TonioTimeDaily

"For the past six months, I, like many of you, have missed gathering for worship in person – singing, touching, visiting, breaking bread. Yet now more than ever, I can worship with people from all over, take in a variety of preachers – all without worrying if my wheelchair can get in and around the building.

Most weeks though, my mom and I settle in on the couch with a Zoom screen full of familiar faces. As if we are invited into each other’s homes, we admire artwork and backyard decks. We smile as we look at another’s eyes or hear another’s voice extending Christ’s peace. Yet with an inequity of resources, there are faces we miss, people who can’t sign on. We look forward to the day when our whole community can gather together.

COVID-19 has exposed disparities for disabled people, people of color, and poor people. Now that we see these injustices more starkly, do we have the imagination and will to begin to address these long-standing struggles? Can we imagine and shape our spiritual practices so that the lives of those on the margins are at the center of the church? And will we create space for disabled people and other marginalized peoples to lead us to that new reality?

Last fall, I began my Ph.D. studies examining how people with disabilities offer leadership in ministry and challenging how the church recognizes, uses and/or misuses these gifts. As an ordained minister with cerebral palsy, I am exploring whose voices and stories are imagined or expected in church leadership. I did not anticipate learning from a pandemic. But it’s been a master class on how the church can imagine different ways of coming together.

Grappling with the sins of ableism

I am grateful that so many churches have found ways to offer remote gatherings that help many Christians stay grounded in their faith while also avoiding spreading the virus. But some members of the congregation cannot gather electronically. There are inequities of wealth, ability, and access that affect our communities of faith.

In a recent editorial in Theology Today, cultural anthropologist Erin Raffety wondered if the church “might become further attuned to the creative and adaptive gifts for leadership that have come and do come uniquely out of disabled lives and experiences.” She points to a deaf leader who taught the community to pass the peace using American Sign Language. Later, as her teaching assistant, this leader helped her class transition to an online platform, using ASL to register comprehension or concern without speaking over one other.

As a Presbyterian pastor,  a research fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry studying pastoral care and machine intelligence, and a parent of a daughter with multiple disabilities, Raffety thinks the church has a tremendous opportunity to see ministry offered by and with people with disabilities. She has found that the churches that were weak on accessibility pre-Covid-19 remain so during the pandemic, just as those who have formerly applied a disability-lens in their ministry have continued to live out such priorities."

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