Stories, Statistics, Solutions: Toward Understanding and Including People with Disabilities in Faith Communities

By Dakota Tiger, Heidi Tiger and Emily Pilkington

America operates by ableist norms, which often silence or hide from view those with a disability. This book provides a platform or peek inside the lives of eight people with a disability, and it offers solutions for achieving access justice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Mar 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666790061

Book preview

Stories, Statistics, Solutions

Toward Understanding and Including People with Disabilities in Faith Communities

edited by Luke Brad Bobo and Angie L. Fuoco

forewords by Dakota Tiger and Heidi Tiger, and Emily Pilkington

Stories, Statistics, Solutions

Toward Understanding and Including People with Disabilities in Faith Communities

Copyright © 2023 Wipf and Stock Publishers. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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paperback isbn: 978-1-6667-3432-4

hardcover isbn: 978-1-6667-9005-4

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03/09/23

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Foreword: A Parent’s Plea

Acknowledgements by Luke Bobo

Ableism and Its Answers by Angie Fuoco

Why This Book?by Luke Bobo

I. Stories

And Just Like That, I Went from Being Able-Bodied to Disabled in One Year

Faith, Life, and Work as a Disabled Person

That Thing on My Ear and Other Life Lessons

Modern Day Moses

My Invisible Disability

Dissociation and Disability

Hearing Lost . . . Listening Found!

My Memoir

II. Statistics

III. Solutions

Promise Us

Resources

Reprinted Article

Bibliography

Foreword

During the summer of 2017, my wife Heidi and I (Dakota) met Dr. Bobo for the first time at Colorado State University. We were taking a class called Christian Worldview & Ethics taught by Dr. Bobo as a part of our training under an organization called Cru. It was an intense two weeks filled with thought provoking discussions and questions back and forth among Dr. Bobo and 60 plus Cru staff in the classroom. Everything Dr. Bobo and fellow staff were talking about in the class was interpreted into American Sign Language (ASL) for us. Yes, that meant we were a Deaf couple surrounded by a classroom of hearing people.

I believe Heidi and I were one of the first exposures for Dr. Bobo to learn and listen what it was like to be Deaf people in the hearing world. I will never forget a moment when Dr. Bobo brought up my assignment to the class and commented about things he noticed. My assignment was to find a controversial situation and discuss how we should approach it from a Christian ethics-based perspective. I chose a 2017 news article from USA Today. The story was about a police officer who faced zero charges after he shot and killed a Deaf man, Daniel Harris, just outside his North Carolina home. Dr. Bobo drew parallels between his experience as a Black man fearing police officers and my experience as a Deaf man with similar fears toward police. While there are differences among our experiences and fears, a similar core foundation connects us. I believe this led Dr. Bobo to seek more stories from overlooked and invisible individuals living with different situations (that some would call a disability and others would call an identity) and for us to learn from each other how we live our lives while following Christ.

Therefore, we want to introduce you, the reader, to learn and listen from the diverse stories you will read throughout this book. As you read these stories, think about how to use this opportunity to reach overlooked and invisible people and develop relationships with us. We deserve to be seen. We are part of God’s creation. We deserve His love just as everyone does, for we are all fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14a). Learn. Listen. Share. Love.

—Dakota and Heidi Tiger, former students of Dr. Luke Bobo

Foreword: A Parent’s Plea

When it comes to discussions about disability and the church, most books are written by people like me—a parent or caregiver. While I’ve benefited from a few of these texts, I’m often left longing for more. Five years ago, disability became a profound part of our family’s story. Few things have taught, changed, or shaped me more than the vocation of being my son Zeke’s mom. And yet, my knowledge of cerebral palsy and visual impairment is secondhand. It’s not that I don’t have anything to contribute to the conversation, but my perspective is limited. Just as I care deeply about racial justice, I don’t know what it’s like to be Black in America. Just as I’m grateful for my brothers who care deeply about rooting out misogyny in the church, their perspective will always lack a certain embodied reality.

As both a parent and a ministry professional, I’ve longed for a book like this. I’ve longed to hear directly from those who don’t just write about disability and the church, but who willingly share from their own embodied experience. Too often, our conversations about disability and inclusion are limited to the way that we, the church, can serve the part of us who live with disabilities. These conversations about accessibility are essential, but just one part.

If the church sees my son Zeke as only someone to serve and not as someone they need to be served by, we all truly miss out. The church is Christ’s own body, a body that needs each part to complete its Kingdom mission. The perspectives and stories generously shared by our brothers and sisters here represent one kind of gift—a ministry we desperately need to receive. As well, their gifts of work and meaningful service will be stymied if we don’t put proper supports in place for them to participate fully within the body.

This book presents eight stories that are layered, textured, and varied. You will read about the gifts and hardships that disability brings, but not in a way that objectifies our fellow image bearers for inspirational ends. You will read about ways the church has cared and included, and ways the church has failed and diminished. This is a book that I hope causes us to consider not just David’s perspective, but also Mephibosheth’s. It’s a book that reminds us that image bearing is first and foremost about who we are, rather than what we are able or not able to do.

Finally, I pray the Holy Spirit works through this book to convict us of our failures to integrate members with disabilities into the local church. And I hope it will challenge us to empower and enable our brothers and sisters with disabilities to fulfill their holy purpose within Christ’s body.

May we hear these heartfelt stories and see the solutions offered here. May we understand well. May we act on these recommendations and solutions—starting now. And may we not deprive the Lord of the fullness of His own body, even one day after today.

—Emily Pilkington, former student of Dr. Luke Bobo

Acknowledgements by Luke Bobo

Thank you, Dakota and Heidi Tiger. When we met in Fort Collins, Colorado in the summer of 2017, you helped me see you. In sharing your story, the Apostle Paul’s injunction not to dismiss or disregard certain members of the body came to mind (1 Corinthians 12:12-31). You helped me understand that God has a divine plan and purpose for the Deaf and people with disabilities. Most important, you exposed my blind spots and my idol of ableism. And your presence in that class gave me a renewed compassion toward people of all abilities and disabilities.

Thank you—Kendra, Rob, Erin, Jason, Troy, Matice, Angie, and Maggie [pseudonym]—for sharing your intimate stories. Thank you for giving from your deep wells of grace, courage, and insight for this work. Most important, thanks for being my beloved family, friends, and teachers.

I especially thank you, Angie, for your timely editing of this work and for exploding its content and potential impact. Thank you for challenging my ableist tendencies and for calling me in to a proper framework of disability. Thank you for teaching me to consider all abilities and disabilities as the display of His glorious image, the imago Dei, so perfectly in each of us.

Ableism and Its Answers by Angie Fuoco

Who Are We?

This book is written and edited by people with disabilities. Thus, it uses personal pronouns, we/us/our. We are also leaders and doers in faith communities. We—with abilities and disabilities, known and unknown to us, disclosed and undisclosed, seen and invisible—are both writers and audience.

What is Ableism?

As racism is discrimination against others because of their color, features, and/or culture within the human race, ableism is discrimination against those of us with a real or perceived disability. Yet, ableism can be even more complex than other isms. Ableism, by definition, includes not providing an equivalent pathway or withholding from us certain physical supports, practices, or behaviors that give us the ability to do (enter, work, participate, communicate)—whatever we want to and/or need to do.

Ableism has existed from the time the first human was born imperfect as deemed by his or her parents or others. And ableism is alive and well today. It runs the gamut from parents killing pre-born or born children because of a disfigurement or disability—or even the possibility of such—to exclusion from opportunities at work, in education, in society, and in faith communities.

Ableism is a cruel, and most widespread form of discrimination against anyone less able to do what we want or who wants to live interdependently. (Most would say independently here, but believers ask, Who is independent of God and other humans for living? No one.)

Ableism and Rights in Faith Communities

Ableism prevents us from participating or reaching our potential because those in control do not follow society’s laws or create the ability for us to participate or succeed. Faith communities are not covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act; thus, U.S. houses of worship are not required to be accessible to people with disabilities. (However, the U.K.’s Equality Act of 2010 considers houses of worship to be service providers who must provide reasonable adjustments to people with disabilities.) And though our rights may vary throughout the world, in God’s view, our rights do not depend on disability. Where disability exists, rights are even more protective. (See Leviticus 19:14, Israel’s holiness law for people with disabilities.) Indeed, Scripture shows that people with disabilities, such as Mephibosheth, have unique God-given plans. And we all have purpose to glorify God with whatever talents and abilities we have.

The stories shared in this book can help convict us as to how we, unregulated leaders and partners in faith, are called by God’s higher law to include the whole family in faith communities. In other words, a response to ableism is not only about providing inclusion into a community; but it is also about disrupting and decentering the ableist norms that constitute the community. These stories show us how we forfeit amazing teachings, insights, and gifts of the we with disabilities when we are excluded by not providing each other access. Finally, it is our hope that the stories and solutions shared here move us to create the needed access so all of us can serve effectively in our respective faith communities.

Ableism’s Answer

The answer to ableism is apparent—access or accessibility, which is simply access made easy. The two terms are used interchangeably in this book.

Why This Book?by Luke Bobo

He has told you, mortal one, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? —Micah

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Access Justice is giving those with differing abilities access to opportunities. —Luke Bobo

As an African American male educator, I experienced many firsts in my life. I was the first in my family of seven siblings to attend college. I was the first African American male to lead the Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Theological Seminary