Disability in Christian Thought
Moderator: Jason Eberl, PhD, Director and Professor of Health Care Ethics, Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics, St. Louis University
Panelists: Kevin Timpe, Calvin University; Devan Stahl, Baylor University; Sarah Jean Barton, Western Theological Seminary; and Keith Dow, Christian Horizons, Vrije Universiteit
This panel will comprise four speakers representing philosophical, theological, literary, and clinical perspectives on how the Christian tradition has conceptually and normatively understood disability and engages with the experiences of persons with disabilities and those who provide support for them. As we consider the future of medicine in which debate between medical and social models of disability will continue to shape how clinicians and the wider community interact, for better or worse, with persons with disabilities, it is more important than ever to understand how religious traditions—particularly Christianity—have influenced past and current attitudes both negatively and constructively going forward.
The first presenter will focus on how contemporary interdisciplinary work on disability increasingly draws on religious traditions. But in drawing on these traditions, a methodological challenge is that it cannot be assumed that a religious tradition has the same conception of disability across its history or across figures within that history. A look at the history of Christian theology, for instance, reveals a multiplicity of understandings of what a disability is. The Christian tradition thus does not—and perhaps should not—have a single perspective on disability. In fact, some scholars deny that disability can be thought of as a discrete class. This multiplicity reveals not just an interpretive challenge for those seeking to engage religious traditions, but also suggests that we cannot simply assume that ‘disability’ means the same thing across all contemporary contexts either. In the context of contemporary medicine, we should also be open to disability being a cluster concept, which has implications for engaging disability in the context of medicine.
The second presenter will explore a theology of monstrosity as it relates to disabled bodies that were once considered monstrous or freakish. The word monster, which is derived from the Latin 'monstrum'—meaning “portent”—was once used to describe a host of aberrant biological occurrences, and until the 19th century, it was the preferred term for extraordinary or marvelous bodies that seemed to disrupt the natural order. Today, few believe “monstrous births” are created specially by God to serve as a sign for the rest of humanity; instead, deformity is viewed as a natural accident or a medical problem to be solved by the surgeon-mechanic or genetic engineer. The Christian theology of monstrosity has transformed into an ethic of cure. Scientists in the 21st century no longer entertain questions about why birth defects happen (only how), but theologians still have something at stake in explaining God’s participation in the natural order and the generation of new life. Christian theology teaches that God’s creation is good, but birth defects complicate our vision of the “natural,” the “good,” and the “disordered.” Today, birth defects are almost always considered problems to be fixed. In turn, people who have these birth “defects” are seen primarily as bodies to be cured. The presenter will explore important theological interpretations of the monstrous from Augustine to the physico-theologians in the 18th century and what they may add to contemporary bioethical debates concerning the use of technology to ‘fix’ anomalous births.
The third presenter will show how Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, 'The Birthmark,' offers an insightful lens through which to understand psychological and spiritual obsessions with health, cure, or embodied “fitness” in relation to disability identity. Scientist and spiritual idealist Aylmer obsesses over correcting the only flaw he perceives in his new partner Georgiana: the imprint of a small red hand on her pale cheek. To Aylmer, what he sees as an imperfection symbolizes the depth of Georgiana’s mortality and sin and must be done away with at any cost, by any experimental means necessary. The presenter considers the implications of Hawthorne’s short story at the intersection of medicine and religion. In medical and religious frameworks intent on bodily purity or perfection, disability can be perceived as a mark of stigma rather than as an aspect of a unique personal and social identity. Stigmatization in clinical or clerical relationships can be understood through Foucault’s critique of the clinical gaze, esoteric knowledge and hierarchical relationships. Clinicians and spiritual care providers must learn to share awareness and accompany patients and congregants with a posture of profound humility, appreciating the diverse limits of the human body, if they are to be agents of healing in the lives of people with disability. This approach necessitates coming to appreciate our own limits, whether in experiences of disability or bodily impairment or through recognizing the epistemic limits of the clinical and clerical gaze.
The final presenter will discuss how, among both ancient and contemporary thinkers in the Christian tradition, many theologians suggest that a porous relationship exists between those who live with disability and those who offer them care. For these theologians, relationships between Christians and people with disabilities ought to be characterized by a bidirectional ethic of care and influence, subverting more hierarchical structures of relationship that suggest people with disabilities ought to be merely objects of pity and charity. In the context of medicine, this Christian perspective on the bidirectionality of relationship between disabled people and their carers challenges a trajectory of medical care that displaces people with disabilities from clinical practice and retains non-disabled clinicians as the primary brokers of agency. Drawing specifically on the work of Basil of Caesarea and John Swinton, the presenter offers a Christian theological perspective on disability that supports shifts in contemporary medicine away from hierarchical models of care provision. In particular, drawing on recent research about the shifting demographics of medical providers and their own experience as a clinician, they illustrate how the increase in clinicians who identify as disabled exemplifies a needed change in the culture of medicine that resonates with Christian theological convictions about human limitation and the bidirectional nature of the ethics of care.
The first presenter will focus on how contemporary interdisciplinary work on disability increasingly draws on religious traditions. But in drawing on these traditions, a methodological challenge is that it cannot be assumed that a religious tradition has the same conception of disability across its history or across figures within that history. A look at the history of Christian theology, for instance, reveals a multiplicity of understandings of what a disability is. The Christian tradition thus does not—and perhaps should not—have a single perspective on disability. In fact, some scholars deny that disability can be thought of as a discrete class. This multiplicity reveals not just an interpretive challenge for those seeking to engage religious traditions, but also suggests that we cannot simply assume that ‘disability’ means the same thing across all contemporary contexts either. In the context of contemporary medicine, we should also be open to disability being a cluster concept, which has implications for engaging disability in the context of medicine.
The second presenter will explore a theology of monstrosity as it relates to disabled bodies that were once considered monstrous or freakish. The word monster, which is derived from the Latin 'monstrum'—meaning “portent”—was once used to describe a host of aberrant biological occurrences, and until the 19th century, it was the preferred term for extraordinary or marvelous bodies that seemed to disrupt the natural order. Today, few believe “monstrous births” are created specially by God to serve as a sign for the rest of humanity; instead, deformity is viewed as a natural accident or a medical problem to be solved by the surgeon-mechanic or genetic engineer. The Christian theology of monstrosity has transformed into an ethic of cure. Scientists in the 21st century no longer entertain questions about why birth defects happen (only how), but theologians still have something at stake in explaining God’s participation in the natural order and the generation of new life. Christian theology teaches that God’s creation is good, but birth defects complicate our vision of the “natural,” the “good,” and the “disordered.” Today, birth defects are almost always considered problems to be fixed. In turn, people who have these birth “defects” are seen primarily as bodies to be cured. The presenter will explore important theological interpretations of the monstrous from Augustine to the physico-theologians in the 18th century and what they may add to contemporary bioethical debates concerning the use of technology to ‘fix’ anomalous births.
The third presenter will show how Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, 'The Birthmark,' offers an insightful lens through which to understand psychological and spiritual obsessions with health, cure, or embodied “fitness” in relation to disability identity. Scientist and spiritual idealist Aylmer obsesses over correcting the only flaw he perceives in his new partner Georgiana: the imprint of a small red hand on her pale cheek. To Aylmer, what he sees as an imperfection symbolizes the depth of Georgiana’s mortality and sin and must be done away with at any cost, by any experimental means necessary. The presenter considers the implications of Hawthorne’s short story at the intersection of medicine and religion. In medical and religious frameworks intent on bodily purity or perfection, disability can be perceived as a mark of stigma rather than as an aspect of a unique personal and social identity. Stigmatization in clinical or clerical relationships can be understood through Foucault’s critique of the clinical gaze, esoteric knowledge and hierarchical relationships. Clinicians and spiritual care providers must learn to share awareness and accompany patients and congregants with a posture of profound humility, appreciating the diverse limits of the human body, if they are to be agents of healing in the lives of people with disability. This approach necessitates coming to appreciate our own limits, whether in experiences of disability or bodily impairment or through recognizing the epistemic limits of the clinical and clerical gaze.
The final presenter will discuss how, among both ancient and contemporary thinkers in the Christian tradition, many theologians suggest that a porous relationship exists between those who live with disability and those who offer them care. For these theologians, relationships between Christians and people with disabilities ought to be characterized by a bidirectional ethic of care and influence, subverting more hierarchical structures of relationship that suggest people with disabilities ought to be merely objects of pity and charity. In the context of medicine, this Christian perspective on the bidirectionality of relationship between disabled people and their carers challenges a trajectory of medical care that displaces people with disabilities from clinical practice and retains non-disabled clinicians as the primary brokers of agency. Drawing specifically on the work of Basil of Caesarea and John Swinton, the presenter offers a Christian theological perspective on disability that supports shifts in contemporary medicine away from hierarchical models of care provision. In particular, drawing on recent research about the shifting demographics of medical providers and their own experience as a clinician, they illustrate how the increase in clinicians who identify as disabled exemplifies a needed change in the culture of medicine that resonates with Christian theological convictions about human limitation and the bidirectional nature of the ethics of care.