The Disabled God, by Nancy Eiesland

In order to shape a theology of disability, one need not necessarily be disabled, but it's hard to imagine that anyone without a disability would be able to have the insight that Nancy Eiesland had. Through her book The Disabled God as well as many other writings, Eiesland, who suffered from a congenital bone defect, became a preeminent spokes-theologian for people with disabilities.  She died in 2009 (see this obituary in the New York Times).

In The Disabled God Eiesland draws on the disability rights movement as part of the larger civil rights movement, on liberation theology, and on the experiences of people with disabilities, including herself, to suggest a view of God who not only loves but identifies with people with disabilities.  Unfortunately, the church has not always been a place of welcome for them.  Part of the problem, Eiesland points out, lies in biblical and theological views of disability.  In the Old Testament, is someone was "blind or lame . . . a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a blemish in his eyes," he was prohibited from offering sacrifices in the Temple.  Eiesland offers modern examples of churches preventing people from entering the clergy because of their disabilities.  In the New Testament, the message is mixed: disabilities are variously seen as signs of sin or judgment, an opportunity for God to show his power, a matter of "virtuous suffering," or an object of charity.  These attitudes have led to "marginalization and discrimination" in the church.

Eiesland offers a concrete example of institutionalized discrimination in the church.  The American Lutheran Church adopted a document which "wholeheartedly embraced the concerns of persons with disabilities and encouraged systemic change."  Yet, a short time later, the same denomination barred "people with 'significant' physical or mental handicaps" from ministry.  The more powerful stories are the personal experiences, such as those of Diane DeVries, who was born "without lower limbs, and with above-elbow upper extremity stumps."  When she sought to sing in the choir at church, the pastor refused, primarily for aesthetic reasons.  When Eiesland went to one church, she was told that she "need not go forward for the Eucharist."  Rather, she "would be offered the sacrament at [her] seat when everyone else had been served."  So for her receiving the Eucharist "was transformed . . . from a corporate to a solitary experience; from a sacralization of Christ's broken body to a stigmatization of my disabled body."

The important point here is the response of church leadership:

Rather than focusing on the congregation's practices that excluded my body and asking, "How do we alter the bodily practice of the Eucharist in order that this individual and others with disabilities would have full access to the ordinary practices of the church?" the decision makers would center the (unstated) problem on my disabled body, asking, "How should we accommodate this person with a disability in our practice of Eucharist?"

The difference here is subtle, but crucial.

The central argument of the book, that God showed himself as disabled, is not as strong, in my opinion, as Eiesland would have wanted.  She points out that when Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection, he still bore the holes in his hands, feet, and side.  His body was broken, incomplete, not whole; he was disabled.  By appearing this way, Eiesland argues that Jesus "repudiates the conception of disability as a consequence of individual sin."  He "alters the taboo of physical avoidance of disability."  This is liberating for people with disabilities, giving them hope and reminding them "than even our nonconventional bodies . . . are worth the living."

Eiesland's book serves as a thoughtful reminder to church leaders who don't give a second thought to giving a place to people with disabilities in their congregation.  Most churches are reactive; if someone with a disability shows up, they will try to accommodate him or her.  But how much better and more reflective of God's intent if we fostered a spirit of worship in which people of all abilities would feel welcome?

She also challenges me, as an able-bodied reader, to reconsider my view of what human perfection and completion is.  I have always imagined that in heaven, our bodily ills would disappear: the blind will see, the lame will walk, etc.  But Eiesland would call on us to "reject the image of the 'perfect body' as an oppressive myth."  Eiesland is who she is because of her disability; in the N.Y. Times piece cited above, she states that without her disability, she would "be absolutely unknown to my self and perhaps to God."  The psalmist reminds me that God "formed my inmost parts, [he] knit me together in my mother's womb. . . . I am fearfully and wonderfully made. . . . My frame was not hidden from [him]."  That holds true for all of us, whether "temporarily able-bodied" or disabled.  Jesus, as the disabled God, affirms and connects to all people, disabled or not.