The Bible, Disability, and the Church: A New Vision of the People of God

by Amos Yong

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2011

Overview

The Bible has plenty to say about human disability; most of it is negative. Yet Amos Yong — a theologian whose life experience includes growing up alongside a brother with Down syndrome — argues that it is the way we read biblical texts, not the Bible itself, that causes us unthinkingly to marginalize those with disabilities. Applying a "hermeneutics of suspicion" to traditional methods of interpreting the Bible, Yong rereads and reinterprets texts from the Old Testament, John, Luke-Acts, and Paul from the perspective of people with disabilities. Revealing and dismantling the underlying stigma of disability that exists even in the church, he shows how the Bible offers good news to people of all abilities — and he challenges churches to reorganize their practices as they strive to become more inviting, healing, and reconciling communities of faith.

Key Features

• Compelling discussion of a difficult topic in biblical theology
• Proposes a new paradigm for integrating theology into the life of the church with reference to disability
• Challenges underlying stigmas, both known and hidden from view

Contents

• Introduction: Disability and the People of God — Whole or Fragmented?
• Holiness, the Covenant, and Ancient Israel: Exclusion, Inclusion, and Disability
• What Hath Dr. Luke and His Colleagues to Say? Jesus, the Early Church, and a (Radical Pentecostal) Theology of Disability
• One Body, Many Members: St. Paul’s Charismatic Ecclesiology and the Renewal of Dis/Ability
• When There Shall Be No More Tears: Eschatology, the Reign of God, and the Redemption of Disability
• Epilogue: The New Biblical Theology of Disability: So What?

Top Highlights

“In this book I attempted to show how our negative theological understandings of disability have developed over the centuries, and I suggested how to revise such views with the goal of creating a more hospitable and inclusive world for people with disabilities.” (Page 5)

“In hindsight, I believe that part of the struggle my parents endured had to do with the culture of shame that shaped the lives of those in the Chinese diaspora: the birth of children with disabilities inevitably raised questions about what, if anything, the parents had done to have deserved anything less than a healthy child. This feeling of shame was exacerbated by the pentecostal convictions that my parents proclaimed about how faith and trust in God would inevitably bring about God’s blessings and abundant life.” (Page 2)

“Yet this means, at least when the Pentateuchal scheme of things is read from a normate perspective, an understanding of God as the One who is without blemish, and an associated understanding of all blemishes and diseases, as well as the people who have them, as being unholy, imperfect, and ultimately symbolic of human disobedience against God’s law.” (Page 24)

“From a disability perspective, then, people with disabilities are by definition embraced as central and essential to a fully healthy and functioning congregation in particular, and to the ecclesial body in general.” (Page 95)

“John Calvin explained the diseases which plagued humankind in terms of God’s punishment for creaturely sinfulness.^{8” (Page 23)}

Praise for the Print Edition

Amos Yong is one of the finest theologians working today, and he has produced a very accessible, well-reasoned, and sensitive volume on the ways in which our readings of Scripture come to bear on the lives of people with disabilities in the church. He helps us to perceive `normate' biases in our traditions of interpretation and to read our sacred texts in new and life-giving ways.

—David F. Watson, United Theological Seminary

Yong draws upon his theological training, his Pentecostal faith, and his experience as the older brother of Mark, who has Down syndrome, to form an insightful critique of the assumption that disability is inherently negative. . . . Yong's biblical exegesis and the discussion questions at the end of each chapter offer helpful starting points for a necessary conversation within the church.

—Christianity Today

This long-overdue biblical theology of disability is clearly the pinnacle of modern Christian attempts to reclaim texts that have often been seen as offensive to people with disabilities. Readable and winsome, it is just the book to open up disability issues for today's church.

—Brian Brock, University of Aberdeen

Product Details

• Title: The Bible, Disability, and the Church: A New Vision of the People of God
• Author: Amos Yong
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Print Publication Date: 2011
• Logos Release Date: 2016
• Pages: 175
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: People with disabilities in the Bible; Church work with people with disabilities
• ISBNs: 9780802866080, 0802866085
• Resource ID: LLS:BBLDSBLTYCPPLGD
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T22:06:05Z

About Amos Yong

Amos Yong (PhD, Boston University) is professor of theology and mission and director of the Center for Missiological Research at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He is the author or editor of over two dozen books, including Spirit of Love: A Trinitarian Theology of Grace, Afro-Pentecostalism: Black Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity in History and Culture (coedited with Estrelda Alexander), Science and the Spirit: A Pentecostal Engagement with the Sciences (coedited with James K. A. Smith) and The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global Theology. Yong is a member of the the American Academy of Religion, the Christian Theological Research Fellowship, and the Society for Pentecostal Studies. He is also a licensed minister with the General Council of the Assemblies of God.