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Case in Point: The Physically Disabled

Considering just one group in this list of the alienated -- the physically and developmentally disabled -- we can discern some specific implications for the churches.

The physically disabled are emerging as a new minority (9 per cent of the population), only now beginning to find an identity for themselves and to exercise the power that they have. They are also a group with many close ties to religious faiths. For literally millions, a trust in God is what holds them together -- that is all they have. The care and concern with which many of our churches respond is beautiful, but the dark side is also there: my blind friend speaks bitterly of the many "church people" who say to him, "If your faith in Jesus were strong enough, you could overcome your blindness." While you and I cringe at hearing this response, many Christians cringe daily in having such judgmental words spoken directly to them.

As institutions, the churches have sporadically expressed concern for the disabled. The Louvain Conference held by the World Council of Churches in 1971 clearly placed on the agenda of world Christianity the matter of the church's ministry for persons with handicaps. At Nairobi the WCC not only included this matter on the agenda again, but in putting emphasis on "ministry to and with" fostered a far more accurate theological understanding of that ministry and placed it squarely at the heart of the gospel. The words that the Nairobi assembly spoke are these:

The Church's unity includes both the "disabled" and "the able." A church which seeks to be truly united within itself and to move toward unity with others must be open to all; yet able-bodied church members, both by their attitudes and emphasis on activism, marginalize and often exclude those with mental or physical disabilities. The disabled are treated as the weak to be served, rather than as fully committed, integral members of the Body of Christ and the human family; the specific contribution which they have to give is ignored. . . . The Church cannot exemplify "the full humanity revealed in Christ," bear witness to the interdependence of humankind, or achieve unity in diversity if it continues to acquiesce in the social isolation of disabled persons and to deny them full participation in its life. the unity of the family of God is handicapped where these brothers and sisters are treated as objects of condescending charity. It is broken where they are left out.

The conscience and the concern of the church in this area was lifted up by the participation at Nairobi of a physically disabled American church-woman, Ruth Elizabeth Knapp of New York city, whose very presence was a catalyst for the creation of this resolution.

The United Methodist Church in the early 1960s brought into the curriculum of the church school a concern for persons with disabilities, and at its quadrennial General Conference in 1976 adopted a resolution looking toward churchwide expressions of concern for the handicapped. Several Lutheran bodies have had a long tradition of special ministries to such groups as the deaf and the blind, and the Episcopal Church has also been heavily involved in such specialized ministries.

Three years ago a number of church persons along with experts from outside the church created the Healing Community, an action-research project designed specifically to discover whether the church really can respond to the various kinds of alienated persons of our society, and what some of these responses might be. Their findings will be published early in 1978. The Healing Community is one of many signs that a major ferment exists -- on the part of the churches expressing concern and on the part of that emerging minority who are asking whether only secular institutions will respond to their needs.

Theology of the Alienated

The idea of the Suffering Servant, a dominant theme in Hebraic Christian theology, stresses that the one who comes ultimately to give life and hope to humankind is the one who suffers for humankind, who gives himself for that humanity. The Suffering Servant exemplifies Cod's ultimate concern for humankind, giving the assurance that underneath all of us arc the everlasting arms. The Suffering Servant is also one who responds to the needs of all persons. In a Western society which has so often rejected the physically handicapped, at least at the unconscious level, and has made such persons the object of mission and oftentimes also of pity and scorn, the Suffering Servant shows God's concern not alone for the able and privileged persons of this world but even more for the apparently forsaken.

For the Christian community the one lost sheep is the one for whom the Shepherd leaves all the others that this one may be saved. In Jesus' picture of the Day of Judgment, he expresses the idea that God in Christ comes to that person who visits those who are sick and in prison and in need. The nail-pierced hands of Jesus -- the "stigmata" -- are the hands of one who cares for the stigmatized, who are in manifold ways pierced by the turned-aside eyes of fellow human beings. In word and action Jesus sets the handicapped directly within the circle of unity of the Christian church.