Every Tuesday morning I meet with a group of pastors to study the Bible passages assigned for the upcoming Sunday. And this Sunday's passage is about the healing of the woman who had been "crippled by a spirit" for 18 years and unable to stand upright. And I mentioned that people with disabilities are, demographically, by far the least churched people in America, partly because of accessibility issues and partly because of texts like this--either they go "and why haven't I had my miracle cure yet?" or they get really uncomfortable with the priority on asking for miracles (and using them as inspiration porn) rather than accepting them into the community and accommodating their needs.
Possibly this was a bad idea, because it started people off talking about the very things I had just told them many people with disabilities find offensive. As in, I had to break in at one point and say that I knew a lot of people with disabilities of various kinds, visible and invisible both, who would stand up and walk out if they heard a sermon preached like that. And, granted, in my rural context, you are far less likely to encounter disabled people who have enough contact with the disability rights movement to have the vocabulary for why they don't like or resent certain things, and so they're much more likely to think "it's just me being weird, everyone else thinks it's great, I shouldn't make a big deal of it." That doesn't mean they'll like it or appreciate it.
It was hard to tell what a couple of the pastors there thought, but one of them was all "but we have to make it relatable to the rest of the congregation who don't have a disability!" as an excuse, and another was all into the "everyone has a disability!" approach.
Without time to prepare ahead of time, I am not as articulate as I am when I can sit down and write things out. It was very frustrating.
Possibly this was a bad idea, because it started people off talking about the very things I had just told them many people with disabilities find offensive. As in, I had to break in at one point and say that I knew a lot of people with disabilities of various kinds, visible and invisible both, who would stand up and walk out if they heard a sermon preached like that. And, granted, in my rural context, you are far less likely to encounter disabled people who have enough contact with the disability rights movement to have the vocabulary for why they don't like or resent certain things, and so they're much more likely to think "it's just me being weird, everyone else thinks it's great, I shouldn't make a big deal of it." That doesn't mean they'll like it or appreciate it.
It was hard to tell what a couple of the pastors there thought, but one of them was all "but we have to make it relatable to the rest of the congregation who don't have a disability!" as an excuse, and another was all into the "everyone has a disability!" approach.
Without time to prepare ahead of time, I am not as articulate as I am when I can sit down and write things out. It was very frustrating.
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Date: 2016-08-16 05:25 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2016-08-16 09:49 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2016-08-16 06:03 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2016-08-16 08:32 pm (UTC)From:no subject
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Date: 2016-08-16 09:50 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2016-08-16 09:53 pm (UTC)From:I once had a class with a seminary professor (now a bishop) who is legally blind. Our tradition isn't really into faith healing; we do laying on of hands and anointing, but not with the expectation that it means you're going to be walking out of there without your crutches. (Now, sometimes miracles do happen ... but if they happened reliably every time, they wouldn't be miracles.) He told a story of how confounded a pastor from a faith-healing tradition was that he couldn't just magically "fix" the "problem".
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Date: 2016-08-16 08:31 pm (UTC)From:(I do like the approach of, "Look at how Jesus went out of His way to include disabled people! He knew they were important as people who would carry out and spread His message through their words and deeds.")
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Date: 2016-08-16 09:54 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2016-08-16 10:40 pm (UTC)From:GRARGH.
Hope you're able to explain the context better at a later point.
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Date: 2016-08-17 04:25 am (UTC)From:You would think that having these as two of our most foundational pieces of theology would at least mitigate the ableist interpretation of these stories, but apparently not.
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Date: 2016-08-17 04:38 am (UTC)From:However, the attractiveness of the prosperity gospel (or the gospel of God Gives Good Things To His Faithful) is that it fits really well within the context of the Great American Dream: work hard, acquire things, climb the ladder, live well, be blessed. Which, at its base, is a very worldly view. Which is probably why it’s so attractive...
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Date: 2016-08-17 06:25 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2016-08-19 11:42 pm (UTC)From:I struggle with how to preach the healing stories in a way that's faithful without making those who deal with disabilities feeling less than or being left with painful questions about worthiness.
I'm leaning toward preaching Isaiah (yeah, kinda need to write something down ASAP), mostly because the passage is speaking to me, but partly because I'm not feeling confident in doing justice to the Luke passage.