Disability and the Church
By Lamar Hardwick
Reviewed by Martin Hobgen
This book makes a welcome contribution to both Disability and Practical Theology. Lamar Hardwick begins his exploration of the inclusion of disabled people in church communities with his experience of undiagnosed autism and the impact that his diagnosis at the age of 36 had upon himself, his church and his calling to enable disabled people to be included in church communities. This personal perspective is one of the great strengths of this book, as Hardwick sets out a vision for affirming disabled people and so encourages churches to become fully inclusive of disabled people.
Prompted by a discussion of Luke 14 the author asks who is ‘lost’ from the church. Having identified disabled people as being under-represented in church communities he proceeds to identify barriers to the inclusion of disabled people and proposes ways of addressing these. The importance of this task is underlined by Hardwick because 'unless persons with disabilities have full access to participate fully in all that your church offers, then the church is not functioning as the church should'.1
Hardwick notes that a common question concerning disability takes the form “Why am I/you/they disabled?” He suggests that this is the wrong question to ask. Drawing on John 9, where Jesus redirects the disciples’ question 'away from defining the man by his deficits and toward defining the man by his destiny'.2 Rather than focussing on a person’s disability he urges churches to look for the ways that God is revealed in their lives. This raises the thorny question of healing leading to Hardwick’s suggestion that since 'Jesus did not heal everyone… healing has to be evaluated as but one of the tools that God uses to reveal his glory to the world'. As a wheelchair user I believe that God can reveal himself through my ministry as a pastor and disability theologian as effectively as he could if he physically healed me.
Drawing on Matthew 13:18-23 he identifies three specific barriers that hinder the participatory inclusion of disabled people in church communities:3 lack of understanding (of disability); Life’s problems (which prevent disabled people and their families becoming rooted in the church); Limited by thorns (how church policies etc. can restrict the spiritual growth of disabled people in church communities.) Addressing these three barriers occupies the remained of the book.
At the heart of the book are the three chapters concerning the building of a learning culture, a linking culture and a leadership culture.
Firstly, building a learning culture addresses the widespread lack of understanding about disability and the experiences of disabled people. Through a discussion of definitions and data about disability he shows the diversity of disability in both the Bible and today’s society. The dominant perspective of a medical understanding of disability is challenged by a call for reciprocal relationship between disabled and non-disabled people. This, Hardwick argues, shifts the perspective of disabled people from symbols in the Bible to being people in relationship with God and other disciples. Although the core of teaching about disability is focussed on preaching, Hardwick urges that 'Churches need to be environments where learning about disabilities and learning from people with disabilities is normal and seen as something that is needed for the health, strength, and vitality of God’s ever-expanding kingdom'.4
Secondly, building a linking culture addresses the failure of churches to provide a context for families with disabled children to find support and where the families can become rooted in a faith community. Hardwick recognises the experience of exclusion from churches that is felt by many families with disabled children, partly through disabling theology and inappropriate language.
Recognising that different disabilities lead to different forms of exclusion, suggesting no single solution, he suggest that enabling disabled people and their families to put down roots is of vital importance. 'Roots are about relationship – long-term, reciprocal relationships that hold people close to the church and hold the church accountable for providing real care'.5 He suggests a number of practical ways to facilitate and enable churches to become more inclusive and ensuring that this goes beyond inclusion on Sundays.
Thirdly, building a leadership culture addresses the failure of churches to enable a diversity of people, including disabled people, to become involved in leadership. Hardwick suggests that leadership teams need to be intentionally diverse in order to provide role models for members of diverse congregations. Just as Black History Month provided role models for Hardwick, who is Afro-American, he suggests that better disability awareness can foster pathways for disabled people to become leaders, supporting his argument with examples of inclusion in the New Testament that challenge assumptions of exclusion rooted in Old Testament passages such as Leviticus 21:17-21.6
The widespread US concept of church programs or ministry to/for disabled people and those special needs has no significant equivalent here. In the light of comments about how expensive these approaches are perhaps we have an advantage in the UK.7 There are brief, helpful explanations of both the medical model of disability, noting its negative impact within church communities, and the social model of disability, which has largely replaced the former. Unusually for an American writer of disability theology, Lamar Hardwick describes a social model that is close to the approach that is dominant in the UK, rather than a minority group model of disability utilised by Nancy Eiesland and others who cite her ground-breaking book The Disabled God.8 Drawing on Eiesland’s image of the post-resurrection bearing the wounds of crucifixion yet conquering death, Hardwick draws a powerful link to the images in Revelation 5:6-8 of Jesus as both the mortally wounded lamb and the lion of Judah.9 This provides the foundation for his vision of affirmation, which starts with churches recognising they have a problem and then affirming disabled people through their participation, through acceptance, and through their empowerment.
There is a recurrent theme of the importance of relationships which are intentional and mutual. I believe that these relationships can be understood to be covenant friendships between disabled and non-disabled people which are grounded in the friendship with God offered through Jesus Christ.
There are some minor criticisms, however. The personal perspective somewhat limits the depth of the illustrations beyond those concerning autism. While there is no problematic language, such as use of the once common term ‘handicapped’, the author repeatedly use the term ‘the disabled’. This infers a clearly defined, homogenous group that is at odds with his much-needed focus on the diversity of disabled people being included in diverse church communities.
This review was previously published in Regent’s Reviews (October 2021)
Details:
Author: Hardwick, Lamar
Title: Disability and the Church: A Vision for Diversity and Inclusion
Publisher: Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP, an imprint of InterVarsity Press, (2021)
1 Lamar Hardwick,
Disability and the Church : A Vision for Diversity and Inclusion, (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP, an imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2021). 48.
2 Ibid., 61.
3 Ibid., 98-9.
4 Ibid., 112-18.
5 Ibid., 121.
6 Ibid., 154.
7 Ibid., 44-45.
8 Nancy L Eiesland,
The Disabled God: Towards a Liberatory Theology of Disability (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994).
9 Hardwick. 169.