The first question I ask all visitors. Is to situate themselves on the lands in which they are so pastor Lamar.
Where are you?
I'm in the US. And the Atlanta area actually about. Georgia, which, in the Atlanta area which I live in Noonan which is about about 30 min south of Atlanta south of the airport.
And this, what I understand the traditional lands of the Muskee, and the creek.
It's where my family and I live.
We've had a couple folks on from at the Atlanta region. I know Dr. Terence Lester.
He was a good friend. I don't know if you know dot while you do because he endorsed your book.
Yeah, yeah, actually is a good friend of mine Good friend of mine, actually, ya.
That's a small, small world in some ways.
I was introduced to your work finding your book Disability on the Church, which came out in 2,021.
Which which was positioned to I I felt leadership. And really getting down into. Where's the tagline the vision of?
Diversity and inclusion.
How did that book sort of lead into or? They are connected in some ways, but perhaps it didn't lead into the current one that's available this month, February, 2,024 on.
Ableism and racism.
Yeah, so initially when I set out to write disability in the church. It was sparked from. I had just,
Started kind of speaking on the conference circuit for. Disability ministry conferences. Which at the time back in 20.
(162) 017-2018 there weren't many of them but I actually did a talk. About disability and diversity.
And I talked about how the largest minority group in the world or persons with this.
And it's the only I should say the only one of the very few minority groups that you can actually become a part of at any time for any reason.
Who?
And so I was making the connection between slightly making the connection between disability and race a lot of the work that I do.
Even the PhD work that I'm doing now is on the intersection of disability race and religion.
And so I wanna do. Introduce that concept. So disability church was. Was the way to introduce.
Passes and leaves, but really also. Congregants give them something in their hand that's easy to read and something that they could go and give to their pastors and leaders.
Yeah.
And in that book, I opened the box just a little bit about the connection between disability and race.
Sort of a master plan in mind, to sort of write a trilogy of books, disability in the church being the first.
How ableism fuels racism, the one that's coming out next week. And then eventually get into more specifically the legacy of the historical black church and it's influence on civil rights which actually influenced disability rights.
And then think about what are some of the things that we can learn and what are some of the ways that.
Even though historically black church can. Sort of address its own internalized ableism. So when it's all said and done, it's sort of a trilogy of books that I want to put out.
And I'm actually Working on the third now, pitching that to see who I'm gonna I'll just start with in the next couple years.
Hmm. That's, that's amazing as you're saying that, okay, here was the plan.
Hmm.
I'm gonna start off in the plan was 3 bucks and it's unfolding that is from like a writer's perspective from just a visionary perspective that is awesome.
Well now I can't wait for the third one.
Okay.
Let's let's jump into the second one or the most current that's coming. It's you can order it right now.
On how ableism feels racism. Disability is something that is now closer to home for our family as my partners.
Now disabled and learning as an able-bodied person of the intersection of disability and the connection however of racism, ableism was not one I had immediately made.
And even in my own book, When I spoke of white supremacy in Dune, just a cursory historical look at the roots.
The foundations of the problems that disconnect a lot of folks in church context. I name those bedrock components as white supremacy with the side of patriarchy.
I had ableism in the mix throughout the book, especially as it was written within the start of the pandemic.
But I did not connect the dots. In the way that you have. And for that reason, it has become this your book.
Has become a paradigm shifter for me and has forced me to that hasn't forced. It's invited me.
To think and look. At ABLE as and a disability in different ways. There is an opening.
Line early in the book as you start to make these connections. And it reads. The challenge in dealing with racial bias is understanding that racism cannot exist without ableism.
This ability discrimination is at the heart of racial discrimination because the actual business and you're looking at the the launch of the transit Latin slave trade.
The business of slavery is the business of bodies. Can you draw us into now? What was the launch of this book, the thesis, the core of
A, as and feels racism.
Yeah, that. That line, I'm glad to point out as an important line, I think one of the things that I wanted to do very early on especially as had as I had been.
Researching this for the last couple of years is to really ask a critical question like we we sort of understand.
Racism to a certain degree we all saw what was happening in this United States in 2020 this number with things like George Floyd, there are some other prominent cases that I bring up very early in the book.
And so people were wanted to do their work, but what I saw is that Most of the conversations about racism always stop that, you know, obviously systemically.
But even on an individual level, it always stopped at. Sort of this, discrimination against people based on the color of their skin.
And there's lots of truth to that but there has to be a reason why that discrimination is held in place if that makes sense.
So it's not just that I look at someone. With a different color skin and decide you know their inferior there's something about that person some designation.
That will to which I'm assigning them that gives me this. Platform for describing them.
As inferior and describing them as inferior in ways in which they Alright. To escape based on this destination that I'm giving them.
And so racism then becomes a whole other thing that you've gotta just gotta. Think about, well, what is it?
That allowed or, you know, white men are primarily to decide that enslaved Africans were inherently.
In fear it wasn't just because they had black or brown skin. It wasn't just because indigenous people had brown skin.
There was something else that was holding that up. And when you peel back the layers, you start to see that.
These early definitions of disability that were established. As they were colonizing the West became the primary platform for deciding.
How to designate black and brown bodies in a way that they cannot escape that designation, right? So you think about it's not that I think I'm superior or I hate you because you're black.
It's something else that gives me. What they felt was the right to give you that designation and that was this disability.
So what you end up seeing is ableism holds up racism. It is this idea that black and brown bodies are inherently.
Inferior because they're inherently disabled and that's a destination to which white supremacy does not allow those bodies to escape from.
Hmm.
Which then makes it fuels the economic goals of slavery right so Now it becomes. Even in a lot of ways it became in their It's in a lot of minds a Christian act of charity and benevolence because of this designation of This disability in which they believe that black and brown bodies needed.
By supervision. So all that plays into there's gotta be a foundation for Why this skin color has been given a designation of inferior and that's able is more disability discrimination.
Who? I think folks are, got a pause and then sit with that.
And sit with that and sit with that.
I think to take a step back, it would. We helpful for those. As we're all on different.
Places on the spectrum of our connection and understanding of disability and, to draw into a some working definition or understanding of ableism itself.
Could you draw us into a story or narrative around that?
Sure, one of the ways I try to simply explain able ism is I actually start off with the 2 cases I just mentioned one was of a young Black autistic man named Elijah Mclain who in a rural Colorado, was eventually killed, after being stopped, mining his own business walking home and he was given a little dose of, a Saturday called
ketamine. More than, twice what someone has, I should have gotten.
He eventually died. And then there's another case that was not too far from. Where I live in Georgia, maybe 2 h away of a young man named Ahmad Albury who was gun down by 2 white men one and one who was following in a truck because they thought he was in an area.
Of a neighborhood he didn't belong in and initially that case nobody knew about it for months later because, they were allowed to just claim self defense.
So the reason why I bringing those 2 cases up is to try to give a story about ableism. So the basic definition is ableism is you know, akin to racism, sexism.
You know any other ism it is basically discrimination against people with disabilities who are not quote unquote considered able body or do not possess what society deems as normal bodies, right?
So it's sort of a standard definition. But the reason I bring those, I open with those stories is because what I want people to also see is that, in and of itself sort of takes on.
It takes upon itself the need to actually also define not just which bodies are best, but which behaviors.
Hmm. Hmm.
Our best. And which behaviors are considered dangerous or safe, right? And so when you, and when you marry that to discrimination against certain bodies.
That you don't think are quote unquote normal. It expands just beyond. Basic understanding of disability right where most times we think of a physical disability.
Hmm
Or an intellectual development developmental disability and those are certainly true. But, were ableism does is it decides which bodies are best which bodies are where they are placed on the hierarchy or the c system.
And in that it also takes upon itself the decision to decide which behaviors are considered safer dangerous and so when you see a case like Elijah Mclain or Maude Arbury, the reason why those deaths and those things continue to happen and even throughout slavery even today with George Floyd.
In 2020, right? It's ableism that decides. Based on these bodies that we think are inherently disabled.
We also hole within and that the power to decide which behaviors are normal quote unquote normal and which behaviors are quote unquote dangerous.
Or safe that are displayed from those bodies. And when you hold that power then you Y supremacy sort of gives itself.
The permission to adjust and act accordingly based on how those bodies behave, we deem that unsafe or we deemed that abnormal.
And so someone like a Madharbury dragging through. A neighborhood or someone like Elijah Mclain who were both black walking down the street.
Who?
Ableism says we get to decide whether or not your behavior is safe. And we get to decide what to do about that behavior because your body is not normal.
Regardless of how it functions regardless of how it, you know, its capacity regardless of is competency.
When you label certain bodies inherently disabled, you also give yourself the power to decide what those bodies should be doing and how they should behave.
And the power to also act accordingly. And so this is why you can continue to see. You know, unjust killings because ableism is that at the root of that.
Hmm.
That would be, I was just had to every. Every section I'll have to add like a break or pause and invite people to pause and sit with these truths and these realities.
As they come from different angles that many haven't heard before.
Hmm.
So you have. Included aspects. So far throughout our conversation around the Distinctive. Pieces that the hierarchy that whiteness has described black and brown bodies.
Can you draw in what are the aspects to name these clearly and coherently in one space. What are the aspects?
In black and brown bodies that make them
Abnormal to the normative.
Hmm. Yeah, so that's a great question. Primarily, just based on my research, it would be actually this it's, it's a very broad thing.
So it's hard to narrow down, but primarily what I saw was what made them or at least what you know, at least early Puritan.
Culture and theology as it was establishing. You know, the colonies, it was mainly intellectual.
Disability. Now
The reason why that is is because if you do a lot of research and you look at how various areas are are colonized even
If you talk about indigenous peoples in the West. There's this sense in which wide supremacy labels everything that does not.
That is not centered on the way that they shape the world. As a historical. Right, so you look at where there's indigenous people or African people.
This is the reason why a lot of religion was used because they looked at African traditional religions as something that was barbaric they looked at indigenous spirituality as something that was barbaric primarily because they labeled it as a historical.
People don't have a real history or real language, a real past. A real culture real society.
Whereas we have language we have. Structure we have. I mean that was that was the ethos of purity in theology, right?
This ordered structured world that they believe that God created and so everything that didn't sort of fit into that was considered a historical which then translates into for lack of a better term, intellectual disabilities.
So the vast majority of what
Of what colonization used as a way to. To designate these black and brown bodies was to say that they're intellectually and even in a lot of ways morally there's moral deficits there but most of it was intellectual to say these people a historical therefore they don't have culture language they don't have a background or a history worth speaking of and so obviously they are intellectually deficient.
They don't They're not able to process and think and ration on the same levels as us and that translates in all levels to talking about emotional deficits, spiritual deficits, moral deficits, right?
And so You start to later see.
Physical disability come in about a lot of that. As actually the result of the transatlantic slave trade just to sheer brutality.
How they treated those black and brown bodies. Created lots and lots of physical. Disabilities where there was traveling over from Africa.
Or the ways that they treated the bodies in the beatings and the rapings. Those types of things, but primarily it was intellectual.
I value that you are laying some Historical foundation for listeners to springboard from and and this is calling listeners to reshape their understanding, not merely around racism, but around disability and ableism and the formation of their own faith, the roots of their faith and how it was from the DNA.
You and I wanna take us through because it goes from history but we think oh that's just in the past and then Bring us into the present, but you have early in the book and you alluded to it already how even when the abolition movement was underway that that in fact had deeply damaging.
Roots when it came to viewing disability or the disabled body.
Yeah, it would, it, what I was hoping to show there is that, ableism and this idea of disability being something that was problematic.
It was something that permitted. Every discussion about slavery. So it wasn't just pro-slavery who talked about and used disability imagery to justify his position.
I So abolition isn't anti-slavery and so they also held pretty much the same.
If you think that black and brown bodies were inherently disabled. Now they wanted to use that disability imagery and and designation.
As a way of prompting people and encouraging people to end slavery. But yet and still the same, they still have this basic same position.
There was never an ethos of equality as you see throughout that movement. Even if you talk about all the way up into which I don't really touch in the book, but even if you talk about all the way.
Up until the Emancipation Proclamation in Freedom of Slaves and how Lincoln is considered this great hero, Lincoln himself still didn't believe that black people were equal.
He still believed that they were intellectually inferior. It was more of a political business decision, right?
And so That just tells you how Able is and permeated all of the discussions around blackness.
Even those who were trying to advocate for the freeing of enslaved Africans used disability industry. And they also use disability energy to describe the institution of slavery.
Right. And so disability was something. And ableism was something that was used heavily and disability was something that was looked at as very very something that was very negative right to the extent that even when they described A abolition described the institution of slavery.
They would use terms, maybe not terms that we would use today that would describe disability, but they would use terms like it's this monstrous institution.
They would use terms that are synonymous with intellectual. Disability or deficits to describe the institution of slavery itself.
Hmm.
And so you really could not escape. Disability enabledism as you're talking about this attachment.
To blackness because every person every organization, every everyone involved at the time. I leaned heavily on disability imagery and language to make their point.
Even I even talk about, even there's some internalized ableism that's going on with enslaved Africans.
If I talk about some of the fugitive slave narratives and a gentleman who writes a few to slave narrative and he writes, you know, if you If you purchase this book, you will receive the blessings of a blind man's prayers, right?
Yeah.
And so That just tells you how deeply It permeated the whole institution. And so That's one of the reasons why I tell people that you you you really cannot separate disability and blackness, enableism and blackness because it permeated the entire system that brought black bodies to this country.
From all aspects and so it is deeply and, I don't wanna say eternally entangled, but it is.
Hmm.
It is entangled in a way that is very difficult to separate because there wasn't any one side that did not use this ability, language and disability and imagery to attach it to blackness.
It would be too easy to
Take your words and and consider them. Aspects of the past. So we speak of. The foundational elements of anti-blackness and the connection points of racism, toabelism and a participating church.
In the midst and the participating church of the dominant white church in various different traditions. That DNA of the disabled body.
Or the perception of who is disabled. That DNA doesn't go away. With ease. In fact, I don't know how many churches are in the.
I look here when I look at contemporary evangelicalism just to use the biggest example. They can barely have a conversation around racism, let alone disability.
When we think of segregation, desegregation, civil rights movements, in what manner is the church Still and has continuously perpetuated.
These harms. Around a false narrative of that cast.
Yeah, good question because you're right a lot of people. I will dismiss and say well that was the You know, mid late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds and we yeah.
Yeah, man. Look how far we've come.
Yeah, and so I, I make careful consideration of that to address in the book. So there's just 2 ways.
That I address it One is actually a legal landmark legal case that heavily influence the church's ability to to exempt itself from the 88.
And so Definitely want the listers to get the book. I don't want to give the whole case because it's pretty complicated but basically there was a case where a family wanted to have their child to be able to use the same funding for sign language interpreter.
At a private Catholic school that they use the same public funding for and so it became a whole thing that you can't use public funding in a private school that's sort of mixing religion in the government will You know, I wanna encourage the Regents to go ahead and read it, but what ends up happening is both sides of the case.
End up morphing the case into a case about religious liberty. Rather than disability rights. It's supposed to be disability rights.
Hmm.
And so what I what I share is that case actually was maybe. Couple of years not even that far off from the actual ADA being presented.
And wouldn't she know it? One of the things that the church used to exempt itself after sort of being influenced by this case was religious liberty.
And so one of the things that I share with people is whether you realize it or not, that's able is I'm still at work whenever we see.
Current day. Religious liberty being used as a tool to continue to exclude. That is from the roots of ableism.
And so oftentimes it's shrouded in other things, right? And it doesn't always necessarily.
Connect to race but most of the times it does right but if you look at the fact that they They took that case that was supposed to be.
Giving rights to persons with this. He's and instead made it a case of religious liberty that has sort of become if we notice the banner for all sorts of ways the church wants to exclude people who are different.
What I tell people was that's rooted in enableism. When people say where do I see a, I say when you see religious liberty, now we've done a lot of masking.
Hmm.
Pooh!
Of that, right? But it's still happening. And in a, in a more targeted way I talk about the second part to how I can temporaryize this, but in a more targeted way out I talk about a a famous passer who I guess it was maybe 2017 2018 made some statements about the historically black church.
Those resurface in 2020 when the especially America was wrestling with a lot of the racial issues.
And I'm paraphrasing, the quote is actually in the book, but he basically talked about how the historical black church, is inferior because it teaches inferior doctrine.
Hmm Hmm.
And what I share is that that's ableism at work. Because ableism doesn't just discriminate against bodies, it also discriminates against bodies of work.
Oh. Oh.
And so any if you notice. A white evangelicalism always has a problem with anything.
I, I shouldn't say I don't wanna blank you, but most of the time has a problem.
Yeah.
With any sort of
Yes, yes, yes.
Thought or theology that tends to derive from. People of color and so Mainly, Liberation theologies, right?
Yes, Okay.
And so, you know, I get a lot of pushback sometimes with disability theology or that's liberation theism and what I share with people is can't you see the connection now here's the thing I say this in the book.
Hang.
That most arguments about. Doctrine or actually arguments about disability discrimination.
Hmm.
Because, aabelism doesn't just discriminate against black and brown bodies. It discriminates against the bodies of work.
Yeah,
That derive from black and brown bodies because if black and brown bodies are inherently inferior, remember we talked about being a historical not being asked intellectual.
What else?
Don't have the emotional capacity and in this case theological capacity. If it's true that that's what white supremacy has built a foundation on.
Yes.
Then anything that derives from those communities is also considered to be inherently, deficient. And so it's not.
Yes, yes, must be. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
So surprising then that you would see a pastor say something like that in this day and age and talk about the deficiency of the black church because it's it's not just about race and it's not even about doctrines about disability discrimination.
Whoo!
Hmm.
It's about saying Black and brown bodies can't possibly formulate a meaningful theological position because they're inherently and intellectually disabled.
And that's where that comes from.
Pooh! Dang. And as an aside as you're naming, you're pulling into the light, these aspects that are still pervasive within.
Church leadership within just the ethos and the DNA of dominant. Christian traditions in the West. It's why the possibilities of of finding new ways of being without first looking for leadership.
By those on the margins just ain't going to work. Another contemporary oh so good so good.
Let's keep going Another contemporary example that you write about that brings it home into into a today moment is the manner how religion and race defined.
Health or whatever health might mean. Can you take us on a journey through that statement?
Yeah, and that actually you can trace that. Historically just like I trace the. Historical roots of early Puritan theology and its definitions of disability, right?
And so one of the things that I share with people is that definite
Kind of working model of deaf and of disability, the definition of disability. That we've all sort of been exposed to.
Hmm.
Hmm
We're not indigenous, right? And so those. Those ideas about bodies and about how bodies should function and how bodies should contribute to the economic goals of of colonization.
Those were ideas that were brought here. So, so even if you look at indigenous people, right?
Pass.
No.
They didn't have the same definitions of what it meant to be disabled. For them, you were only quote unquote disabled as far as you didn't have a community to support you.
Whoa, yes.
Oh, different world.
So you see You see a large discrepancy there between between what different worlds right between what early Puritan theology brought and what was indigenous.
Hey.
Oh yeah.
And it was much more individualized when you start to look and so you start to see early definitions of disability forming based on this ideal that was brought over and so one of the things we have to do first is zoom out and say for those who are coming over to colonize and start this new world, one of their primary goals.
Was to create a society in which they can insulate themselves from the perceived suffering they had under British rule.
Right. And so we're gonna create a society that insulates us from being on the bottom.
Yeah.
And in order to do that, we're gonna create categories and casts so that we insulate ourselves from the perceived suffering that we had to go through, right?
And so You start from there to start to see early definitions of what bodies should be doing. To help meet those economic and cultural goals.
Right. Very early on, see, if women weren't able to have children, they're disabled.
If certain people weren't able to meet. Contribute to the economic goals they were disabled. Now some of it wasn't all bad.
But they start to develop these ideas. Well, you fast forward all the way. Up until, you know, post, slavery.
Moving into other things as a country was forming. You see that the church. Primarily, you know, religion, primarily Christianity.
Had a very heavy handed A very heavy-handed influence on the defining of what it meant to be healthy, starting all the way back from we're gonna decide who's disabled and who's not.
Yep, right.
Hmm.
And so those definitions started to even shape more when The South was trying to distance itself from the north by saying We have superior medical and health care because we're able to care for these enslaved Africans and these now free blacks in ways that the North can't because we understand.
Well. Oh, oh, geez.
Their intellectual deficiencies, right? So what you end up seeing is, the church has a heavy hand one great example And I list 3 people that had a heavy influence, but one great example is John Harvey Kellogg.
So we all know Kellogg. The cereal not so great of a guy But he was heavily, he was heavy influenced in the 7 day administration is also a surgeon.
He eventually leaves the church because they felt like his occupation as a physician was getting in the way of his ability.
Do lead the church but but at this point the influence was already set. One of the things that he did, which is still very much the way that health care is shaped now is He believing like many others that these now free Africans where Yeah, intellectually inferior even anatomically their bodies were inferior.
He thought we have to create a system of health. That's gonna help us outlive these people now that we can no longer own them.
We have to ensure the legacy of the white race and he created an entire health system that was check this out that was designed.
Hey.
Make sure and secure the legacy of white women. Right. And so because of his influence in the church and because of his influence in medicine, He now has created a whole system for determining what health looks like, but that system was based on ensuring the legacy of white people, particularly the white women.
Black people. What we don't often realize is that some of those in many of those same health standards are still in practice today.
And the ways in which we decide and determine. What healthy is things like BMI, thing, other things that we still.
Right, yes.
Cling to, were never actually. Standards of health and measurements of health that were designed.
To help people of colour to assess their health. It was designed to ensure the legacy of the white race.
So what I share is there's no wonder why you have significant portions of people who are in black and brown communities who always fall into what is often labeled as pre-existing conditions or other ailments that seem to plague minorities.
Yes, nap. Yes.
Well, when you create an entire health system that wasn't designed to assess the hell, you're always gonna have brown and black people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah Hmm
Who seemed to overly populate areas and we saw them at COVID right so you know, here in in the States, black people were disproportionately dying from COVID and one of the terms that came out of this and this is This is how Christianity more lies medicine.
We start to hear terms like pre-existing conditions and other things that sort of in the same way I first started off give permission to allow black and brown bodies to die at disproportionate rates.
Right. I even talk about maternal. Maternal mortality rates for black women and how why is that still allowed in a in a developed country?
Wy me to allow disproportionate rates of black women to die when giving childbirth well There's a long history of one that church having a heavy hand in shaping.
What health looks like but also in attaching moral judgments. People who don't fit a standard that was never designed for them in the first place.
Yeah.
And so that's where you get Oh, well the reason why black women are dying is because they're unhealthy, right?
Cool. Oh.
They're inherently unhealthy. What does that sound like? It sounds a lot like How we how we began this journey with saying black bodies are inherently disabled and inherently inferior so it becomes very easy to dismiss.
A scores and scores of black and brown people dying from things that. And then the last thing I'll say is the CDC and another organization.
I can't remember right now. I actually did a study on that to find out. Is it race?
Is it true that You know, certain races are just inherently unhealthy and what they discovered is that it's not race.
Yeah, Yeah, yes.
It's raceism. And so, and these are studies that were done. You know, in the 2020.
Yeah. Recent. As today. Yes.
So these are not things from the 18 hundreds or the 19 hundreds. This is very recent within the last 5 years.
Oh! And that ain't right. That ain't right. That ain't right.
No, and it's still happening. Still happening.
Okay, let's let's pivot and and Come to an end here. And I'd say that with with a section of your book and I know you reference some other source materials here.
You gotta get the book to find what those references are. But, we could spend a whole episode on this.
Hmm.
Body incarnation Christ. And I. When it comes to The imagination of what this Christian faith can look like outside of white hedge.
And I think of those who have not rooted themselves in in either black and some brown indigenous traditions
Reorientation towards incarnation. And what you say. Incarnation tells us that bodies have a central role in the practice of faith bodies not The idyllic body just bodies.
Have a central role. So if we now draw into and and you paint the picture of the resurrect of Christ.
As a body for us to look at. If we paint a picture now of the resurrected Christ and what Clues there are.
In terms of our way in faith to hold disability well, to hold our own bodies well. Where does that take us?
What does that post resurrection body of Jesus Mean. In juxtaposition as you make this juxtaposition.
This isn't. White Jesus, the Jesus that we have created to uphold the systemic wrongs and institutions to maintain hierarchy cast and all the isms.
But this is a very different body. That is pointing even. Even for folks who are working out of those isms and old formation.
That you are not necessarily making those connections into the disabled body of Christ.
Where can you take us with? With that, for many, that's a concept rather than a reality, but what the reality of the disabled body of Christ.
Yeah, so first let me say. Huge influence, from Nancy to late Dr.
Nancy Eastland who wrote the disabled god. Dr. Yasin was actually professor the seminary attended.
Unfortunately, I I've never got a chance to take a course with her, before she passed away, but she.
She sort of is a big influence for many of us who are disability theologians and I pick up her work and expand upon it.
You know particularly being a black male But I but I think one of the things that I say is that, You know, for all religious systems, imagery and symbolism is important, right?
It gives us the vehicle to hold. A tangible relationship with the divine in ways. Which we're otherwise wrestling for language to describe the intangible, right?
And so I lean heavily on the post resurrection body of Jesus as a way. To say. This is the god who reverses death but retains disability.
And in that. Chooses, right because I've had people push back and say well Jesus body is still divine you can apparently walk through walls I says which makes it all more interesting the choice.
Yes, yes. Yes.
Right, to come back with these huge gaping holes in the. The marks of his disabling torture and to choose to make that the way in which He desires to be eternally identified.
Yes, wow.
Oh
You know, even if you look into revelation. It talks about and I talk about this in my previous book Disability in the Church, we talked about the land that was mortally wounded yet still stands and yet is is the only one worthy.
And so what I my shares that that gives us a very unique, imaginative. Yet tangible.
Expression of God that we can hold on to as the God who who commits to solidarity.
Right. Right. Yeah.
With the human experience. By reversing death yet retaining disability retaining. And using those limitations that were pressed upon him as a way to be eternally identified.
As a god who is in solidarity. With the disabled with the OPress with the downtrodden with the marginalized and this is the way that Jesus desires to be eternally identified.
Boo.
Who?
And when you see me, I want you to see. My solidarity with the human experience. And human limitation and disability and oppression.
And that is a very Distinct. And tensional but also very, tangible and inspirational decision.
That he makes in order to to publicly claim solidarity with the human experience and so what I would I would share with people is is that One of the.
Yes. Absolutely.
This is why people seem to push back against that is because of our ableism, right? I tell people even if you even if you take the Bible and most people say they take the Bible literally but you know they really don't, right?
You know what they mean, you know
Right. But I say, okay, so and I've had this conversation with people who push back on Jesus, say, look, I said, well, if you.
No, the Roman crucifixion really did not these pictures that we show. And if those wounds weren't healed, he was definitely disabled.
Right. Oh Yeah. Hmm.
Literally. We, can't escape that. That part of it so what is it in us that makes us want to erase that image of God.
Okay.
Why are we so uncomfortable? With the image of a god who reverses death or retains disability and what I tell him is that is If you don't know Anything about ableism.
And how to impact your theology and your view of self and others and God. Wrestle with Jesus as the disfable God.
Because one of the reasons why we reject why most people reject that is because of internalized ableism. And what I share in the book is that Jesus Never asked us to fix him.
Hmm
Right, so if you think about real quickly, 2 models of disability. One is a medical model that basically says, and I talk about this in the book.
That basically boils disability down to a biomedical issue that is an issue with a person's body.
Yeah.
And that person alone. There's something about you that we need to cure and we need to find out the calls of that and we need to fix that.
Yeah.
Then there's a social model and I'm simplifying this but Then there's a social model that says that it's not just about the person's biological needs, there is a way in which society socializes with and views disabled people that is often more disabling than the quote unquote impairment itself.
And so what I tell people is, is that Jesus is very much the victim. Of the medical model just as many disabled people are today, right?
Hmm. Hmm
Hmm Yes. Oh
We need to fix you. Beat where I'm comfortable with the disabled. Pulse resurrection body and so what I say in the book is we build in the proverbial holes and use the side in hands with all sorts of ideas.
Yes.
Don't match the the pulse resurrection Jesus of the text. And so that's where you get warrior Jesus in.
Oh!
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Winter Jesus in violent Jesus and We filled in the proverbial holes because we can't.
Well.
We can abide a God who is disabled. And so we want to fix him. And so I talk about that in a chapter about the rise of the American Jesus.
And, and all that is ableism. We, we cannot.
Ho ho.
Deal with and in many ways. Tableism says that we can't trust. Disabled guy because people who are disabled are inherently incompetent.
Oh
And so in order for us to have a God in which we can trust, we need to fix them.
We need to heal. Jesus, and the problem is you just didn't ask us to fix him, he asked us to follow him.
Just the way that he is in his post resurrection body. That bears the marks of disability. And is still worthy to be the one who claim solidarity and advice us into you know this role in his kingdom of pushing back the darkness but That's ableism.
I tell people if you ever struggle with whether or not you're able is look at the post resurrection body, Jesus and ask yourself why you are so adamant that those were just wounds akin to a scar from a kid who fell off the bike when he was 8.
Hmm.
Now those are holes. Why do we need, you know, you know what I'm saying? Why do we feel the need to fix him?
It's good. You named it.
At the core, it's ableism. Yeah.
You named it, you can't trust that God. And so you make one of your own.
Hmm
That's deep. The The connection is so substantive. That it is foundational to the faith that we have sanitized.
Is so substantive that G and the solidarity that Jesus Chooses to display is one. That we could many of us keep preaching is one.
That is firmly entrenched. With the margins first.