DISABLING ‘THE DISABLED GOD’
The Incredulity of St. Thomas. Caravaggio. Public domain.
“I saw God in a sip-pull wheelchair, that is, the chair used mostly by quadriplegics enabling them to manoeuvre by blowing and sucking on a straw like device” (1)
In her landmark book The Disabled God Nancy Eiesland encourages us to think of God as disabled by turning our attention to the body of Jesus. Following his resurrection, Jesus still carried the marks from his crucifixion on his resurrected body. He still possessed the holes in his hands, feet, and side. Jesus’ body, because of its wounds, is different from ‘normal’ bodies; therefore Eiesland can claim that he is ‘The Disabled God’. For Eiesland, his wounds are impairments, and from this understanding she imagines him in a wheelchair. This Christology has the power to encourage persons with a disability who are Christian by reassuring them that they are not different or ‘incomplete’ but, in fact, they are a people that closely resemble God - a “God [who] is not outside of disability trying to heal it; but deeply implicated within it”. (2)
In a similar attempt to reimagine who God is, some theologians have sought to tackle the problem of God being presented as “some great ‘Father in the sky’” (3) that protects some, smites others, and coordinates the cosmic game of chess from his heavenly dwelling. Writers such as Barbara Brown Taylor have written about a God that is silent or a God that exists within silence. Taylor tells the story of a struggling preacher who had a reoccurring nightmare of dying, knocking on the door of the house of God and finding it empty. Not only was it empty but it had been vacant for years, God’s abandoned house was dirty, with dust balls everywhere. “It is hard to deny that the mode of God’s revelation has changed over the course of time”, (4) writes Taylor. “Apart from reports of the sun spinning in the sky at Medjugorje or the Virgin Mary appearing in a backyard in Conyers, Georgia, there are not many corporate visions of God anymore”. (5) The reality of our existence is that creation and our lives are messy, unruly, and inevitably contain suffering. Sometimes we feel alone and without a supernatural presence backing us up at every moment. This too was the experience of Christ at his death. On the cross he cried out to God and heard nothing, he died feeling abandoned and alone, forsaken by his Father. (6) This reality of God’s silence has important implications for our understanding him as disabled.
Within disability studies, disability is a social category on top of physical impairment. A person can be physically impaired, but they are disabled by a society that considers them out of sync with its environment and ideals. The Union for the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) first made the case for this social approach. They argued that “it is society which disables physically impaired people”. (7) Eiesland provides us with a God that is impaired but not necessarily disabled. This is because the impairments that Jesus bears do not necessarily affect him socially, neither his power nor ability are affected by his wounded, resurrected body. Often (but not exclusively), when comparisons are made between Jesus’ life and the lives of persons with disabilities, the focus is usually on Jesus’ physical impairment and sufferings, not his social exclusion. When God is approached as silent, however, he can be understood as more fully disabled. This is because God does not ‘fit the mold’ and fulfil human (societal) expectations.
Disability theory posits that a person with a disability does not meet the requirements needed to pass as a ‘normal’ human being. Reynolds (8) argues that within the societies of the Global North, to be human means to possess independence, freedom, and strength (to name but a few). However, the reality of human existence is that we are all limited. This may be in small ways by allergies and illnesses, but we are also limited by our mortality. Additionally, most people become disabled in old age as the time preceding their death is often marked by weakness and dependence on others for care. The false ideas (of independence, strength, etc.) that are celebrated and accepted as common sense are a part of what Reynolds calls ‘the cult of normalcy’. In the same way, when God is considered as behaving in ways that are quiet and hidden, he does not fit comfortably within the theological (or religious) ‘cult’ we have developed for him. God is disabled socially by his inability to fulfil our expectations of what is ‘normal’ or ‘common sense’ behaviour for him. He is supposed to answer prayer, blessing some and protecting others (as well as smiting the odd person here or there). He is supposed to be loud, performing miracles and flooding the earth with a visible, audible divine presence. However, God remains for the most part, silent.
Taylor (9) explains how silence can often be a sign that represents something else. For example, the silence of an empty house after a divorce and the silence that often complement illness and dying both point to larger issues. Similarly, the lack of silence because of a constantly booming television or computer points to another problem - the potential loneliness we are unwilling to face up to. Isolation is a common problem that persons with disabilities have to face (10) and is a result of societal faults: forced unemployment, poor welfare policy, and a lack of inclusion. The statement from the UPIAS that it is society which disables persons with impairments still holds up today. Therefore building on Eiesland’s argument that by still carrying his wounds Jesus chooses to be like persons with disabilities, I argue that by choosing to be silent God makes a choice out of solidarity for persons with disabilities. When God is silent, he chooses to be with the many people who are isolated because of a society which excludes them because of their impairment. In the breakdown of language, God is there. The disabled God is silent with those that are silenced by a society that places barriers in their way and refuses to listen to them. God chooses not only to physically be in solidarity with persons with disabilities through Christ’s resurrected body but he also is with them socially through his silence.
Similarly, in this breakdown of language, there is a disintegration of categories and binary language. When God is understood as silent, he refuses to be controlled by our ways of understanding him. This shows the ineffectiveness of language, something that Reynolds wants us to understand about disability. By showing us ‘the cult of normalcy’, he argues that our criteria for understanding disability are false. There is no fully able-bodied person. We regularly cross, confuse, and flex the boundaries that we develop for one another. Similarly, God cannot be controlled and explained completely through our language. This is one of the key elements of Taylor’s argument, and this is why she focuses on homiletics so much throughout her book. She is arguing that preachers, theologians, and the Church cannot find the right language to talk about God. By being silent, God is like persons with disabilities, unique individuals who challenge the limited language that is used to categories and explain their existence.
To conclude, Nancy Eiesland directs our attention to the wounds of Jesus. These wounds, she argues, are physical impairments and, therefore Jesus is ‘The Disabled God’. However, as disability theory demonstrates, disability is a societal imposition on top of physical impairment. So, I have argued that God is ‘The Disabled God’ through his inability (or rather, his choice) not to behave in the ‘normative’ way that God should. In the same way that persons with disabilities do not fulfil the requirements of the ‘cult of normalcy’ – the ‘cult’ which values unrealistic demands on personal independence, freedom, and strength – God does not fulfil the requirements we as humans make on him. This has two key implications for our theologies of disability and both are focused on God’s choice to be with and like persons with disabilities. The first point is that God chooses to be silent with those who are silenced, with those for whom silence is a larger sign of pain, isolation, and loneliness. Secondly, God by being silent challenges our theology (our ‘God-talk’) in the same way that persons with disabilities, according to Reynolds, show that the language we use to describe ability and disability is fundamentally flawed. By being ‘The Disabled God’ through the impairments of Christ’s body and through his silence, God makes a choice to be like persons with disabilities, challenging our ideas of what it means for God to be God and for humans to be humans.
Nancy L. Eiesland, The Disabled God: Towards a Liberatory Theology of Disability (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 7.
John Swinton (2011) ‘Who is the God We Worship? Theologies of Disability; Challenges and New Possibilities’ IJPT, vol 14, 283.
Carter Haywood in Grimshaw, G. (2020) ‘A thoroughly irregular priest, theologian, and Universalist Christian: Interview with the Rev. Isabel Carter Heywood, PhD’, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 31 (1), p.138.
Barbara Brown Taylor, When God is Silent: Divine Language Beyond Words [2nd ed.] (London: Canterbury Press, 2017), 25.
Ibid., 57.
Ibid., 58.
The Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation, ‘Fundamental Principles of Disability’ (1975), https://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/library/UPIAS-fundamental-principles.pdf.
Thomas E. Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008), 33.
Barbara Brown Taylor, When God is Silent: Divine Language Beyond Words [2nd ed.] (London: Canterbury Press, 2017), 32.
Stephen J. Macdonald, Lesley Deacon, Jackie Nixon, Abisope Akintola, Anna Gillinham, Jacqueline Kent, Gillian Ellis, Debbie Matthews, Abolaji Ismail, Sylvia Sullivan, Samouka Dore & Liz Highmore (2018): The invisible enemy’: disability, loneliness and isolation, Disability & Society, DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2018.1476224.
