Repentance is necessary to experience a vital faith and witness of God’s holy love. To repent often includes recognizing a sin, admitting how it caused harm, and then making a renewed commitment to follow God’s desires.
The church primarily discusses repentance in the individual sense. As individuals, we violate God’s law by word and action and must repent and turn towards God in our lives. Repentance is important. Without repentance, we will never truly experience the life God desires. The lack of repentance will lead us to be defined by a false frame of reference where we seek to be in control of our lives.
Repentance is not simply an individual concept and response. The community and, more importantly, the church must also consider its need to repent and return to God. It is often only in moments of deep crisis affecting a church – for instance, disunity, congregational crisis, and leadership failings – that we reflect upon the need for the church to repent. While we confess, through liturgy and prayers, that we have “failed to be an obedient church,” the need to admit our wrongs and rededicate our church to God is seldom discussed beyond these liturgical words.
I believe repentance is necessary for the church to prosper. There is a need for the church, which serves as the ongoing witness of Jesus Christ in a broken and hurting world, to contemplate its actions towards families and individuals with disabilities, to consider any harm done both knowingly and unknowingly, and seek to turn from those actions and towards a better witness of God’s love that welcomes all to the table of fellowship. Unless you are in the disability community or support the efforts of better inclusion within the church, it is easy to be unaware of the church’s struggles and the need for the church to repent.
One place the church must consider its need to repent is how it often places concerns about finances and the building over the needs of the disability community. This was evident in how the church advocated against the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and sought protections for its current buildings to be exempt from necessary adaptations. While there are signs of progress to include more accessible features in the church, this has often been because of compliance with the law more than to honor God’s desires for justice and welcome. Also, when churches discuss accommodations for individuals with disabilities, they will use their perceived lack of money and building needs as an excuse as to why they cannot welcome people.
The church might be unaware of how its focus on money and building needs, and advocacy of its self-interests, are a sore spot within the disability community. These acts can hinder the church’s witness and embrace of those with disabilities and their families. I believe the church must admit how it often puts its interests over the needs of the marginalized. The church must include people with disabilities in conversations about facility improvements.
Another area where the church needs to reflect on harm caused to the disability community is how it often expresses ableist sentiments. Ableism is the belief that people with disabilities cannot function in the same ways and manners as able-bodied people. People with disabilities, their families, and caregivers have often experienced harmful statements made by people who presume what someone can or cannot do.
The church expresses ableistic attitudes in a variety of ways. Often, ableism expresses itself in the belief that a person with a disability or their family cannot function in society without the help of someone else. The church also practices ableism by limiting the expression of gifts and talents of those with disabilities or believing that God has not equipped them like others. As a result, we will forget to include people with disabilities in worship and not take their concerns seriously. We will limit their involvement by planning ministry and programs without considering the disability community, including ministry geared to the disability community. Those who practice ableism believe that those with a disability cannot do things like others, and this is further from the church.
I often believe ableism occurs because of a lack of education and experience with people with disabilities. Yet, we often hinder our witness of being an inclusive body of Christ when we act upon what we do not know or understand.
To repent of its ableism, the church needs to recognize the sin of ableism and begin to take it as seriously as other discriminatory-based sins. The church must remember that the image of God is reflected in every person regardless of a person’s ability. God desires every person to be included and have a voice in what it means to be in the church.
One last area for consideration for repentance focuses on the church’s love of inspirational porn and using people with disabilities for their own emotional needs. Inspirational porn is the use of videos, events, activities, and other aspects of connection that shows people with disabilities doing something that seems inspiring to an able-bodied person. Aspects of inspirational porn include videos of a child with a disability going to school, a person with disabilities being allowed to score a point during a game, or videos showing a person with a disability using their talents. It also includes people doing things for someone with a disability where the only concern is their emotional reaction and not trying to do life with the person with a disability.
We view and promote these things with a desire to be inspired by others. We believe these videos or activities are not harmful, because of what they mean to us. Yet, inspirational porn is harmful to the disability community and hinders true inclusion. That is because it objectifies the person with a disability, their families, and others. We do not see the person as a child of God, but as an instrument to fill our emotional void.
When the church participates in inspirational porn, it limits our witness of God’s love and value for every person. The church must refrain from promoting or viewing inspirational porn and planning events to be seen as good by others. As well, it must have open and honest dialogues about how these activities and videos are harmful and stop sharing them on social media and other platforms.
There are perhaps other places where the church needs to consider its actions towards the disability community. These are just a few important ones.
For the church to be a fully inclusive witness of Jesus Christ, it must reflect upon its treatment of people with disabilities, repent, and turn towards God’s vision of a more welcoming and loving community.
Shannon Blosser 