is the time to invite Christian leaders into a conversation about disability and the church. That is what I mean when I say pay attention to the "signs" that "right now" is the time to be talking about disability and the church.
2. Some expressed interest in practical advice
In "A Voice," I wanted to lay the groundwork before jumping too quickly toward action steps.
Albert Einstein famously described his approach to problem-solving accordingly:
"If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it."
The question of when, how, and whether or not, to provide practical advice on the topic of disability and the church came up in several conversations. While I understand the urge to jump to solutions and take practical steps to make things better for devalued people, I also am aware of the many times that people have done this and caused more harm than good, or at least our quick reactions have done very little. (Keep in mind that here I speak of practical advice from a program design perspective and not an individual's urgent and immediate needs.)
When we quickly respond with action steps, we run the risk of seeking the path of least resistance. And then it becomes easy to ignore what else could be done that would be better than the “quick and easy" actions we've decided to take. Sure, we can create a church checklist, and I can tell you how to check the box that says "inclusion." An example of this would be making sure the space where you meet for worship services is wheelchair accessible.
This common approach of checking the boxes rather than doing the deeper work of identifying the root of a problem reminds me of a point my friend Ben Thariath, a wheelchair user, made. Ben explained to me that the feeling of being welcomed is more important than just disability compliance. He said, "… before thinking about ramps and accessibility, there should be an openness to invite a person with a disability somewhere. That speaks more volumes than just having a ramp legally just for the sake of it; we can have a ramp or elevator somewhere, but if no one is there to use it, then there is no point."
“… before thinking about ramps and accessibility, there should be an openness to invite a person with a disability somewhere. That speaks more volumes than just having a ramp legally just for the sake of it; we can have a ramp or elevator somewhere, but if no one is there to use it, then there is no point. ”
It is far better to take the time to understand and define the problem in question and its root causes, to recognize in what way we, ourselves, are part of the problem, and then to seek a change of heart and mind, to develop certain guiding principles, and then take action.
For example, if we agree that the primary issues confronting people with disabilities are not the condition they are born with, or have acquired, but rather the social exclusion they experience due to devaluation, which leads to segregation, and so on. This approach could provide a guiding principle for us, pointing to valuing all lives, becoming aware of the lives we are prone to devalue, and then going out of our way to welcome the newly valued. Welcome would then become the North Star of any action of the steps we might put into place.
These days, however, too many of us lack analytical and philosophical minds that would enable us to follow the Einstein method: spending 59 minutes of our precious hour identifying the root cause before taking action. Over-reliance on social media is a major contributor to our tendency to rush into action when addressing social issues. We have come to make ourselves believe that all we need is a hashtag to start a movement.
Another common issue is our tendency to share one great story and then inaccurately frame that story as typical, as if to say, "Hurray! It's OK, everyone. We've finally made progress." This approach can also make it easy to ignore what else could be – and must be – done.
I'm not suggesting we should overlook beautiful stories. On the contrary, we should celebrate them and use them for our instruction. I am suggesting that we must remember that for all the beautiful stories we hear, many people's lives continually confront devaluation. Suppose we only look to the stories that "work out" (or at least temporarily work out). In doing that, we may deceive ourselves and make ourselves believe that we can control destiny if only we discover the right practical methods.
In one email exchange, Tom Doody wrote about his experiences working with churches toward welcoming those with disabilities, "Another lesson that I thought really important was the taking time--lots of time--for genuine change to come."
Christian leaders who desire to engage in this discussion further will need to understand and be prepared that for substantial change to occur in one person's life or one congregation, it takes time and endurance through many mundane situations, many challenging and thankless times – times when even all the right and exemplary efforts produce no results. In other words, such stories are much less exciting to share, but they must also, like the beautiful stories, be available to us to learn valuable lessons from.
Sure, we can take action and produce results that create an appearance of doing good, but in the end, too often, we have only exacerbated the root issue: social exclusion. The temptation here is for us to decide on the easiest and fastest actions in hopes of any outcome at all rather than carefully determining which are the right actions that may, at least more likely, lead to the right outcomes.
Taking action rooted in a sober understanding of the root issues and acting on principle takes time, and it isn't always easy to perceive its productivity.
“Taking action rooted in a sober understanding of the root issues and acting on principle takes time, and it isn’t always easy to perceive its productivity. ”
Martin Luther King, Jr. took the time to understand racial issues in America as a whole, and he also understood his particular role – in time and place – that would allow him to successfully reshape those parts of that whole which he had favor to. Of course, he did not solve the whole problem, but he addressed those aspects of the whole which were unique to his calling.
Another point regarding the need to be careful about offering practical advice too soon is that those of us who might be viewed as the "disability experts" may not be the ones with the best practical advice. Admittedly, other Christian leaders could have the better ideas. Ideas that are more creative, effective, and humanizing for people with disabilities than the ones proposed by us “experts." At times, we need a fresh perspective.
Christian leaders, such as pastors, will know how to communicate and engage their members toward action in a way we "experts" cannot. However, what we can and should offer that a pastor cannot, is a well-prepared overview and precise definition of the problem. Then we can learn from one another and work together.
Again, I propose that we spend 59 of our 60 minutes defining the problem. Those of us with first-hand or second-hand experience living with disabilities ought to see our primary job as helping others to see the forest for the trees.
In other words, our job is to say:
"Here is the forest layout; I know because I've been there and talked to many people living there. Now, Christian leader, how can we invite your congregation to go in there with us and help them?
We can go with you, introduce you to people we know, and help you not be afraid, but we need your help in getting your congregation to come here with us to start thinking about what can be done. We can't do it without your help because the very issue we are addressing is the fact that the church has been excluding these particular parts of the community.”
3. Some shared examples of disability ministry
Another engaging discussion was from some who noticed the tendency we have to segregate our efforts by reaching "out" to disabled people, or by designating a special needs minister to lead some separate program or classroom.
Although ministries of this kind are put into motion with good intentions, this approach is not the product of a genuine understanding of the problem they attempt to address. If what most people with disabilities need is inclusion, then the creation of segregated programs would be the opposite of what we want!
Let’s recall what Jesus says to a group of religious leaders in the middle of a meal,
"When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
Jesus taught us an integrative model for serving the poor and those in need. The early church had "one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had." (Acts 4:32)
In the early church's first few centuries, we see examples of the Christian community inviting the needy into their homes.
Rev. Cindy Lajoy of Athol Congregational Church, Massachusetts, sent this reply to an email chain:
"When we designate a handful of individuals as the sole ones responsible for inviting and including those with disabilities, we miss the point entirely!"
Again, this goes back to the need to understand the problem first. If we know the root issue is broken relationships created by a devaluing mindset and social exclusion, our response would be to weave the social fabric back toward inclusion and mending broken relationships.
"A Voice Of One Calling" points out why now is a good time to engage in a deep conversation about disability and the church. I do that by describing the many societal problems that have become clear to us in recent years, which are problems created by broken relationships between the valued and devalued, and how we are uniquely confronted with this brokenness today. In doing that, the groundwork is now laid for a case to restore broken relationships by social integration, which will be the central theme of my next long-form article.