Pride sucks or "I am better than you!"

I have been thinking a lot about pride as it relates to a variety of areas in my life, but particularly in relation to persons with disability.

If I were honest with myself, I think I would say that I believe I am better than my cognitively disabled friends. Its shameful to admit that, but I believe it is true. I am smarter than most, I am physically better off than most, I am wealthier than most, I have more opportunities (which of course I feel I deserve because of my efforts, my hard work), and on and on. The only thing which in any way reigns in my self-absorbing pride is the fact that God tells me that I am not better than anyone else. God tells me that we are all equal. In fact, the fact that I believe I am better, may make me worse than many others, particularly those I feel I am better than.

But I don't think that my problem is restricted to me (unfortunately). I honestly believe that in their heart of hearts, most of those who attend a church and call themselves Christians hold the same perspective as I do about how I/we, rank in relation to those among us who are disabled. I/we, like to say that we are all equal at the foot of the cross, but I (for example) have a Ph.D. and many of my friends are cognitively disabled, so obviously that can't be true. I/we say that we want to evangelize the world, however, I/we won't go out of our way to bring a disabled person to church so that can't be true. I mean, either I don't think the disabled person is worth my time, worth my effort to be picked up (because I am too busy to pick him up, or I have plans after church, or something else related to me and my importance) or I honestly do think they are my equal or perhaps even my better and do go out of my way to pick them up.

On several or more occasions the NT states that salvation is a gift, "so that no one can boast." So I/we don't boast about my having access to the most important thing, the point of life, because it is a gift, but I/we am quick to boast (although through socialization, not out loud) about all the other things I/we am able to do, which are of course, once again based upon my/our own efforts. I boast by my actions or by my inaction. I boast by my unwillingness which is only unwillingness because of the pride I have which makes me feel that I have more choices than I probably actually would have if I weren't so full of pride. One might think these other things that seem so important, are the most important thing the way I/we tend to rate these other things in importance by my/our behavior. The most important point in life is free, it is a gift so that no one can boast, but I/we exclude people on the basis of things which are not important. I/we don't brag about my/our salvation because it is a gift. But my intellect, my behavior, my physical stamina, my health, my good looks (if I had them) are of course not a gift, so those things can be the basis of differentiation amongst people.

I see myself through such a strange perspective. If I see God through a glass darkly, I see myself through a brick wall. We chuckle at the pride of others when we see it, because we see others the way they really are as compared to the way they think they are, we think. We also think we see ourselves clearly. I think that if it weren't for God in his mercy protecting me from seeing myself as I really am, I would be stymied to the point of being totally incapacitated by my pride, my sin, my self-centeredness my total disregard of God's purposes. But instead, he allows me to live on in some fairyland of totally unsupportable ideas of who I am. Particularly who I am in comparison to others around me, and particularly in comparison to those who I see as below me, not worthy of my time or effort. Those who are "not a priority for ministry at this time," as I have heard too many times from Christian church leadership. What does it mean if a person or a group of persons is not a priority for ministry at this time? It seems to obviously imply that I, in my pride, can determine who is worth the effort (see Sept 28 entry), and unfortunately, for too long persons with cogntive disabilities have not been worth my/our effort.

Can you see how this is a problem of pride? Pride in individuals like me and pride in the church as a whole?

But there is something that I can boast about with total confidence. That is that God loves me, the way I am, full of myself and my importance. But God loves my friend with disabilities the way he is, full of himself and full of his importance. I wish I loved my friend like God loves me and my friend the same. I wish I believed in the importance of my friend with disablities like God believes in the importance of me and my friend the same. I wish I could be willing to give my life for my friend with disabilities like God gave his life for me and my friend the same. I wish my behavior reflected the principles of equality that I say I believe in. I wish my behavior reflected the importance of all people before the cross the way that I say I believe in the importance of all people. I wish my thoughts about myself and my friends with disabilities reflected the thoughts of God about me and my friends with disabilities being both the same.


McNair
(fcbu)

Isaiah 53: 2-3, 4

A student in one of my classes at California Baptist University, shared this verse in reference to persons with disabilities. I may be the only one, but I hadn't thought of how Christ's experience is so similar to that of those with disability. Isaiah writes,

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not...we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and aflicted.

A very interesting characterization which could easily describe many persons with disabilities. Christ understands them.

McNair

Prayer as a leveler

The Light and Power Company at Trinity Church in Redlands, California recently hosted an all church prayer meeting. The meeting was sparsely attended by around 30 people, but it was a great time.

In preparing for the event, it occurred to me that prayer would be a great leveler of persons within the church. God is not honored by our "much words" and all prayers are pretty much equal. For me to go on and on about the surgeon's training and hands and whatever else comes to mind does not make my prayer any more effective than that of someone who simply says, "Help Sally get better." At the same time, however, the "childlike" faith of persons with cognitive disability may cause a qualitative difference between my and their prayers. My intellect often fills me with doubt, whereas their limited intellect allows them often to pray doubt free.

Please consider instituting a prayer session sponsored by the persons with disabilities in your church. It gives teeth to the lesson that we really are all equal at the foot of the cross. It also should raise the esteem of persons with cognitive disability in the eyes of other members of the church. There are people who will literally not be prayed for if not for the prayers of persons with disabilities, with cognitive disabilities. This is very powerful.

McNair
(fcbu)

Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis

Independent of you might think of the "emerging church" movement, there are some interesting comments being made by those in one way or another who are involved in that movement. For example, Rob Bell (pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids Michigan, an amazing church which I had the opportunity to visit a week ago with a dear friend, Dan Morton) in his book Velvet Elvis, wrote the following:

If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody.

And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display. To do this, the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever. Besides the fact that these terms are offensive to those who are the 'un' and 'non', they work against Jesus' teachings about how we are to treat each other. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor, and our neighbor can be anybody. We are all created in the image of God, and we are all sacred, valuable creations of God. Everybody matters. To treat people differently based on who believes is to fail to respect the image of God in everyone. As the book of James says, 'God shows no favoritism.' So we don't either.

This is a controversial statement no doubt, but the point of the church surrendering itself to radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return is something we have lost to a significant degree. Yes there are pockets of radical service, however, we as an entire church body could hardly be characterized as being involved in radical acts of service, nor could we as individual members of churches be characterized as involved in radical acts of service (I count myself among these individuals).

But what is the example of our Lord? Somehow, I need to make the radical acts of service more important than the probably thousands of hours I spend with my children or on my own in sports activities, for example. If we are doing anything radically, we are missing the example of Christ in a radical manner.

McNair
(fcbu)

Nicholas Wolterstorff on Matthew 25

Dr. Nicholas Wolterstorff provided the Alan Keith Lucas lecture at the recent NACSW ( North American Association of Christians in Social Work ). He spent a significant amount of the lecture discussing the Matthew 25 scripture regarding judgement: the separation of the sheep and the goats. He made the point that the translations which have predominated over the years may be in error in translating the word dikaios as "the righteous" rather than as "the just" or "the just ones". No doubt this distinction will be dealt with in depth in the book on justice which he has sent off for publication. However, it is an interesting distinction. So to fail to do justice to the "least of these" is to fail to do justice to Jesus himself.

One of the primary points I think he made was that justice implies the worth in another. I strive to facilitate justice for another for reasons unrelated to myself (my righteousness) and more related to the desire for all people to live under just conditions. I go beyond just aiding victims to attacking victimizers.

He also made the comment that in the Beatitudes, that the translation should not be "Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness" but rather "Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice" or doing justice. He commented that those who are righteous aren't typically persecuted for doing righteous things. Rather those who do justice or are constantly advocating for justice can be quite annoying ie. the recipients of persecution.

He also talked about how the Bible uses the word "downtrodden," the implication being that they are being actively trodden down.

In summary, he said, attentiveness to justice means attentiveness to the worth of another. This is a fascinating take on a section of scripture often used in relation to persons with disabilities or mental retardation. The least of these deserve justice because of their worth. Their worth comes from their humanity, not their cognitive or other ability levels. Disability does not decrease worth and therefore does not diminish one's right to justice.

McNair

Disability transformation movement

I have recently been in contact with Dr. Don Grossnickle, a member of the Diocese of Chicago of the Catholic Church. In our discussions, he used the term, disability transformation movement in reference to the kinds of changes that he, I and others are attempting to make within the church. There is a great deal going on across the country in these areas. I have recently been able to participate in only a couple of these conferences.

We had the PreSummit on church and disability facilitated by Bill Gaventa, the force behind so many positive movements which have occured over the years relative to faith groups and disability. It was a marvelous meeting in Washington DC attended by many powerful groups (powerful in terms of the changes they are making in churches and the lives of persons with disabilities). I expect to see more from this group.

Then there was the "Through the roof" summit held by the Joni and Friends organization in Pasadena, CA. Once again, a gathering of some wonderful people who really have a vision for the future of the church and persons with disbility. Of course Joni was there, but also people like Dr. Jim Pierson, and someone who I think will be a significant player in this area in the future, Steve Bundy of Pasadena Nazarene church.

I just got back from the National Association of Christians in Social Work conference (nacsw.org) which also had rumblings of issues related to social justice. Dr. Nicolas Waltersdorf, the well-known Christian philosopher from Yale University, spoke about social-justice describing a way of translating the Matthew 25 chapter about sheep and goats in a different manner. We also placed an add from NACSPED (nacsped.com) calling on NACSW members to work in their own churches to open them up to persons with disabilties by volunteering themselves to develop such ministries.

So things are happening in the disability transformation movement. Should you know of other things happening across the country, please respond to this blog and let us know about the activities.

May God bless our efforts.
McNair

(fcbu)

Church's protective function

I recently had the opportunity to attend a training on the sanctity of life put on by the Training Institute for Human Service Planning, Leadership and Change Agenty at Syracuse University. The training was outstanding and was very eye opening on a variety of levels, however, one of the lessons to me was that I came away with an insight into the potential protective function of the Church in a variety of areas.

First in terms of advocating and looking out for the safety of persons with disabilities, whether it be from bad people in the community, or human services, or even a stay in the hospital. The presence of the a community member in those settings works wonders in terms of changing the perceptions of those around a person with disabilities.

Second in terms of the unborn. If people with disabilities were really enfolded into the local church, people would not be able to make the arguments they make to justify the killing of unborn babies. Quality of life (although it is largely a spurious argument) is believed as an argument by many. If it could be demonstrated that people who are involved in churches are happy and enfolded, it would go a long way to protect their lives before they were born. It would also go a long way in assisting parents to want to have a child with a disability if they are considering terminating the life of an unborn child. They would see an environment where they were supported which would translate to support for their own child.

Other areas might be envisioned as well. But to the degree that we as the Church are not including and supporting persons with disabilities is the degree to which we expose them to devaluing and even death. Go back and look at Ezekiel 34 again. Because we have not brought them in, we place them at risk.

McNair
(fcbu)

A movement of lay professionals

The desire to facilitate a movement of lay professionals is not necessarily an effort to indict the church, but rather for disability professionals to lead by example. In contrast to the way that individuals with disability are not represented in churches in a manner which reflects their numbers in the community, Christian special educators, Christian social workers, Christian rehabilitation counselors, are represented in the Church.

It is we who are in the know about persons with disabilities. Arguably, it is we who have dropped the ball, and not lived up to our responsibilities. As the Bible says, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48). We who have been given much knowledge and significant experience with the disenfranchised in society, hold a special responsibility to recognize their absence in the Church and rectify that situation. We need to be doing the work of inviting them in, introducing them to our congregations, and as appropriate, developing programs for them. In the same manner as we might be critical of a person with financial abilities not coming to the aid of her church should it need financial guidance, we as human service workers should be held accountable. The Church is disobedient, but then it has been disobedient in this area for a long time. There have been pockets of incredible insight and programs that must delight the Heart of the Lord, but there is also incredible ignorance, uncaring and a lack of concern. The Church is disobedient because we have been disobedient.

Church leaders speak of all people being created in the image of God, of all souls being equal, of the value of every human life, but as we look around our congregations, we don’t see the diversity typical of the community represented in our congregations. Where are the nearly 20% of persons nationwide who are disabled? Where are the 10% of persons with “severe” disabilities? Where are the people with mental retardation? “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Matthew 15:8) might be a fair characterization of the church in reference to persons with disabilities.

Those of us who are attempting to change the Church face barriers from our pastors, barriers from our denominations, barriers from those who sit next to us in the congregation. But rather than trying to overcome barriers, we dismiss ourselves from our responsibility in the name of church/state separation, or the rules of our organizations relative to clients, or the ignorance of our congregational brothers and sisters or our pastor. Or we say that our training and our work with persons with disabilities is our job and our church life is our church life. Personally, I need to see the chapter and verse on that one. This cannot be something that our Lord would condone. Can we as believers say that we are unwilling to serve in a particular area, especially when that area is our area of strength, the area we are devoting our working life to? Can we as believers say that we are unwilling to serve, when partially due to our lack of service, the Church lives in disobedience?

We hear pastors, or children’s program leaders, or Christian school administrators tell us that programs are too expensive, or too time intensive, or require persons having a lot of training. How do we respond to these excuses for living in disobedience? The last question is the easiest to dispel for the disability professional. Simply say, “I have a lot of training and I will run your program.” However, the types of things that are required to open the Church really don’t take a tremendous amount of training. Are church programs for persons with disabilities too expensive? A survey of pastors of churches running such programs says they aren’t (Sanchez & McNair in preparation). A survey of people who attend Christian churches say they are not (McNair in preparation). As a professional in the field of special education, I would agree with both of these groups and say that such programs are not expensive. Well aren’t programs too time intensive? Well, service is time intensive, but programs for persons with disabilities aren’t any more or less intensive than other programs.

However, the toughest protestation to the initiation of a program for persons with disabilities is that “Its just not a priority right now.” So ala Matthew 25, church leaders indict themselves. That will be my response in the future should I ever hear that excuse again.

We, the experts, need to act like the experts we are. Imagine going to your pastor to correct his interpretation of the Greek on a particular biblical passage. My pastor wouldn’t take too kindly to my attempted correction, and he would be right to not listen to me as I have never studied Greek or Hebrew, or systematic theology. But he has never studied the education of persons with mental retardation, or behavior management or best practices in the delivery of human services. I am the one who needs to take the lead in this discussion. I should know enough about my Bible to tell her/him where to get off should she/he talk about such a ministry not being a priority (I don’t need Greek or Hebrew to do that). But I have to be the one to go forward on these issues.

I had a discussion with a pastor and a couple of his staff members once. At one point in the discussion, one of the people in attendance said, “Nobody stays up at night wondering how to teach people with mental retardation about the Bible.” I responded, “I do,” which was the absolute truth.

Special education professionals live disability, particularly special education classroom teachers. They do, because if they don’t, they will be eaten alive by their students, or the student’s parents, or their administrators among others. But that preoccupation with persons with disabilities and the types of services they require, needs to be carried over to the church setting so as described in Matthew 25, they can be obedient to God’s command there and elsewhere to minister to the least of these.

Pastors, you need to confront disability professionals with their responsibilities in the church. You need to bring people with disability into the Church and support the efforts of those who do the same. As leaders in the Church, you are disobedient yourselves, and are allowing those within your purview to be disobedient as well.

Did Christ see people with disability? Very often these people are also poor. Did Christ have any interest in the poor? We read the stories of the extent to which Jesus went to minister without considering the context or the effort on his part to get with these people. Jesus’ interactions with persons with disabilities are breath-taking, and they were intentional on his part. We trivialize these interactions when we use them simply as illustrations or metaphors of spiritual principles. These were real people confronted by a real God, and these confrontations with real people by a real God are ubiquitous in the New Testament.

So don’t miss the priority Christ gives to these people as an example for you as a church leader in terms of the priority you should give to these same individuals who are living in your midst today. If you say that these people are not a priority, you indict yourself and diminish the service of those who do work with the disenfranchised.

And professionals in disability, don't miss your responsibility to help a disobedient church to become obedient. If you, if we do not facilitate the inclusion of persons with disability into the church, who do we expect will? We are the experts.

McNair

Interfaith Disability Pre-Summit summary article

Rev. Bill Gaventa prepared this summary article for distribution about the wonderful Interfaith Disability Pre-Summit which was held just recently in Washington D.C. I provide it for your information. Bill also indicated that this article is "For Immediate Release: (Please feel free to adapt to your own publications, add information or perspectives, etc.)." Bill is once again to be congratulated for conceptualizing and pulling off this marvelous meeting.

McNair


Interfaith Disability Pre-Summit Draws Over 100 to Washington, D.C.

On Tuesday, September 20, more than 100 representatives from Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and public and private provider and advocacy organizations involved and interested in religious service and supports with people with developmental disabilities and their families met for a first ever interfaith summit at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. The gathering was a “Pre-Summit” because it occurred just before a first ever national summit between eleven national disability networks organized as the Alliance for Full Participation. (www.allianceforfullparticipation.org)

The Interfaith Summit involved the representatives from the National Council of Churches Committee on Disabilities, the AAMR Religion and Spirituality Division, the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, the National Apostolate for Inclusion Ministry, the Religion and Disability Program of the National Organization on Disability, Friendship Ministries, YACHAD (The National Jewish Council for Disabilities), the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the Consortium of Special Educators in Central Agencies for Jewish Education, the National Association of Christians in Special Education, the Union for Reformed Judaism, the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, and Lutheran networks including Bethesda Lutheran Homes and Services, Inc. and Mosaic, Inc.

The highlights of the Presummit included three presentations by national leaders in disability advocacy to the interfaith gathering. The first was Patricia Morrisey, Director of the Administration on Developmental Disabilities. The second was Chester Finn, the President of SABE (Self Advocates Becoming Empowered, Inc.). The third was Sue Swenson, the incoming Executive Director of The Arc. All of them were asked to address ways that faith communities and networks could address major needs and goals being discussed at the Alliance for Full Participation.

A second highlight was a presentation by Jeff McNair of the results of an Interfaith Survey conducted over the summer of 2005 designed to research the perspective of faith communities and networks on the issues and needs being addressed at the Alliance for Full Participation. More than 70 people and networks responded to the 10 page survey, leading to more than 150 pages of comments, ideas, and suggestions. The Executive Summary of the Survey can be downloaded from www.aamrreligion.org. (Or use your own website if you put it there) and the full results of all the responses can be viewed at to http://jeffmcnair.com/Presummitsurvey.htm.

A third highlight was the incredibly high energy in the meeting, and the networking between individuals and groups. That was assisted by a reception and shared dinner, with a celebration of the presentation of the Henri Nouwen Award by the AAMR Religion and Spirituality Division to Sara Simon, a pioneer in Jewish supports with people with developmental disabilities, and the first ever Jewish recipient of this award. Meditations led by Gerry Hendershot, Ginny Thornburgh, Sister Gabrielle Kowalski, James Vanderlaan, and Rabbi Matthew Simon closed the evening, along with written statements of commitment by more than 50 participants about what they would do with their experience in the pre-summit.

Without a doubt, though the highlight of the day was a poem composed and read by Nate Hajdu, a direct support professional who works with Charlie Swenson. Sue Swenson invited three of the direct support staff from Jubilee, Inc, a Mennonite-based organization in Maryland who supports her son, to come and talk about the ways that their faith shapes, and is shaped, by their work with people with developmental disabilities. All three were articulate and moving, but the poem “My Friend Charlie,” read by Nate Hajdu about the spiritual journey on which Charlie had led him was simply a profound, moving, and sacred moment. (The poem is attached.)

For more information about the Pre-Summit, please contact one of the following sponsoring partners:

• Bill Gaventa, AAMR Religion and Spirituality Division, and The Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities.732-235-9304. bill.gaventa@umdnj.edu
• Jeff McNair, National Association for Christians in Special Education. jmcnair@calbaptist.edu
• Nella Uitvlugt, Friendship Ministries,1-888-866-8966, friendship@friendship.org
• Linda Larson, NCC Committee Coordinator, 763-300-6163. Lindjhl@aol.com,
• Jan Benton, National Catholic Partnership on Disability, 202-529-2933, 202-529-2934 (tty), jbenton@ncpd.org
• Barbara Lampe, National Apostolate for Inclusion Ministry, 1-800-736-1280. qnafim@aol.com
• Ginny Thornburgh, NOD Religion and Disability Program, 202-293-5960, religion@nod.org
• Sr. Gabrielle Kowalski, AAMR Religion and Spirituality Division President, 414-410-4109. gkowalski@stritch.edu
• Gerry Hendershot, Cornell University Institute for Policy Research, ghendershot@earthlink.net
• Jeffrey Lichtman and Jason Lieberman, YACHAD, National Jewish Council for Disabilities, (212) 613-8229. krackol@ou.org.
• Sara Simon, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Consortium of Special Educators in Central Agencies for Jewish Education, and Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. srsimon@erols.com
• Rabbi Richard Address, Union for Reform Judaism, Rfaddress@aol.com
• Linda Ogden, Mosaic. 319.653.5192. cell: 319.461.3435 lynda.ogden@mosaicinfo.org
• Earl Bleke, Bethesda Lutheran Homes and Services, Inc. 920-206-4408, ebleke@blhs.org

Return on Investment

The following is a quote from the book Instruction of Students with Severe Disabilities by Martha Snell and Fredda Brown (Pearson, 2006).

Another misguided value system, called return on investment, places a high value on serving students who have a favorable, history and prognosis for being "fixed" - those likely to contribute the most, economically, to society. The return-on-investment approach fails to recognize the many noneconomic contributions made by people, including those with the most severe disabilities.

The return-on-investment value orientation is based on a curative mentality that sends negative messages to children with disabilities and their families. Imagine what it might be like to continually get the message, "You are not OK the way your are. In order to be OK, your disability has to be fixed and you need to be more like us (people without disabilities)." Increasingly, self-advocates are asking that their disabilities be viewed as a form of natural human diversity and that others' efforts be less about "fixing" a person's disabilities and more about accepting individuals for who they are and providing necessary and self-determined supports.

In addition, the return-on-investment approach tends to discriminate against individuals with the most severe disabilities. It seeks to justify the differential valuing of people and the services they recieve on the basis of the severity of their disability characteristics. Anytime schools sanction practices that imply that some students are more worthy of staff time and resources than other students, there is a serious problem. All children are worthy, although they have differing needs.

Note the final comment "Anytime school sanction practices that imply that some students are more worthy of staff time and resources than other students, there is a serious problem. All children are worthy, although they have differing needs." How does the church fare using this criteria? Are we a place that emphasizes a return-on-investment philosophy? I hope we aren't but I am afraid we are.

McNair (fcbu)

Useless Eaters

Useless Eaters is a powerful website developed by Dr. Mark Mostert of Regent University. The website provides detailed information about the systematic taking of lives of persons with disabilities in Nazi Germany. The presentation is powerful, professional and very moving. I learned a great deal that I was unaware of before visiting the website. I highly recommend the site to you. You can find it at the following link.
http://www.regent.edu/acad/schedu/uselesseaters/

McNair

Pre-Summit Executive Summary

The Pre-Summit was the idea of Rev. Bill Gaventa and was truly a memorable event. Bill compiled an executive summary for attendees which I provide for you at the following link.
http://jeffmcnair.com/presummitsurvey/executivesummary.doc

I will continue to keep you informed about activities/programs/research resulting from the Pre-Summit. It has the potential of being an historic event in ministry to and with persons with disability.

McNair
(fcbu)

Leadership in prayer

Last night we had a meeting of the leadership of our "Light and Power Co." program which seeks to integrate persons with disabilities into our local church. In the midst of the discussion of future activities, we got the idea of having L&P sponsor an all church evening of prayer. At the time it sounded like a good idea: give back to the church by praying for the needs of the church, opportunities for integration between persons with and without disability, good stuff. But the more I think through this idea, the better it seems to me.

One thing that persons with disability, particularly cognitive disability can do is pray. Their prayers are often short and to the point (John is going into the hospital for cancer surgery . . . "Oh Lord, please guide the hands of the surgeons and help them to be a blessing-blah-blah-blah" versus "God, please help John get better, Amen.") which can be a good example. Their prayers are heartfelt. We have one member of our group who cannot keep himself from crying nearly every time he prays. They oftentimes have bigtime faith. But the bottom line, is that their prayers are EQUAL to my or anyone elses prayers. SWEET! You don't need to be highly intelligent or have any special skills to be able to say a prayer. So their service is equal in every way to that of those in the church who do not experience disability.

Man do I love the level playing field we have before the Lord. As I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog,

BUT- God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise . . . He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. (1 Corinthians 1: 27-29)

We can set the standard for a life of prayer through the example of persons with cognitive disabilities. We for sure can raise the standard for the church through the prayer life of persons with disability. This is truly exciting.

So start this at your own church. The disabiled community has all the skill required to be the leaders of the church in prayer. Lets raise the bar and set the standard.

McNair
(fcbu)

Pre-Summit to the Alliance for Full Participation

I write this entry from my hotel room in Washington D.C. the morning of the Pre-Summit to the Alliance for Full Participation. The Pre-Summit was conceived of by the Rev. Bill Gaventa, a long time advocate of the religious/spiritual needs of persons with disabilities. He writes the following in the program guiding the day long activities entitled, "Where there is no vision the people perish (Proverbs 29:18):"

As participatns in the Pre-Summit and the Alliance for Full Participation, we hope that you will see and use this document as a means for further dialogue and collaboration with congregations, clergy, and faith-based organizations in your states and communities... Thank you for taking the time to read and digest this short report from a groundbreaking event. We hope it helps build a vision that is both "deep" and "wide," and one that will build bridges of partnership and collaboration between faith networks and public/private services and supports with people with developmental disabilities and their families.

When I return from Washington, I will put a link to the complete contents of the Pre-Summit program in this blog.
Please pray for our deliberations today.

McNair

Lausanne Conference White Paper

Dennis Kingsland of Joni and Friends, turned me on to this interesting white paper on ministry to persons with disability which came out of the 2005 Lausanne International Christian conference which was held in Thailand. The interest group on disability ministry was facilitated by Joni Eareckson Tada. Good discussion of theological issues/scripture as they relate to persons with disability and ministry to persons with disability. You can get a pdf version at the following address.
http://jeffmcnair.com/Lausanne2005DisabilityWhitePaper.pdf

Enjoy,
McNair

Interfaith Disability PreSummit

Next week there will be an Interfaith Disability PreSummit, held in Washington D.C. This is a "presummit" as it comes before the National Disability Summit which will occur towards the end of the week. I (along with Bill Gaventa and Nella Uitvlugt were privileged to be able to assist in the development and analysis of a survey to in some ways guide discussions with those at the Summit over ways in which the religious community can contribute to the development of supports for persons with disabilities. I would invite you to visit a website where the results of the survey are posted.

You can visit
http://jeffmcnair.com/Presummitsurvey.htm to see the raw open ended question data as well as some basic frequency analysis of the numerical data. We hope to digest this information further in the coming months.

(fcbu)
McNair

The Theological Voice of Wolf Wolfensberger 2

I have been reading The Theological Voice of Wolf Wolfensberger, which is a book of Dr. Wolfensberger's writings on disability from a theological perspective. Dr. Wolfensberger is renowned for his work in areas related to human rights, education and other issues impacting particularly persons with developmental disabilities. However, this book (edited by Bill Gaventa and David Coulter) is an absolute must read for persons interested in notions of mental retardation and disability from a theological perspective. The next few entries will interact with some of the thoughtful discussion provided in this volume.

In "An Attempt Toward a Theology of Social Integration of Devalued/Handicapped People" (a paper presented in 1978) Dr. Wolfensberger takes on the notion of segregation by whomever of a group deemed as different in some way. This principle has particular relevance to the church to the degree that it acts to segregate persons with various disabilities from the general congregation. The following comments are made about how segregation begins.

In truth the one single characteristic of a person, or of a group, that can override all other shared characteristics of people in being used as the justification of segregation can be utterly trivial. It is remarkable in itself that one single characteristic can be presumed to differentiate people so totally, i.e., in that this characteristic can override everything else, even thousands of other characteristics the segregtaors and the segregatees share. If we just contemplate this one little reality, we may be stunned by its magnitude, expecially when we consider that this one overriding characteristic can be something as minor as skin color, the shape of one's ears, left-handedness in Japan, or something of this nature. Even when the characteristic is not trivial, it pales in comparison to the massiveness of the shared characteristics...segregatory congregation also signals back to society that the one characteristic that the congregated people supposedly share with each other is more important than all the thousands of characteristics they share with the segregators.

Now there are times when some forms of segregation make a degree of sense because the point of segregation is relevant. For example, we wouldn't expect to see persons with cognitive disability studying medicine in medical schools. Their difference would be a point of relevant segregation from the field of medicine.

What, however, are the relevant characteristics for segregation from a local church?

1 Corinthians 1: 27 and following states,

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nulify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

Who has the Church chosen? What are the relevant characteristics that are so different from the rest of us that we see fit to exclude them from out midst? God chooses "the things that are not." Who do we choose?

McNair
(from cbu)

The Theological Voice of Wolf Wolfensberger 1

I have been reading The Theological Voice of Wolf Wolfensberger, which is a book of Dr. Wolfensberger's writings on disability from a theological perspective. Dr. Wolfensberger is renowned for his work in areas related to human rights, education and other issues impacting particularly persons with developmental disabilities. However, this book (edited by Bill Gaventa and David Coulter) is an absolute must read for persons interested in notions of mental retardation and disability from a theological perspective. The next few entries will interact with some of the thoughtful discussion provided in this volume.

In "The Prophetic Voice and Presence of Mentally Retarded People in the World Today" (a presentation made by Dr. Wolfensberger in 1976) the following statements (they really should be read in context) are made.

"So I asked myself, what are the prophetic signs which appear to be unique or very special to our day, which are very different from what they have been at other times. . . Where and how is the Spirit active today in a way that is different from the way it may have been in other eras?
As I posed these questions to myself over the past few years, I began to read both the signs of dysfunctionality and of prophecy in a different and clearer fashion, and I read one very, very powerful prophetic message, coming from mentally retarded people. For instance, I considered that it should not be unexpected if divine messages about the present patterning of offenses should come from people who, in their roles and identities, are exactly the opposite of what our era idolotrates. Who and what is the opposite? The opposite is a person who is not intellectual, not scientific, not technological, and not academic; who does simple instead of complex things; who cannot cope with complexity, and technology which passes him by; and who, possibly, is despised for lack of modernity and intellectuality. Is that not the retarded persons of our age?
But if it is, is there any evidence that God has thrust retarded people into a prophetic role? I submit to you that there is indeed . . .

The article goes on to list 10 signs to substantiate the possibility that persons with cognitive disability are indeed carrying a prophetic message.

-Mentally Retarded Persons are Becoming Much More Public and Visible
-Retarded People are Becoming Internationally Known
-Non-Handicapped and Handicapped Persons are Sharing Their Lives, Often Living Together
-Retarded Persons are Gentling Others
-The Prophetic Manifestation of the Presence of God via Retarded People
-Retarded People Speaking in Tongues
-Retarded People may Withstand Their Culture
-Retarded People May Be Parodying Intellectualism
-The Dance of Spiritual Joy
-Retarded People Are Beginning to Be Persecuted and Martyred

No doubt Dr. Wolfensberger's writing on this topic will cause you to think through, to consider his position. For each of the signs he describes the sign and how he has seen it evidenced. His perspective is very interesting.
Under the sign, "Retarded People are Beginning to be Persecuted and Martyred," he makes the statement,

"The logic is compelling: the world has always tried to put to death God's prophecy, and it is the nature of God's will that prophets must be prepared to be martyrs, and disproportionately they are. The moment retarded people in significant numbers become bearers of the word of God, the principalities and powers will converge upon them to fight and stifle that form of prophecy that is so specially powerful all because of its much more miraculous nature, and because in some ways, it goes beyond what any other type of prophecy has said before (my emphasis). . . we have never been told in systematic prophecy that human intellect is universally bankrupt, and that millennia of technological development is at an end."

There is a connection here, I believe, with our earlier discussions in this blog of down syndrome, prenatal diagnosis, etc. It is not unusual for persons with developmental disabilities, yes, mental retardation, to change those around them. Personally, I recognize a kind of a prophetic voice about the importance of love and caring and genuine friendship. These kinds of principles fly in the face of the calculations which are driven by technology . . . "Will this person have a good quality of life?" . . . "Is it cheaper to test infants for PKU, or just to deal with the disabilities which will result if we don't?" . . . "What do the percentages tell us about whether or not parents carrying a particular gene will produce a child with a disability?" . . . "Is is more cost effective to spend millions of dollars on political campaigns, or to provide housing subsidies to persons on fixed incomes?" . . . and so on.
And where is the moral compass in this situation? Where is the salt that gives the world its flavor? Where is the light on the hill?
Wolfensberger makes the claim that persons with mental retardation are prophets to the culture, to the church. You may not agree but it makes you think.

I am confident that Jesus would be hanging out with the unwelcomed people with mental retardation and other disabilities in the group homes and care facilities.

McNair

Who sinned?

I met briefly today with a friend of mine, who is a professor of Theology. He related the story of a woman who came to him and told of how the pastor of her church said that the reason that her son was born blind was because of her sin. My friend was amazed at the story: that someone would still be accused of sin for the birth of a child with disability, particularly in the light of scripture (I had told him of my experience in this area, but he could hardly believe me). But he also provided a great response. He said that the woman should have replied to the pastor, "Is your son blind as well?" That response that would provide a true understanding of sin, what it is, and what our condition is as members of a depraved generation. It also points to the fact that sin is overwhelmingly NOT the reason for disability.

McNair
(from cbu)

Lutheran Church Missouri Synod statement

The following is a statement passed by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod at their 2004 convention.

To Facilitate Ministry with and to People with Disabilities
RESOLUTION 6-09
Overture 6-02 (CW, p. 245)
WHEREAS, Physical, mental, and emotional disabilities may significantly limit participation in worship,
fellowship, education, service, and outreach activities; and
WHEREAS, People with these disabilities are able to make positive contributions to the life of a parish;therefore be it Resolved, That the LCMS Board for Human Care Ministries address the following matters:
1. A mission statement for this ministry with and to people with disabilities;
2. A congregational self-assessment tool to assess the needs of people with disabilities;
3. Plans and guidelines to address physical and attitudinal barriers in churches;
4. Suggestions whereby people with disabilities can be involved in the life and ministry of a congregation;
and
5. Congregational outreach to people with disabilities to achieve participation in the life and ministry of the congregation.
Action: Adopted (10)
(After introduction by the committee, a request was made to move the question unanimously. The convention instead
closed debate, and the resolution was adopted as presented [Yes: 982; No: 18].)

This is a great general plan for the development of ministry for any church (I wonder who the 18 were who voted against this?). Churches who want to develop ministry in this area need-
a mission statement,
to do a self-assessment,
to look for physical and attitudinal barriers,
to look for avenues for involvement in life and ministry, and
outreach to achieve participation in the congregation.

You see, it really is quite simple. Obviously it is not easy to examine one's attitudes but if people with disabilities are thought of as just people, and the attitudes toward them examined as if they were attitudes toward any person, progress can be made.

McNair
(from cbu)