{"id":2337,"date":"2014-07-21T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T08:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/onscripture\/?p=2337"},"modified":"2014-07-18T21:13:25","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T21:13:25","slug":"more-than-conquerors-romans-826-39-and-disability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/onscripture\/2014\/07\/more-than-conquerors-romans-826-39-and-disability\/","title":{"rendered":"More than Conquerors: Romans 8:26-39 and Disability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

By Rev. Dr. Jaime Clark-Soles.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us<\/em>\u201d (Romans 8:37 NRSV).<\/p>\n

I hope you\u2019ve all read or seen The Fault in Our Stars\u00a0<\/em>by now. Each of the main characters has a disability: Gus has a prosthesis after his leg is amputated; Hazel remains on an oxygen tank due to faulty lungs; Isaac becomes blind during the course of the movie. I wonder how this verse from Romans would play with Hazel, Gus, Isaac, or anyone who loves them:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose\u201d (Romans 8:28 NRS)?<\/p>\n

Really? Gus, who overtly expresses room for belief in God, bites it at age 18, leaving his moribund girlfriend and freshly blind friend to mourn in the wake of his death. Is this what \u201call things working together for good\u201d looks like from God\u2019s perspective?<\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019m overly sensitive to the passage given the fact that a few weeks ago, I co-taught a class on \u201cScriptural Representations of Disability\u201d with my colleague, Jeremy Schipper, in the Summer Institute on Theology and Disability<\/a>. Our class of twenty-eight people included a number of folks in wheelchairs, some people who are blind, some who have cerebral palsy but are not in wheelchairs, some with TBI (traumatic brain injury), some who are non-disabled, and some who have loved ones with a disability. A stated theme of the entire Institute that week was: \u201cDisability as Question and Questioner.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed.<\/p>\n

The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act<\/a>) took effect in 1990. But some of us individuals (including me) and churches are still playing catch up (or, worse, ignoring it altogether). Is your church\u2019s choir loft wheelchair accessible? Are people with physical or cognitive disabilities tapped for lay or ordained ministry (i.e., \u201cministered with\u201d) or are they simply \u201cministered to,\u201d if that? Do people with disabilities have agency<\/em> and voice<\/em> about how best to do church, or are they infantilized and patronized by the non-disabled? Does your church regularly provide an interpreter for those who are deaf? Do you and your church use language that equates a person with a disability as if the disability is the only significant aspect of his or her life (i.e., \u201cthe blind man, the lame woman, the deaf girl\u201d)? Do you use disability as a metaphor for that which is negative and needs to be \u201covercome\u201d (e.g., \u201cblind faith\u201d; \u201cI once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see\u201d; \u201che who has ears let him hear\u201d)? Here are some things that I, as a non-disabled person, have learned from listening and participating in the questioning conversation.<\/p>\n

1. It can be useful to distinguish between impairment (a physiological, medical phenomenon which the person may or may not find necessary to cure in order to have quality of life) and disability (a social phenomenon). A society disables<\/em> people with impairments when it refuses to take steps to ensure that all members of society have equal access to the benefits of that society, including education, transportation, employment, architecture that can be navigated, political power, etc., all entitlements that people with \u201cnormate\u201d bodies usually take for granted.<\/p>\n

2. \u201cCure\u201d and \u201chealing\u201d are not synonyms. \u201cCure\u201d refers to the elimination of impairment and is experienced at the individual level. \u201cHealing\u201d refers to a person who has experienced integration and reconciliation to self, God, and the community. \u201cHealing\u201d may or may not involve a \u201ccure.\u201d Just as impairment is experienced on an individual basis, so is a \u201ccure.\u201d Just as a disability is a communally imposed limitation, so also \u201chealing\u201d is a communally based liberation. Impairment and disability are not synonyms.<\/p>\n

3. People with disabilities want justice, not pity. But non-disabled people tend toward pity because justice-making requires more of them.<\/p>\n

4. Some non-disabled people deploy Biblical texts, such as Romans 8:28, to instruct<\/em> people with disabilities that God has made them disabled for a reason. The \u201creasons\u201d proffered are multifarious. For example:<\/p>\n