Ordinary Lives

How does a disability affect one’s faith in God?

Less than half of respondents to a survey by New Mobility Magazine said their disability had led them to believe in God or had increased their faith in God. Some thought disability decreased their faith, and most of the remaining respondents were atheists, agnostics, or people who discerned little or no relationship between disability and their spiritual values.

The poll was nonscientific, and intended to convey an impressionistic rather than precise picture of theological beliefs and disability. But for anyone who fondly recalls the scene in Dickens’ classic The Christmas Carol when disabled and cherubic Tiny Tim asks God “to bless us each and every one”, the large number of nonbelievers and those whose disability turned them away from God is surprising.

The frequent disconnect between religion and disability concerns many religious leaders and have spurred their efforts to reach out to people with disabilities. These efforts extend far beyond renovations to increase physical accessibility. Some Christian churches are examining the role that disability plays in their dogma and their understanding of the crucified Christ. Of particular interest are the Biblical stories concerning cures of disability which imply that a nondisabled body is pleasing to Christ and/or earnestly sought by the person with the disability. The rethinking of traditional Christian dogma, undertaken partly as a result of criticism by disabled and nondisabled theologians in the 1990’s, has far reaching implications both for the churches as well as people with disabilities.

THE DISABLED GOD

Nancy Eiesland is an associate professor of Sociology of Religion at Emory University's Candler School of Theology and a person with a congenital disability. Eiesland is the author of “The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability” (Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1994). She was raised in a Pentecostal Church, and, as discussed below, has developed a liberation theology of disability that is centered upon a disabled God.

Eiseland believes that portions of the bible and some Christian beliefs are damaging to people with disabilities. “It cannot be denied”, she has concluded, “that the biblical record and Christian theology have often been dangerous for persons with disabilities.” Eiseland seeks to repair some of this damage, but knows that the task will be enormous. “Justice for people with disabilities,” she writes, “requires that the theological and ritual foundations of the church be shaken”.

THE BIBLICAL STORIES

Eiesland believes “The persistent thread within the Christian tradition has been that disability denotes an unusual relationship with God and that the person with disabilities is either divinely blessed or damned…”.

One need not subscribe completely to Eiseland’s belief that Scripture is dangerous to people with disabilities to appreciate her understanding of how some biblical stories can work to the determent of people with disabilities. In Leviticus, she notes, disability is equated with moral failings, so that anyone who is “blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or one who has a broken foot or a broken hand or a hunchback, or a dwarf” (Leviticus 21:17-23 is not permitted to perform the priestly duties of bringing offerings to God or entering holy areas of temples.

The link between disability and moral failure is also found several times in the book of John, notably John 5:14 when Christ heals a man unable to walk and tells him “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

Equating disability with sin or personal unworthiness is only one of several biblical themes that people with disability can find offensive. Eiseland cites incidents where disability becomes, in her words, “virtuous suffering” that pleases God. The tribulations (including disabilities) that Job bore with patience and humility is perhaps the best known example. She also cites the “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7-10) suffered by the Apostle Paul that is interpreted as a sign of God’s blessing of Paul’s missionary work.

PERSONAL STORIES

Eiesland’s analysis of biblical stories evoked memory bubbles of my own encounters with people who viewed disability through the prism of religion. As a 9-year old child with CP, some of my parents’ friends asked me to pray for them. Prayers were requested for a seriously ill family member, or someone in financial hardship, or simply for a “special intention”.

I couldn’t understand why I was asked to intercede with God until a woman asking for a prayer said my CP was a sure sign of God’s special love for me and He was therefore much more likely to answer my prayers than hers.

Her request came during the time I discovered that I could not hit a baseball as hard and far as my friends, and that my involvement in baseball would be limited to watching from the sideline. Whatever the benefits of my special relationship with God entailed, they did not seem to include hitting home runs. Nine year old children do not spend a great deal of time contemplating the theological underpinnings of their disability. I only knew that the hurt, anger and confusion of being excluded from a baseball team far exceeded whatever happiness I may have derived from my relationship with God.

The relationship apparently ended (or took a turn for the worse) around age 17 when I was seriously considering whether I had a calling to the priesthood. I consulted a priest whose duties included evaluation of young men who wanted to enter the seminary. He told me that CP was a sign that God had special plans for me, and those plans did not include religious studies and ordination. The priest gave no indication of what God might have in store for me. I later discovered that the text from Leviticus was explicitly cited as an impediment to ordination in Roman Catholic Canon law until the mid-1980s.

Eiseland dedicates her book to her aunt and uncle who taught her that “people with disabilities can live ordinary lives.” My feeling is that an ordinary life may be difficult to achieve if others (or yourself) believe that God has a special design for you. Physical therapy and exercise improve my balance and coordination, and speech therapy makes communication with others easier. But why should I engage in these activities which lessen the limitations of CP and improve my chances of living an ordinary life if my CP is evidence of God’s special relationship with me?

I think my best shot at an ordinary life is to attend a church in which I’m comfortable, avoid people who ask me to pray for them, and tell anyone who asks that the passage from Leviticus no longer applies.

My opportunity for an ordinary life is further enhanced if I follow the advice of my friends with CP, some of whom have gone through the same experiences I have. And disability-related organizations can also help. An article in a newsletter of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Disabilities provided sound advice. In advising doctors how to establish a successful practice for people with disabilities, the co-authors suggested that disability “should be seen as a normal part of human existence and as such, people with disabilities should be treated as people first who happen to have Cerebral Palsy.” This works for me.

This is not to deny the awesome comfort and strength that parents and people with CP can derive from a deep and abiding faith in God. Some of the most poignant (and powerful) stories on web sites such as www.cerebralpalsynetwork@yahoogroups.com are written by parents who rely on the strength of God to help them care for an infant with severe CP. The infant with CP whose breathing and eating is compromised because of seemingly relentless gagging and choking and is cared for by parents whose trust in God is unshakable is one example.

DOES GOD HAVE A DISABILITY?

Traditional theologians quarrel with Eiesland’s thesis that the bible is actually dangerous for people with disability. But a liberation theology of disability is gaining acceptance among mainstream theologians. Liberation theology is nuanced and resists summarization. Eiseland begins with the premise that the foundation of Christian theology is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the all-powerful God who triumphed over death. But rarely, Eiseland states, is the resurrected Christ recognized as a deity whose hands, feet, and side bear marks of profound physical impairment. When Christ presents Himself to His apostles, asking them to place their hands in His wounds, the resurrected Jesus is revealed as the disabled God.

"We need multiple images of God, and [liberation theology of disability] provides another one." Eiesland says. "It's not to replace other images of God, as God of the father, or God as savior. It simply fills out the picture."

In a statement that could have come directly from Eiesland’s book, Donald Senior, C.P., president of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and Professor of New Testament Studies, argues that disability touches directly on “the meaning of [Christ’s] transformation and redemption, indeed on the very image of God within the Christian faith.”

Fr. Senior may not accept that Christ actually had a disability, although he and other scholars believe that Moses had a speech disability and Fr. Senior believes that St. Paul quite possibly had a visible physical disability. But Fr. Senior has no reservation that “the experience of physical and mental disability…is precisely the kind of profound human and religious experience that provides a crucial and religiously fruitful vantage point for biblical interpretation.” (Religion and Disability, Sheed & Ward, 1995)

In the final analysis, one’s religious beliefs are matters of conscience that can be guided but not determined by others. Discussion of disability within a religious context is becoming more frequent and individuals with disabilities have more resources available to them as they determine the nature and source of their ordinary life.

David Bauer
Guioco@aol.com

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