| | up a Willow Creek clone without a paddle
As you can imagine, I put off a lot of yuppie church greeters in my tenure of trying to be a Christian.
Speculation as to why people with disabilities are oftentimes excluded from evangelical Christian churches (especially Willow Creek clones)
Xenophobia
People, especially those in the suburbs, generally haven't been exposed to people with disabilities so when they see one they have a visceral negative reaction (I have even caught myself having these reactions). It's unfortunate but we are conditioned to have an automatic negative reaction to anything that looks different. There are a lot of good people who shy away from people with disabilities simply because they don't know how to approach them.
Spiritual Discomfort
The very presence of people with disabilities flies in the face of the the health and wealth gospel which is being preached (to various degrees of intensity) throughout the evangelical world. Christians are trained to be hopeless situation averse--prayer is best suited for times of crisis where there is pretty good chance of resolution. But how do you comfort/pray for someone whose problem is never going to get better. A classic Christian response to suffering is, "for every cloud there is a silver lining". But disability is a cloud with little or no sliver lining and this fact alone throws Christians for a loop. And for many of us with mental illnesses the evangelical Christian idea of an experience of God is a very negative thing--we experience God all right, but he tells us to do crazy things instead of spiritually mature things.
Perspective
People with disabilities see the world differently, sometimes frighteningly so. Many see the world as a much darker place, due to their life experiences and reading about the poor treatment of their compatriots (Ashley X anyone??). The daily life of many with disabilities makes for gross dinner conversation--this alone could offend some. Also, they tend to hold more complicated political views (leaning Democrat on healthcare issues but many times Republican on abortion/assisted suicide).
Money
Let's face it, people with disabilities constitute the poorest minority
in America. A church that is constantly spending millions on building
projects is going to have to go to great pains to bring in and satisfy
a heavy-tithing higher class demographic. If you have a disability that makes you poor, you
are seen as a waste of space in the church, not paying your fair share and making the rich parishioners uncomfortable (it is to be noted that some of the same forces that push people with disabilities out of the church also push out the elderly).
A good portion of church buildings aren't even wheelchair accessible which would keep many with disabilities from even getting to the church greeter.
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| | Posted 4/5/2007 4:08 PM - 1 comments
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