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At the Gates: Disability, Justice, and the Churches by Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Emily Richardson
(lemmy.sdf.org)
I'd like to recommend a book called At the Gates: Disability, Justice and the Churches by Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Emily Richardson. (Jacobs is on Mastodon: @[email protected])
It's a powerful book describing the experience of some disabled folks engaging with the Christian churches, including
- having difficulty accessing church services, due to physical barriers or inaccessible technology.
- being barred from exercising their spiritual gifts because of the charity model of disability, treating them as objects of pity instead of participants.
- being accosted by fellow congregants and strangers with attempts at miraculous healings without their consent.
- worshiping a Savior who retains his wounds after his resurrection, rather than them being erased or ignored.
What has stayed with me the most since I read the book last year is that several Christians with disabilities describe heaven not as a state where their disabilities will be taken away, but a state where the world will be fully accessible to them as they are.
