Jesus and the Portrayal of People With Disabilities in the Scriptures (original) (raw)

Related papers

Jesus and the Portrayal of People with Disabilities in the Scriptures (2013)

2013

This article explores the role of Christian scripture as a basis for understanding the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities in Ireland. Historically, Irish services for people with intellectual disabilities were provided by Roman Catholic religious orders and congregations and it is posited that scriptural perspectives provided a context for, not just the service response but also, the societal response in a largely Christian State. By examining the Old and New Testaments and, in particular, the suffering, death and wounding of Jesus, it is proposed that there was, from the origins of Christianity, a fundamental misunderstanding of Christian community and that this facilitated the development of a faith-based approach, akin to eugenics, which was unwittingly grounded in injustice and dehumanisation. This is discussed within the context of the Spiritan mission related to the work of justice.

Title: Jesus and the Portrayal of People with Disabilities in the Scriptures*

2016

This article explores the role of Christian scripture as a basis for understanding the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities in Ireland. Historically, Irish services for people with intellectual disabilities were provided by Roman Catholic religious orders and congregations and it is posited that scriptural perspectives provided a context for, not just the service response but also, the societal response in a largely Christian State. By examining the Old and New Testaments and, in particular, the suffering, death and wounding of Jesus, it is proposed that there was, from the origins of Christianity, a fundamental misunderstanding of Christian community and that this facilitated the development of a faith-based approach, akin to eugenics, which was unwittingly grounded in injustice and dehumanisation. This is discussed within the context of the Spiritan mission related to the work of justice.

Jesus and the Disabled: Old Stories, New Approaches (2009), with Mary Ann McColl

Mary Ann McColl and Richard S. Ascough. Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling 63/3-4 (2009) 12.1-11.

According to some authors, the healing narratives in the New Testament have fuelled destructive attitudes toward disability among Christians. The purpose of this paper is to explore a subset of Jesus" miracle healings for more constructive messages, and for guidance about pastoral care for people with disabilities. Of twenty-nine miracle accounts found in the four gospels, five were selected for this study that deal with physical disability in individual persons. Using the socio-rhetorical interpretive method, the stories are mined for themes regarding spiritual aspects of healing, identity, faith, sin and touch.

-- Disability and Christian Theology [CHAPTER FOUR, UNCORRECTED PROOF]

Even as attention to disability highlights fundamental issues about the diversity of human embodiment, it simultaneously raises signifi cant justice concerns. From a theological perspective, we can see parallels between this lens and the commitments of various liberation theologies. According to James Cone, a liberation perspective means seeing Christian theology as "a rational study of the being of God in the world in light of the existential situation of an oppressed community, relating the forces of liberation to the essence of the gospel, which is Jesus Christ." 1 Or, in the words of Gustavo Gutiérrez, liberation theology "is a theological refl ection born of the experience of shared efforts to abolish the current unjust situation and to build a different society, freer and more human." 2 Thus, if we begin with the minority model's observation that people with disabilities experience exclusion and injustice, it seems fi tting to study God and church in relation to the situation of this oppressed community and to refl ect theologically out of this struggle for liberation. Following Cone and Gutiérrez, we are invited to participate in a disability theology of liberation.

IRRESPONSIBLE LOVE: RETHINKING INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY, HUMANITY AND THE CHURCH 1

Modern Theology, 2009

This review essay considers three recent studies at the intersection of theology and intellectual disability. All three authors work out constructive proposals against a background of literature in which Nancy Eiesland and Stanley Hauerwas are central. Each explores the nature of intellectual disability through interdisciplinary study and draws this work into conversation with classical Christian theology. The essay welcomes these three books, and also suggests ways in which their constructive proposals might be strengthened. In particular, their use of resources within late ancient Christian tradition fails to take into account some of the doctrinal formulations most congenial to their projects.