A Church of All: Disabilities and healing
24 October 201533. However, the Scriptures speak not only of the God who identifies Himself with human affliction, but also the One who exercised a ministry of healing and wholeness. How does this relate to the continuing witness of persons with disabilities? We cannot deal with the relationship between healing and disability without asking the following questions: What does it mean to talk about the image of God in relation to persons with disability? If the image is described as “perfect body”, or “perfect reason”, how can persons with disability embrace such an image of God? What is the relationship between our theological language and practice with regards to the issue of disability? How much of the medical and social language which treats persons with disability as objects determines both academic theologies and general attitudes about and towards persons with disability as objects of pity, forgiveness and healing? How far do we have a wholistic understanding of healing which integrates the moral, spiritual and the physical? Furthermore, we want to raise questions about what it means to call the Church the body of Christ. Can persons who are visually impaired or who have a body with cerebral palsy be included? Although many Christians consciously deny any relationship between disability and sin (which also includes suffering), some of their attitudes seem to reflect such a link.
34. “Wherefore, when we now attempt to speak of that image, we speak of a thing unknown; an image which we not only have never experienced all our lives, and experience still. Of this image, therefore, all we now possess are mere terms the image of God! . But there was, in Adam, an illumined reason, a true knowledge of God and a will the most upright to love both God, and his neighbour.” (Luther)
35. From a disability perspective of a hermeneutic of suspicion, it is obvious that persons with some form of disability cannot accept the image of God defined thus. For example, persons with some form of mental disability or some form of learning disability will be disqualified as human beings because they will not reflect the definition of the image of God as soul, as reason or as rationality. A hermeneutic of suspicion cannot accept the image of God or soul as reason or rationality. It is also obvious that these interpretations of the image of God or soul as rationality are inconsistent with other world-views, e.g. African.
36. Traditional definitions of healing, wholeness and holiness (based on a particular theological anthropology of God, the image of God, and the body of Christ which, in turn, is based on cultural images of beauty and perfection with regard to the image of God and the body of Christ) are extremely unhelpful, especially during the celebration of the Eucharist. Such theologies sometimes treat healing as metaphor in very exclusive and victimising ways to persons with disabilities.
37. In the case of disability, it is often assumed that healing is either to eradicate the problem as if it were a contagious virus, or that it promotes virtuous suffering, or a means to induce greater faith in God. Such theological approaches to healing either emphasise “cure” or “acceptance” of a condition.
38. Other definitions of healing make a clear theological distinction between healing and curing. Healing refers to the removal of oppressive systems, whereas curing has to do with the physiological reconstruction of the physical body. For some theologians, Jesus’ ministry was one of healing and not curing.
39. In this kind of theology, disability is a social construct, and healing is the removal of social barriers. From these perspectives, the healing stories in the gospels are primarily concerned with restoration of the persons to their communities, not the cure of their physiological conditions. For example, the man with leprosy in Mark 1:40-45 who asks Jesus to make him clean is mainly asking Jesus to restore him to his community. In like manner, in Mark 2:1-12, Jesus met the paralytic and forgave him his sins.
40. Forgiving sins here means removing the stigma imposed on him by a culture in which disabilities were associated with sin. Hence this man was ostracised as sinful and unworthy of his society’s acceptance. In these healing stories Jesus is primarily removing societal barriers in order to create accessible and accepting communities.
41. The good news of the Gospel from this perspective is that it creates inclusive communities by challenging oppressive and dehumanising systems and structures. Africans, for example, might argue that theologians who pursue this line of exploration are engaging in theological reductionism of healing from a scientific viewpoint. A western scientific world-view might argue that the medical conditions described in the biblical narratives could not be physiologically cured by divine intervention. Some theologians would even argue that the dispensation of such types of healing ended with the advent of western scientific medicine.
42. It must be noted that Jesus did not make a distinction between social restoration and physical healing. Both always happened at any given time of healing. Consequently, the integral relationship of health, salvation and healing is an imperative for a holistic theological interpretation of disability. That requires a different theological discourse on the body of Christ and the image of God from the perspectives of persons with disability.
43. The biblical healing narratives are important bases for a theological hermeneutic of disability. However, one must try to engage in such an investigation without falling into another theological pitfall: what Nancy Lane calls “victim theology”. Victim theologies tend to either blame persons for their lack of faith, which accounts for their disabilities not being healed; accuse persons of possessing demons, which must be exorcised; say that through the sufferings of persons with disability, God shows forth God’s glory and power; or blame disability on either the sins of parents or of disabled people themselves.
44. Victim theologies “ . place the burden for healing on the person who is disabled, causing further suffering and continued alienation from faith communities.” (Lane)
45. For persons with disability, the relationship between healing and disability is both ambivalent and ambiguous. While for other theologians, there is an obvious definition of healing evident in the Bible, for persons with disability, healing is tentative, relative, ambivalent, ambiguous, and ongoing. Healing can bring joy and relief. It can also bring pain, frustration, and serious theological questions.
46. A straightjacket understanding of healing in general and the biblical healing narratives in particular makes discussion of healing in relation to disability very difficult. It is obvious that the main danger to avoid is to treat healing, especially healing with respect to disability, to justify our favourable notion of healing without any reference to the totality of the raison d’être of Christian theology. To discuss healing either from socio-economic emancipation or physical body reparation perspectives, or from psychological/spiritual perspectives is to engage in distracting and speculative arguments as to the kind of healing Jesus carried out and why.
47. A theological statement of healing with respect to disability needs to be made with reference to thehistory of salvation. Salvation history is here defined as the self-revelation of God then, now, and in the future through events and acts through which God transforms, empowers, renews, reconciles, and liberates God’s creation and everything therein made possible by the work of the Holy Spirit. Such a theology is evident in Holy Scripture.
48. It is against the background of salvation history that a definition of healing from the perspective of disability is attempted. But there is also a need to give a working definition of disability, based on which healing is also defined. In Gen 1:25b, God pronounced creation as good. It was good, for God has enacted salvation history in creation in which God will continue to transform, renew, reconcile, and liberate creation. God’s creating and saving acts are concurrent. An illustration with the body will help to make this point clear. When we are well, there is within the body provision of antibodies to prevent illness as well as to produce more antibodies to fight viruses and bacteria that will make us sick.
49. Disability in this theological understanding is a negation of God’s intention for his creation to be good. Disability in all its forms and causes is a negation of God’s good intention. Similarly, all negative attitudes, systems and structures that exclude and prevent or contribute in any way to the exclusion of persons with disability do not actualise God’s intended good of God’s creation.50. Healing then is an act, event, system, and structure which encourages, facilitates God’s empowering, renewing, reconciling, and liberating processes in order to reverse the negation of God’s intended good for God’s creation. Therefore, the overall theological contribution of the healing narratives in the New Testament is to demonstrate or serve as signs of God’s salvation history. God wills the acceptance and inclusion of each in a community of interdependence where each supports and builds up the other, and where each lives life to the full according to their circumstances and to the glory of God.
