Arie C. Leder
Every Sunday they worship among us, sing with us, and enjoy coffee and cookies afterwards. Like us they sit with their own or “adopted” families. No more noticeable than the young couple almost sitting on top of each other, the spoiled child loudly manipulating her parents, or the seniors occupying the back pew, they belong; they are our “Friends.”
Sometime during the week, several times a month, “Friendship” groups gather in many Christian Reformed churches in Canada and the United States. These groups are served by Friendship Ministries (www.friendship.org), whose mission is “to share God’s love with people who have cognitive impairments and to enable them to become an active part of God’s family.” And active they are.
Frank loves singing. The music he sings is recognizable, but not always pleasant for pew neighbors. Frank specializes making a joyous noise to the Lord. Moreover, if it’s a hymn Frank learned before the gray hymnal appeared he sings it blue hymnal style, politically correct changes in the words notwithstanding. Judy worships with deep certainty: every liturgical “Amen” is underscored by her own “Amen!” Her aging father was not always pleased with her worship style, her wanting to stand, by herself (she is wheelchair bound), finding the hymns, by herself. And then there is, let me call him George. When he sings he often raises his left arm, makes a fist, and then pumps the arm up throughout the song. More power to him. There are many such friends, cognitively and physically impaired, who belong to the body of Christ. Does this mean that the body of Christ is impaired?
Broken body theology
Disability has entered the theological discussion in articles such as “The Body of Christ has Down’s Syndrome,” (Journal of Pastoral Theology 13.2 [Fall 2003]: 66-78), by John Swinton: “The Disabled Body of Christ as A Critical Metaphor–Towards a Theory (Journal of Religion, Disability and Health [ 7.4 (2003]: 25-40), by Susanne Rappmann; “Redeemed Bodies: Fullness of Life,” (Human Disability and the Service of God. Reassessing Religious Practice [Abingdon, 1998], 123-143), by Barbara A. B. Patterson; and “God in our Flesh: Body Theology and Religious Education” (Religious Education 98.1 [2003]: 82-94) by Christopher K. Richardson.
Opinions move from the disabled body being a metaphor (Rappmann), to an argument for disability as another kind of diversity (Patterson), to the position that the body, including its disabled form, “is the midpoint and locus of communication between God and us,” that “the body becomes the speaker, rather than the spoken to; it is the teacher rather than the taught. Not objects to be shaped by scripture and tradition, but active Words of God to shape scripture and tradition, bodies (which ultimately means whole human beings as body-selves) are given a place befitting that of the children of God.” In other words, bodies have revelatory potential. (Richardson, 84-85, representing the position of James B. Nelson’s Body Theology). Broken bodies, then, are as “whole” as other “normal” bodies (authors speak of the “hegemony” of the normal); God doesn’t make mistakes. Students preparing for a career in speech pathology learn about the “deaf culture” which opposes hearing implants. Such intervention would be cultural suicide. Sign language is normal, not abnormal.
The Christian tradition holds that when Jesus Christ comes again the blind will see, the lame will walk, the deaf will hear, the lepers will be cured, and the dead will be raised. Christ himself provided a foretaste of this new world (Matt. 11:4-6). The new earth, in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13), will be discontinuous with the old world, including all those disorders, personal and social, that characterized the old order (Rev. 21: 3-4). The new view argues for continuity between the present and the future. One might say, the future is now. In this view the body defines us: your body, my body, whatever its shape or condition, I imagine, is the means of communication between you and God. You are your body. Somehow, I’m not comforted by that thought.
The body that defines us
The impulse toward the newer body theology no doubt is rooted in the marginalization and abuse disabled people have suffered throughout the ages and the desire to correct this. Their inclusion in theological reflection is healthy, as is the renewed focus on the role of the body as such. It should, however, take into consideration the church’s classic theological formulations about these matters. Classic Christian thought is clear about one thing: we are not our bodies, whatever their condition or shape; we are body and soul. This is universally the case. From this it follows that the body, whatever its shape or condition, does not make us who we are. There is a spiritual component that must be considered.
Scripture has a high view of the body–it was created good and for human enjoyment in the service of God. Nevertheless, it declares that the post-fall body suffers all kinds of brokenness, so much so, that Paul defines the body as “the perishable” that will arise “imperishable” on the last day (1 Cor 15:50-56). The greatest deformity the body suffers is sin (Rom 6:11-14), which expresses itself in all kinds of brokenness, physical and spiritual. From this point of view, the normal human state is that of being broken, by sin and its consequences. Because noone escapes this reality the faithful are urged to call upon the elders in times of sickness and sin, both of which disable the human person, that there may be well-being and forgiveness (James 5:14-16).
The body that is sick or stricken by sin, Martin C. Albl argues, is taken up into a wider web of relationships:
“The patient does not experience healing as an isolated individual. The community body, led by the elders, must gather and show its united support through prayer, confession, and public ritual. As integrity is restored to the individual body, so it is reinforced in the community body.
“Beyond the community level, the individual healing has cosmic significance. Healing of a single person does not merely ‘symbolize’ or ‘foreshadow’ his or her eschatological salvation. Rather, the ritual anointing and community prayers move the patient into the realm of both bodily healing and eschatological salvation. The system does not separate the two.” (“‘Are any among you sick?’ The Health Care System in the letter of James,” Journal of Biblical Literature 121.1 [2002]: 142-143.)
The community Albl refers to is, of course, the church, the body of Jesus Christ. That body defines the body and soul of all who are its members by faith. We are not our bodies. Frank is not his body, neither are Judy, George, or Martin, who once told a minister that he was preaching too long, their bodies. All of us, broken in body and soul, may be comforted by the truth that we “belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to (our) faithful Savior Jesus Christ” (Heidelberg Catechism, QA 1).
More on this next month.
