... people with disabilities are often marginalized as well. Long before Christian Horizons articulated our vision that ‘people who experience disabilities belong to communities in which their God-given gifts are valued and respected’, Jesus helped others see our crucial need to belong. He makes it possible for people to belong.
What would it look like if we welcomed one another as we are, and took the time to learn how to love each other well?
“For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. (John 9:39-41 NIV)
When I first really dug into exploring Jesus in the Gospels, I encountered someone who offered love, liberation, and wholeness to people who needed it in the midst of structures and systems that didn’t always do the same.
At face value, Jesus was engaged in the supernatural and people were being healed. Having worked with people with disabilities for two decades and now working with people in extreme poverty in under-resourced countries, I have been blessed to have a new lens through which to see this story. These people healed by Jesus had no hope. Their poverty and disability, in his day, relegated them to begging outside the city. Being healed enabled them to be known again in the general population. Healing brought them back to community.
Laidlaw College Principal, Rod Thompson and Pentecostal Theologian, Amos Yong met for a video interview after the Theology, Disability and People of God Conference held at Carey Baptist College in July in New Zealand where Amos was one of the keynote speakers. As well as reflecting on the highlights of the conference, they discussed Pentecostal [...]
Click here to visit the site of the special needs ministry at Centre Street Church in Calgary "I'm so happy to be here," I enthused on the platform overlooking a theatre crowded with restless children. “Are you happy to be here too, even at this early hour of the morning?” the adults stared blankly at [...]
