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A review by ninjakiwi12
The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability by Nancy L. Eiesland
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Fun(ny) fact(s): This is another book I read for my paper on female theologians with disability, with Eiesland being the main voice representing our time (along with Nancy Mairs, but Baylor libraries does not have many of her works...).
Favorite quote/image:"Here is the resurrected Christ making good on the incarnational proclamation that God would be with us, embodied as we are, incorporating the fullness of human contingency and ordinary life into God. In presenting his impaired hands and feet to his startled friends, the resurrected Jesus is revealed as the disabled God. Jesus, the resurrected Savior, calls for his frightened companions to recognize the marks of impairment their own connection with God, their own salvation. In doing so, the disabled God is also the revealer of a new humanity. The disabled God is not only the One from heaven but the revelation of true personhood, underscoring the reality that full personhood is fully compatible with the experience of disability." (pg. 100)
Honorable mention: "Jesus Christ, the disabled God, is not a romanticized notion of 'overcomer' God.
Instead here is God as survivor...the image of survivor here evoked is that of a simple, unself-pitying, honest body, for whom the limits of power are palpable, but not tragic. The disabled God embodies the ability to see clearly the complexity and the ‘mixed blessing’ of life and bodies, without living in despair. This revelation is of a God for us who celebrates joy and experiences pain not separately in time or space, but simultaneously." (pg. 102-103)
Why: Again, I wrote a paper on this topic, so I could write so much on the impact that this book has had on me academically and personally. I will refrain from redoing that to say that Eiseland first presents a brief overview of disability and ways that the church has maintained a disabling theology steeped in ableism and oppression of people with disabilities, pointing to the need for a liberatory theology of disability. However, she takes her work a step further. Instead of merely inviting the church to better see its disabled brothers and sisters as fully human, she writes about how God is a disabled God, offering a model for people with disabilities to live in their bodies, not transcend them, a way to be a survivor, not a conqueror, rooted in the body of Jesus Christ.
Favorite quote/image:"Here is the resurrected Christ making good on the incarnational proclamation that God would be with us, embodied as we are, incorporating the fullness of human contingency and ordinary life into God. In presenting his impaired hands and feet to his startled friends, the resurrected Jesus is revealed as the disabled God. Jesus, the resurrected Savior, calls for his frightened companions to recognize the marks of impairment their own connection with God, their own salvation. In doing so, the disabled God is also the revealer of a new humanity. The disabled God is not only the One from heaven but the revelation of true personhood, underscoring the reality that full personhood is fully compatible with the experience of disability." (pg. 100)
Honorable mention: "Jesus Christ, the disabled God, is not a romanticized notion of 'overcomer' God.
Instead here is God as survivor...the image of survivor here evoked is that of a simple, unself-pitying, honest body, for whom the limits of power are palpable, but not tragic. The disabled God embodies the ability to see clearly the complexity and the ‘mixed blessing’ of life and bodies, without living in despair. This revelation is of a God for us who celebrates joy and experiences pain not separately in time or space, but simultaneously." (pg. 102-103)
Why: Again, I wrote a paper on this topic, so I could write so much on the impact that this book has had on me academically and personally. I will refrain from redoing that to say that Eiseland first presents a brief overview of disability and ways that the church has maintained a disabling theology steeped in ableism and oppression of people with disabilities, pointing to the need for a liberatory theology of disability. However, she takes her work a step further. Instead of merely inviting the church to better see its disabled brothers and sisters as fully human, she writes about how God is a disabled God, offering a model for people with disabilities to live in their bodies, not transcend them, a way to be a survivor, not a conqueror, rooted in the body of Jesus Christ.