Christian teaching about people with disability and their human dignity

Right from the dawn of civilisation, social exclusion of people with disability has been common in all human societies. It is a matter of degree, not of kind. This issue has now been emerged as a major human concern for people everywhere. Today more than a billion individuals live with some form of disabilities, deformities and impairments, both physical and mental. Thousands of organisations (religious, social, government and non-government, etc) are doing their utmost to alleviate their miseries and protect their human dignity. 

Traditional Old Testament theology showed disability as the consequence of divine punishment for sin committed by the person concerned or by his or her parent or parents. Suffering and sickness were seen as God’s punishment for sin (Job 4:7-9, John 9:2). The Hebrew people connected certain diseases, e.g., leprosy, haemorrhage, blindness, laming, etc, with sin. But authentic Christian theology does not teach this. It is liberating in nature. Jesus challenged the prevailing discriminatory and stigmatising attitude of his society against the people with disability. Because of his empathy and compassion for people with handicaps, Jesus’ work is liberative. Different church traditions provide philosophy and values for this. All people are created in the ‘Image’ and ‘Likeness’ of God. Each human person has innate values and respectability just for not being able to do something, but for being what one is as the crown of Creation. Man is specially created by the Creator. The Psalmist exclaimed and praised God saying, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well.” (Psalm 139:13-14).

Among the ancient affluent Greco-Roman societies, people with disabilities were normally neglected and as such were looked after by their slaves. Christianity brought an end to this. Disabled ones started to be treated as part of the family and were taken care of by their own families, and, if not, by church-related institutions. In Jesus’ time, people suffering from disability itself also suffered isolation, alienation, rejection and stigma. Jesus healed them and included them into his society. For his liberative mission and work for sinners, the so-called unclean and the stigmatised people led him to the cross.

We have Jesus’ teaching: “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.” Luke 14: 12-13. He continues to repeatedly teach this in that chapter with great earnestness. Jesus healed the blind, dumb, deaf, paralysed and deformed people with divine love and compassion. He included earlier-excluded people in society. Concern for people with disabilities was one of the prominent themes in Jesus’ earthly ministries.

In Matthew 5-7, Jesus’ first recorded sermon, known as the Sermon on the Mount, was on the qualification of those who could belong to the Kingdom of heaven or the rule of God. The rest of his life was about his ministry or selfless service as to how people could be in the Kingdom. He has advocated the cause of the marginalised and alienated ones. We must advocate for the protection of their rights as people to be treated just as people, and for their social inclusion so that they can contribute to the society. These physically and mentally challenged people are but differently-abled, and they are all not disabled altogether. Human society at large has multiple examples of disabled people, who made and are making tremendous contributions for the advancement of civilisation and culture.

Admittedly, there are many scriptures in the Old Testament implying ostracising disabled persons it ought to be mentioned also that God in the Mosaic Law commanded people: “Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God, I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 19:14). 

Christian Theologian CS Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Every people of good will and people with love for God ought to work to restore self-respect of the disabled people for the restoration of their identity to society. Those of us, who are not disabled as the “disabled” are ought to thank God that we are not disabled. And also, we need to be friends and enablers for the disabled that they may join us all to glorify our common Creator. We ought to be reminded of that to treat them with justice and peace is our spiritual obligation and is one sure way of and an opportunity to serve God.

Christian teaching is critical of discrimination against people with disabilities, and it emphasises social justice and inclusion. We question link between normalcy and personhood. Christ’s mission and ministry on earth as mentioned in Matthew 11:2-5, 15:30-31, 21:14; Mark 7:37 and Luke 4:18-19 testify to his pro-people and liberating theology. Just to cite only one of thousands of examples of God-and-people-loving Christians dedicating their lives for the restoration of human dignity to disabled people, I mention here the name of Wellesley Cosby Bailey, the founder of the Leprosy Mission. He was an Irishman teaching at a Mission school in Ambala, Punjab, India. In 1873, when he was still a very young man, he visited some huts where 40 beggars with leprosy-caused disabilities were huddled together to live in inhuman conditions. After the visit, Bailey wrote these self-explanatory words: “I almost shuddered, yet I was at the same time fascinated, and I felt that if there was ever a Christ-like work in the world it was to go amongst these poor sufferers and bring them the consolation of the gospel.” Christian Theology should lead to Theopraxy.
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The writer is a Christian Theology teacher and Church leader