Vulnerable Communion

E. Reynolds Thomas

Description

As parents of a son with disabilities, Thomas E. Reynolds and his wife know what it's like to be misunderstood by a church community. In Vulnerable Communion, Reynolds draws upon that personal experience and a diverse body of literature to empower churches and individuals to foster deeper hospitality toward persons with disabilities. Reynolds argues that the Christian story is one of strength coming from weakness, of wholeness emerging from brokenness, and of power in vulnerability. He offers valuable biblical, theological, and pastoral tools to understand and welcome those with disabilities. Vulnerable Communion will be a useful resource for any student, theologian, church leader, or lay person seeking to discover the power of God revealed through weakness.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441202635
• Langue: English

Extrait

Praise for Vulnerable Communion
Vulnerable Communion is subversive theology in the tradition of the prophets speaking from the margins of society. It calls the church to confront and dismantle the (world s) cult of normalcy, within which the church has uncritically worshipped. It also calls for a theology of disability that not merely insists on caring for people with disabilities but that allows the experience of disability to interrogate its theology of power. The result is a long-awaited and much-needed theological revisioning of the traditional doctrines of God, Christ, creation, redemption, and church so that the true power of the gospel is released from the underside of history once again.
- Amos Yong , Regent University School of Divinity; book review editor, Journal of Religion, Disability and Health
Powerful in its questioning of the disabling framework of the normal, Reynolds s unflinching account emits an irresistible lucidity. A theology of life as sheer gift unfurls in the space opened by his profound meditation on human vulnerability.
- Catherine Keller , Drew University
Tom Reynolds has written a theologically profound and deeply moving exploration of what happens to core Christian understandings of God, of Christ, of community, and of embodiment when these are understood in light of disability. His work makes an important and bracing contribution to disability studies. It makes an equally important contribution to theology, making available an awareness of how our vulnerability opens us to each other and to the great compassion of the divine. It would be hard to come away from this beautiful book unchanged.
- Wendy Farley , Emory University
For years, I have thought that the key theological and pastoral issue in ministries with people with disabilities is not disability per se, but vulnerability. Tom Reynolds has taken that premise from his own experience as a father and his own training as a theologian and crafted a theology based on a foundation of vulnerability. I have rarely read a manuscript where I made so many amen marks. This book is an amazing integration of Reynolds s experience in the worlds of disability and theology. This is a wonderful contribution to theological studies-a resource that any clergy interested in understanding vulnerability for ministry will go to again and again-and a theological contribution to the exploding field of disability studies.
- Bill Gaventa , editor, Journal of Religion, Disability, and Health
Reynolds provides another vital resource and is a new and important voice in issues concerning the place and presence of people whom the world calls disabled in the life of the church. Reynolds carefully unpacks the baggage of labels and stigmas that have been placed upon the lives of many people with disabilities. With strong, articulate theological arguments, he lifts up the power of being what the world would call weak and vulnerable, in which the presence of the Christ is revealed in all of human life. Yet Reynolds is quick to remind us that this discovery is not a solo journey, but discovered in the very practice of hospitality within the body of Christ, in which we are reminded that this resurrected body is inclusive of all God s people.
- Brett Webb-Mitchell , School of the Pilgrim
Vulnerable Communion
A Theology of Disability and Hospitality
Thomas E. Reynolds
2008 by Thomas E. Reynolds
Published by Brazos Press a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.brazospress.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reynolds, Thomas E., 1963- Vulnerable communion : a theology of disability and hospitality / Thomas E. Reynolds. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-58743-177-7 (pbk.) 1. People with disabilities-Religious aspects-Christianity. 2. Church work with people with disabilities. I. Title. BT732.7.R49 2008 261.8324-dc22 2007037373
Scripture is taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Notes
1. Theology and Disability: Perils and Promises
I. A Disabling Theology or a Theology of Disability?
Defining Disability beyond the Medical Model
Understanding Disability Christianly: Is Disability a Tragedy to Be Undone?
II. Beyond Theodicy?
III. Toward a Hermeneutic of Disability
IV. Dismantling Alienating Notions of Disability: Developing a Typology
Avoiding the Theological Denigration of Disability
Avoiding the Theological Trivialization of Disability
Conclusion: Toward a Wider Horizon for Theological Thinking about Disability
Notes
2. Communal Boundaries: Dwelling Together and the Cult of Normalcy
I. The Human Need for Welcome
Fundamental Trust-A Desire for Home
Home as Dwelling Together
II. Social Boundaries: Ability and Disability
Community and Identity-Frameworks of the Good
III. Recognition, Value, and the Good: Into the Sway of the Cult of Normalcy
Economies of Exchange
Body Capital-Measuring Exchange Value
The Cult of Normalcy
IV. Outside the Good
Stigma-The Spoiled Body
Taboo-Prohibiting the Abnormal
Conclusion: Against Normalization ?
Notes
3. Able Bodies? The Illusion of Control and Denial of Vulnerability
I. Theoretical Roots of the Modern Notion of Personhood
II. Problems with Equality, Freedom, Independence, and Reason
Ironic Equality-Like Us
Ironic Self-sufficiency and Freedom-Dis-abling Ability?
Ironically Rational-Routing the Irrational (Reason-unable?)
III. Managing the Body: The Productive Imperative
Wealth Accumulation
Efficiency-A Competitive Edge on Time
Novelty-The Tyranny of the New
The Person as Consumer-Empowered to Purchase
Beautiful, Youthful, and Able Bodies
Conclusion: Spiritual Self-Interest?
Notes
4. Recovering Disability: The Strange Power of Weakness
I. Vulnerability: Reassessing Wholeness and Disability
Dependence-Rethinking Normal
The Difficult Strength of Vulnerability-Neediness and the Reality of Suffering 107
II. Encountering Disability, Suffering the Other
Creative Openings-An Autobiographical Excursus on Love
Against Pity and Charity?
Getting Closer-Loving Chris
III. Relational Wholeness: Love s Interdependence
The Strange Power of Weakness-Enabling Love
Love-To Welcome the Presence of the Other
IV. The Moral Fabric of Love: Availability
Respect-Giving Way for the Other
Fidelity-Faithfulness to the Other
Compassion-Sympathy with the Other, for Its Well-being 126
Conclusion: Empowering Community
Notes
5. Love Divine: Vulnerability, Creation, and God
I. Love and Conversion to God
Gratitude-Existence as Gift
Hope-Relation beyond Tragedy
The Sense of God-An Extraordinary Possibility in Vulnerable Ordinariness
II. Creation s God: A Theological Matrix
God s Transcendence and the Redemptive Encounter
Naming God s Redemptive Presence
III. God s Creative Power: Toward a Theology of Creation
In the Beginning, God
Creation Called into Being
Creation from Nothing
Continuing Creation and Providence
Creation a Free Act of God
Creation as Gift, Loved into Being
IV. Relation and Vulnerability in God and Creation
Creation s Difference, God s Giving
Creation and the Tragic
Divine Vulnerability and Tragedy
Conclusion: Theology of Creation in a Key of Gratitude and Hope
Notes
6. Worthy of Love? Humanity, Disability, and Redemption in Christ
I. Reconsidering the Imago Dei
Imago Dei as Imitatio Dei
Imago Dei as Creativity-Human Being as a Cocreative Agent of God
Imago Dei as Relationality-Human Being as Embodied along with Others
Imago Dei as Availability-Human Being as Freedom for Love
The Imago Dei and Disability
II. Sin s Tragedy and the Possibility of Redemption
Sin-Creative Freedom for Love Gone Awry
Sin, Idolatry, and the Possibility of Redemption
III. Reconsidering Redemption in Jesus Christ
Jesus as the Icon of a Vulnerable God-Redemptive Revelation
Jesus-The Fully Human Person
Jesus as God s Solidarity with Humanity-Incarnation, Cross, and Resurrection
Conclusion: Reversing Disability s Disability
Notes
7. Being Together: Love, Church, and Hospitality
I. To Love as Christ Loves: Loving Chris as Christ Loves and Loving Christ as Chris Loves
II. The Strange Kingdom of God: Restoring the Imago Dei in Right Relationships
The Creative Power of Inclusion-Welcoming (in) the Kingdom
Healing Power-Welcome, Transformation, and Wholeness
Cross as Inclusive Solidarity-The Power of Inability
Disability and the Imitation of Christ
III. The Strange Household of God: Church as the Ongoing Presence of Christ
Church as the Household of God-A New Covenant
Church as the Body of Christ
Church as Anticipation-The Not Yet Kingdom of God
IV. Hospitality: Welcoming (in) the Spirit
Hospitality-Inspirited Openness to the Other
Hospitality and Disability
Conclusion: Kindling Hope for the Church as a Communion of Strangers
Notes
Acknowledgments
This book was written in the presence of many people whose encouragement and assistance have made it possible to reflect at length upon the matter of disability and its important implications for Christian thought and practice.
I am grateful to the Louisville Institute for providing the generous support of a grant during the summer of 2005, during which I initially sketched out the parameters of what became this book. Gratitude also goes to the group of L