Disability theology and disability justice in the church

Interested in reading about disability theology and disability justice in the church? Don't know where to start?

The CTF has a growing collection of ebooks on disability studies and disability theology. Search the full collection on eDiscover, or have a look at our recommendations below.

The texts highlighted include theological reflections informed by disability studies, personal narratives, and practical engagements with access to the church in its many forms. These books offer a range of perspectives, and are being showcased here as they make important contributions to ongoing conversations about disability theology and disability justice within the church. Please be aware that some may contain viewpoints and language that are now out of date or controversial. Although we hope that all these texts offer stimulating and helpful points, if you think something really shouldn't be here, please let us know!

Recent publications and new acquisitions

Explore the most up to date publications and recent additions to the CTF library on disability theology.

Steve Midgley, and Helen Thorne. Mental Health and Your Church : A Handbook for Biblical Care. The Good Book Company, 2023.

Helping you and the whole church family understand, nurture and support those with mental-health conditions

Tom Shakespeare. Disability : The Basics. Routledge, 2017

This book is an engaging and accessible introduction to disability which explores the broad historical, social, environmental, economic and legal factors which affect the experiences of those living with an impairment or illness in contemporary society. The book aims to provide readers with an understanding of the lived experiences of disabled people and highlight the continuing gaps and barriers in social responses to the challenge of disability.

Jennifer Baldwin. Trauma-Sensitive Theology : Thinking Theologically in the Era of Trauma. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2018.

The intention of this book is to help theologians, professors, clergy, spiritual care givers, and therapists speak well of God and faith without further wounding survivors of trauma. Through the lenses of contemporary traumatology, somatics, and psychotherapy, the text offers a framework for seeing trauma and its impact.

Elizabeth Boase, and Christopher G. Frechette. Bible Through the Lens of Trauma. Semeia Studies. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016.

This collection of essays explores the usefulness of using trauma theory as a lens through which to read the biblical texts. Each of the essays explores the concept of how trauma might be defined and applied in biblical studies.

Kimberly R. Wagner. Fractured Ground : Preaching in the Wake of Mass Trauma. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2023.

Drawing on trauma studies, eschatological theologies of hope, scriptural wisdom, and liturgies of lament, Wagner Ground helps pastors craft sermons that fully plumb the disorienting suffering created by events of mass trauma, while still offering an authentic word of hope.

 Sarah Travis. Unspeakable : Preaching and Trauma-Informed Theology. New Studies in Theology and Trauma. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021.

Unspeakable probes the relationship between trauma theory and Christian theology in order to support preachers in the task of crafting sermons that adequately respond to trauma, building practices that acknowledge the limitations of language and imagination experienced by traumatized individuals.

Williams, ’Tricia. What Happens to Faith When Christians Get Dementia? : The Faith Experience and Practice of Evangelical Christians Living with Mild to Moderate Dementia. Eugene, Ore: Pickwick Publications, 2021.

The voices of Christians who live with dementia bring insight and prompt theological reflection on the profound questions that dementia asks of faith.

Solevåg, Anna Rebecca. Negotiating the Disabled Body : Representations of Disability in Early Christian Texts. Early Christianity and Its Literature. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018.

A study of New Testament and noncanonical literature, Solevåg explores how nonnormative bodies are presented in early Christian literature through the lens of disability studies. An intersectional perspective drawing on feminist, gender, queer, race, class, and postcolonial studies.

Fulkerson, Mary McClintock. Places of Redemption : Theology for a Worldly Church. Oxford: OUP Oxford, 2007.

Fulkerson explores the contradiction between shared beliefs in the USA about racial inclusiveness and equal opportunity and the fact that most churches are racially homogeneous and do not include people with disabilities, focusing on the United Methodist Church.

Highlights from the rest of the collection

Introductions and overviews

Looking for an introduction to disability studies, disability theology, and disability justice in the church? Try these introductory guides, overviews, and handbooks from the CTF collection, the Hub, and the Internet Archive.

Avalos, Hector, Sarah J. Melcher, and Jeremy Schipper. This Abled Body : Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies. Semeia Studies. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007.

These essays engage biblical studies in conversation with the wider field of disability studies. They explore the use of the conceptual category 'disability' examine how conceptions of disability become a means of narrating, interpreting, and organizing human life. Employing diverse approaches to biblical criticism, scholars explore methodological issues and specific texts related to physical and cognitive disabilities.

Brock, Brian and John Swinton. Disability in the Christian Tradition : A Reader. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2012

This introductory reader brings together for the first time key writings on disability by thinkers from all periods of Christian history - including Augustine, Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Luther, Calvin, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, Barth, Hauerwas, and more. Fourteen contemporary experts in theology and disability studies guide readers through each era or group of thinkers, offering clear commentary and highlighting important themes.

Cureton, Adam, and David T. Wasserman (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Disability raises profound and fundamental issues: about human embodiment and well-being; dignity, respect, justice and equality; personal and social identity. It raises pressing questions for educational, health, reproductive, and technology policy, and confronts the scope and direction of the human and civil rights movements. The Handbook is a broad-ranging and comprehensive volume on the burgeoning field of disability and philosophical inquiry.

Eiesland, Nancy L. The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994

This foundational text draws on the disability-rights movement to identify people with disabilities as members of a socially disadvantaged minority group rather than as individuals who need to adjust. Highlights the hidden history of people with disabilities in church and society. Eiesland contends that in the Eucharist, Christians encounter the disabled God and may participate in new imaginations of wholeness and new embodiments of justice.

Hull, John M. Disability : The Inclusive Church Resource. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2014.

There is a huge need for churches to be more inclusive. The Inclusive Church Resources aim to educate, to reflect theologically and to provide practical advice and guidance. Each book contains first-hand personal experiences of people from the marginalised group, a theological reflection by John Hull and a resource section containing addresses, websites and practical advice on improving your church's inclusivity.

Hull, John M. The Tactile Heart : Blindness and Faith. London: SCM Press, 2013

The Tactile Heart is a collection of theological essays on relating blindness and faith and developing a theology of blindness that makes a constructive contribution to the wider field of disability theology.

Jacobs, Naomi Lawson, and Emily Richardson. At The Gates : Disability, Justice and the Churches. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2022

Jacobs and Richardson have collected prophetic and transformative narratives of experience, shared directly by disabled people who have rarely been enabled to speak in Christian books about disability. By centering disabled Christians' own stories, this book calls for churches to move from a care-based approach to disability, to one that is focused on justice, equality and access to churches for disabled Christians.

Shakespeare, Tom. Disability rights and wrongs. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Stiker, Henri-Jacques. A History of Disability. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, New Edition 2019.

The first book to attempt to provide a framework for analyzing disability through the ages, Stiker's now classic A History of Disability traces the history of western cultural responses to disability, from ancient times to the present, taking in history, social science, and anthropology. Stiker proposes an analytical history that demonstrates how societies reveal themselves through their attitudes towards disability in unexpected ways. Stiker argues that difference is not only acceptable, but that it is desirable, and necessary.

Yong, Amos. The Bible, Disability, and the Church: A New Vision of the People of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011.

Yong rereads and reinterprets biblical texts about human disability, arguing that the way we read biblical texts, not the Bible itself, is what causes us to marginalize persons with disabilities. Revealing and examining the underlying stigma of disability that exists in the church, Yong shows how the Bible offers good news to people of all abilities - and he challenges churches to become more inclusive communities of faith.

Further explorations

Want to delve deeper into this subject? The CTF database has over 50 titles focusing on disability theologies, and disability studies within the church. These books offer a broad range of different approaches, disciplines, and perspectives across different denominations and time periods. Here are just a few highlights from this collection.

Biblical Studies

Fox, Bethany McKinney. Disability and the Way of Jesus: Holistic Healing in the Gospels and the Church. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2019.

What does healing mean for people with disabilities? In this theologically grounded and practical resource bridging biblical studies, ethics, and disability studies with the work of practitioners, Fox examines healing narratives in their biblical and cultural contexts.

Lawrence, Louise J. Sense and Stigma in the Gospels : Depictions of Sensory-Disabled Characters. [N.p.]: OUP Oxford, 2013

Often biblical scholarship has read sensory-disabled characters as nothing more than inert sites of healing: Lawrence initiates interdisciplinary dialogues with disability studies and sensory anthropology in a quest to refigure Gospel characters with sensory disabilities.

Deaf liberation theology

Lewis, Hannah. Deaf Liberation Theology. Explorations in Practical, Pastoral and Empirical Theology. Aldershot, England: Routledge, 2007

Presenting a new approach to Deaf people, theology and the Church, this book enables Deaf people who see themselves as members of a minority group to formulate their own theology rooted in their own history and culture.

Disability rights

Kenny, Amy, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2022.

With a blend of personal storytelling, biblical exegesis, and practical application, Kenny reflects on her experiences inside the church to expose unintentional ableism and cast a new vision for Christian communities to engage disability justice and create a more inclusive community.

Ethics

Brock, Brian R. Wondrously Wounded : Theology, Disability, and the Body of Christ.  Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2019.

The church welcomes all—or it should. The church has long proven itself a safe refuge despite the sad reality that it can be unwelcoming toward those perceived as different. Brock reclaims the church's historic theology of disability and extends it to demonstrate that people with disabilities, like all created in God's image, are servants of God's redemptive work.

Liberation theology

Creamer, Deborah Beth. Disability and Christian Theology Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009

This book challenges existing theological models to engage with the disabled body, considering possibilities for a disability liberation theology. It enriches previous disability work by providing an alternative to the dominant medical and minority models, which fail to acknowledge the full diversity of disability experiences.

Medical ethics

Hauerwas, Stanley. Truthfulness and tragedy: further investigations in Christian ethics. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977.

Hauerwas provides an account of moral existence and ethical rationality that shows how Christian convictions operate to form and direct lives, casting fresh light on traditional theoretical issues and articulating the distinctive Christian response to contemporary concerns such as suicide, medical ethics, and child care.  The overall theme is the need for a community in which truthfulness is a way of life.

Ministry and church management

Hardwick, Lamar. Disability and the Church : A Vision for Diversity and Inclusion. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP, 2021

Insisting that the good news of Jesus affirms God's image in all people, Hardwick offers practical steps and strategies to build stronger, truly inclusive communities of faith.

Mission

Conner, Benjamin T. Disabling Mission, Enabling Witness : Exploring Missiology Through the Lens of Disability Studies. Missiological Engagements. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2018.

How would it look if we 'disabled' Christian theology, discipleship, and theological education? Conner initiates a new conversation between disability studies and Christian theology and missiology, imagining a church that fully incorporates people with disabilities into its mission.

Pastoral theology

Swinton, John. Finding Jesus in the Storm : The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges. SCM Press, 2020

By listening carefully to the lived experiences of people with severe mental health problems, this book will open up new understandings and perspectives that challenge current assumptions and draws out fresh perspectives for care, healing, recovery and community.

Pentecostal theology

 Yong, Amos. Theology and Down Syndrome : Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity. Waco, Tex: Baylor University Press, 2007.

While the struggle for disability rights has transformed secular ethics and public policy, traditional Christian teaching has been slow to account for disability in its theological imagination. Yong crafts a theology that connects with our present social, medical, and scientific understanding of disability.

Personal stories

Dawn, Marva J. Being Well When We Are Ill : Wholeness And Hope In Spite Of Infirmity. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2008

Dawn has an insider's view of the many spiritual, intellectual, emotional, social, and physical difficulties encountered by people with chronic illness and disabilities. This book offers a range of spiritual resources, emotional supports, intellectual answers, and practical solutions.

Huska, Liuan. Hurting Yet Whole : Reconciling Body and Spirit in Chronic Pain and Illness. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP, 2020

What is healing when our bodies suffer chronic illness? As Huska went through years of chronic pain, she questioned how the Christian story speaks to our experiences of pain and illness.

Political theology

Betcher, Sharon V. Spirit and the Politics of Disablement. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007. Internet Archive.

Betcher analyzes our world and God's embodied presence in the light of her own disability and the insight it affords. She claims disablement as a site of social and religious critique and reflection that reveals alternative understandings of the body and body politic, in Scripture, and the actions of Jesus.

Preaching

Black, Kathy. A Healing Homiletic : Preaching and Disability. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996

Drawing on Gospel healing narratives or miracle stories, Black provides a new method of preaching about healing, based on Scripture, for understanding the needs of the disability community.

Spirituality

Gaventa, William C. Disability and Spirituality : Recovering Wholeness. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2018.

Disability and spirituality have traditionally been understood as two distinct spheres. Contesting the assumptions that separate disability and spirituality, Gaventa shows that disability and spirituality are part of one another from the very beginning of creation.

Explore our Diversification Fund acquisitions.

Looking for further resources on this subject?

Explore these online bibliographies, reading lists, and digital resources:

Reading lists

Bibtheo - Disability Theology

Wright Library, Princeton Theological Seminary - Disability and Inclusion Bibliography

Philosophy of Disability Reading list

Sisters of Frida - Intersectional disability & disabled women reading list

Other resources

Diocese of London resources for Disability Ministry - including resources and toolkits for the parish, reading lists, videos, and blogs.

An Ordinary Office - 'A praying online weekly community of disabled and dispersed people' with online services.

Inclusive Church disability resources - including videos, book reviews, and an annual conference.

Got any feedback on this resource page? Think we've missed something crucial? Spotted any broken links? Please get in touch at library@theofed.cam.ac.uk

All text blurbs adapted from material provided by the publisher.