July 24, 2025

The Gospel and Disability

Some time ago, our local church hosted a congregational meeting to discuss the possibility of installing a new elevator, along with wheelchair-accessible bathrooms.

One longtime member of the church is often confined to a wheelchair. At the meeting, her husband spoke in favor of the renovation. He acknowledged the obvious upside for his family. But he was careful to ground his support in a wider ethic of gospel welcome. To the extent it can, he said, the church should correct any design flaws that might hinder those who want to come from coming.

That’s a perspective that echoes the argument of Sandra Peoples, a Southern Baptist disability-ministry consultant, in her new book Accessible Church: A Gospel-Centered Vision for Including People with Disabilities and Their Families.

In her review for CT, Sunita Kapahi Theiss, an autistic writer and parent to autistic children, encourages churches to actively prepare for the presence of people with mental and physical challenges, rather than settling for mere “accommodations.”

“Accessible Church has a clear foundational premise” she writes: “Including people with disabilities is not an ‘extra.’ It’s intrinsic to the mission of the church.

“Drawing from the doctrine of the imago Dei, Peoples asserts that every person—regardless of ability—is created in God’s image and called to participate in the life of Christ’s body. This foundational truth bestows dignity, value, and purpose on every individual. It teaches us to treat disabilities not as unfortunate deviations but as sovereignly ordained realities, capable of reflecting God’s glory in unique and powerful ways.

“Peoples’s writing reflects this conviction—she doesn’t treat disabilities as problems to be solved or obstacles to be managed. Her theological approach is pastoral, not clinical; biblical, not sentimental.

“She weaves Scripture throughout the book, from Moses’s speech limitations to Paul’s thorn in the flesh. These aren’t cherry-picked proof texts but part of a broader narrative: Throughout the history of his people, God’s power is revealed through human weakness. The church, if it would reflect Christ, must learn to see beauty and purpose in what the world calls limitation. ‘As churches,’ Peoples suggests, ‘we may need to lay down our preferences, our traditions, and our reputations for the sake of the gospel.’”

Racial Reconciliation and Relocation

Efforts to promote racial reconciliation within the body of Christ often aim at changed hearts, purged of prejudice and delighting in the Bible’s vision of a multiethnic multitude gathered in praise.

Any hope of overcoming racial hostility, of course, starts with the cleansing power of the gospel. But it shouldn’t stop there, as Karen Johnson emphasizes in a new book, Ordinary Heroes of Racial Justice: A History of Christians in Action. Johnson, a history professor at Wheaton College, profiles several 20th-century figures who put their convictions into practice by uprooting their lives in pursuit of multiracial community.

Reviewing the book in the July/August issue of CT is Stephen Haynes, a theologian and religious studies professor who has studied church desegregation efforts in his native Memphis. Here are his concluding thoughts:

“What unites [Johnson’s subjects] most profoundly,” Haynes writes, “is a sacrificial willingness to physically relocate. In response to the gospel’s call to racial justice and reconciliation, they each traveled a countercultural path of downward mobility and embedded themselves in communities of need. But their inspiring stories reveal something beyond heroism. They also attest to the messiness of the work these figures undertook.

Why is the work of racial justice so messy? For one thing, efforts to realize the social implications of the gospel will often generate outside resistance. One need only to recall the economic and physical violence provoked by Koinonia Farm’s ‘alternative way of living.’ (As Johnson starkly notes, ‘Being at Koinonia could get a person killed.’) Or the impunity with which public officials in Mississippi harassed and tortured John Perkins.

“Second, any racial justice work involving relocation will risk discomfort because whites and Blacks aren’t always skilled at living in proximity, let alone sharing life together. As a result, dreams of multiracial Christian harmony will inevitably run into many frustrations, such as personality conflicts, cultural missteps, unspoken resentments, paternalism, dueling charges of racism and perpetual victimhood, and the narcissism that often lurks beneath the surface of charismatic leadership, whatever its color. Add the stresses that come with residing in neighborhoods plagued by crime, substandard education, and diminished economic opportunity, and it is easy to see why multiracial intentional communities become spiritual and emotional testing grounds with high burnout rates.

“In fact, Johnson’s case studies consistently highlight the conflicts between her ‘ordinary heroes’ and those who are initially drawn to their vision of Christian community, only to stumble amid day-to-day difficulties or otherwise become disillusioned. These features of her book serve as a warning to idealists who might hear God calling them to relocate. As Johnson observes, it may be that love demands proximity and proximity produces empathy. But as her case studies attest, empathy is not always enough to sustain countercultural communities inhabited by flawed human beings.”

Matt Reynolds

Senior Editor, Books

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The Gospel and Disability

Racial Reconciliation and Relocation

Churches, Don’t ‘Accommodate’ Disability. Plan for It.

Racial Reconciliation Is on the Move