Book Review: Disability: Living into the Diversity of Christ's Body.

BRIAN BROCK. PASTORING FOR LIFE SERIES. GRAND RAPIDS: BAKER ACADEMIC, 2021. 180 PP. ISBN: 9781540962973 $30.42.

This book is one of five of the Pastoring for Life Series – the tag line of that series is “Theological Wisdom for Ministering Well”– the series is practical in the sense that it covers the range of life, from birth to ageing; the series editor notes that while pastors minister in the intense times, there are also the everyday events. This book considers the reality of disability.

Brian Brock holds the chair of moral and practical theology at the University of Aberdeen. I think what I appreciate about him is that he writes out of his own experience of disability as Adam’s Dad. Adam is a young man living with Down Syndrome and Autism. It is by living life with Adam that he can attend to particular issues that churches grapple with–or ignore–when it comes to how disabled people might participate in Christ’s body. By his own admission in his afterword to the book, Brock notes that his other disability theology books are not particularly accessible to the layperson, as his primary audience is students and scholars who are engaged with disability theology. However, this book is different – its key audience is lay readers, and it attends to the questions that many churches either seek to answer or need to answer. It is entry-level and accessible for folk to think about how they can provide places of belonging to the disabled community to participate in ways that every other person can choose to, rather than ways for which they are permitted to.

For some in the church, disability is seen to be a niche topic or ministry – left for a select few, perhaps something that is left to the academics to attend to. In his introduction, Brock states that “[m]ost Christians have never thought much about disability” (1). Really, the only time that people think about disability is when they have a personal experience through their own lives, or through those they know. Disability is a universal as well as a unique phenomenon. Universal because at some time in our lives, we are going to experience something of disability in one way or another – as we age, for example, we will find that our mobility is challenged, our memories might become impaired, our hearing and eyesight becomes dimmed. This is an inevitable fact of life – it’s highly likely that we will all experience limitations which affect our abilities, or we will have someone we know who is disabled. Disability is also a unique experience – each person is unique, and therefore how our bodies are disabled is also unique. While there may be commonalities, we are all created uniquely.

“Welcome. Gentleness. Presence. Attentiveness. Commitment” are the opening words of his introductory chapter. They are such simple concepts, but as Brock notes, this is all that Christians need to know about disability. Though the reality is these simple concepts are perhaps asking for more than what people are willing to give (1). One cannot help but sit back and think “is this true for me and my community?” While we may “talk the talk” in church communities, how many “walk the walk”?

Brock works through the book with a systematic approach. First, he names the narrative that can be told about many churches – that there is Nobody With Disabilities in our Church. Brock rightly states that the majority of people at church won’t think too often about disabled people or hold a theological consideration to disability in the church until they are affected by disability (6-7), and this is the problem that he sets about attending to by causing the reader to stop and consider their own attitudes, and theologies and then begins to beckon a way forward.

The second and third chapters are quite large. Chapter two considers some of the engagements that Jesus had with disabled people. This is perhaps a poignant point of the book because it causes the reader to stop and consider their own theologies of healing, and also their own worldview as they read Scripture, particularly when the healing stories in the Gospels. He notes: “Surely healing from God’s perspective is a bigger thing than our physical preconceptions of what looks or feels good…” (62). There is often a discomfort with disabled bodies, but as Brock notes, this isn’t just an able-bodied issue, the discomfort sits just as much with disabled folk simply because they are not accepted as they are (29-31). This is an important chapter as it addresses the significance of a good theology of healing – it’s not just the physical, but spiritual and inward too. The part I appreciated in this chapter is when Brock notes that if churches sought a healing Jesus today then the healing that emerges should be from some of our worldviews and misconceptions about disabled people - and the value they hold and what they can offer. For some, this could be a chapter that firstly challenges and then brings their own healing of assumptions in order for a better awareness of the issues and challenges that are present.

Chapter three’s title is “God Chose You Because He Knew You Could Handle It”. It’s a statement which has been used at times with good attention to acknowledge the strength the person carries when they are going through some tough times – whether it’s learning about their child’s diagnosis, or through their own disabling experiences; while these are spoken with the best of intentions, they can hurt considerably. Brock attends to some of the assumptions that people carry, or how challenging interchanges happen by looking at scriptural references outside of the Gospels and how people respond to suffering (Job, for example).

Chapter four considers Christian doctrine. Disability is often a condition that causes pain, and people in pain need a pastoral response from the church. Brock notes that the problem is that not everyone who is responding to the pain a person experiences carries with them “a well thought out theological account of what disability is – or by any theological thought about disability at all.” He then explains that often attempts to give a theological explanation to a person’s suffering or pain even through a well-meaning pastoral response can be damaging (95). He notes that the experience of disability forces theology into territories that make it difficult to live in and explain (97). For some, disability is explained as being present because of the fall – so he discusses the doctrine of sin and considers giving answers to long-held views. He looks at theological anthropology and gives a brief explanation of an eschatological understanding of the body. This is not an easy topic to discuss, or understand, but it is helpful to see his insights.

His closing chapter “We Don’t Know Where to Start” is the practical chapter – Brock notes that for churches to be places of welcome and belonging for disabled people then the whole church needs to be involved in being part of the solution. As he rightly notes – this is much more than a programme or ministry, but a holistic vision. To get there people need to push through the fear of saying or doing the wrong thing and be ok to learn and led by those who find the world to be a disabling place in order for church communities to be accessible places of belonging.

This book is an important one for pastors to read and to pass on to their leadership teams in order that they can help their churches to be places of belonging for disabled folk to participate in Christ’s body.

Fiona Sherwin is the Student Support Manager at Laidlaw College; she is also part of the Stimulus Editorial Team. Fiona has an MTh, her Thesis is entitled “The Church as True Communities of Belonging for People with Disabilities”.