Summer Institute on Disability and Theology
Disability and Theology: The Call and Promise for Pastoral Leadership and Theological Education
July 12 (evening) - July 16
Two tracks: I = Pastoral Track (clergy and lay church professionals), II = Theological Educator Track (faculty at a theological school or seminary)
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Abbreviated Course Descriptions
I. One Day Conference, July 12th
July 12, 9 AM to 4 PM, $50 includes lunch; Special Student rate $25; scholarships available
New Voices in Theology and Disability: An Introduction
A one day conference for clergy, seminary faculty, congregational lay leaders, people with disabilities and their families, disability service providers, and advocates with the opportunity to hear and be introduced to a number of the exciting new voices and leaders in the field of disability, theology, and ministry.
Sponsored by Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and the Faith Community Leadership Project of the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council. For more information, contact The Rev. Kathleen Reed atkreed@ltsg.edu / 717-338-3016, or The Rev. Bill Gaventa, Director, Faith Community Leadership Project atbill.gaventa@umdnj.edu / 732-235-9304.
Presenters and Topics
Erik Carter: After the Benediction: Journeying with People with Developmental Disabilities in Faith and Life
This presentation will address opportunities for congregations and their members to have a real impact on the lives of people with developmental disabilities and their families during the six days of the week beyond the Sabbath.
Peggy Johnson: Healing and the Deaf Community: “There’s Nothing Wrong with My Ears, I just Can’t Hear”
Presentation focuses on the unique worlds of people who are Deaf, Late-Deafened, Hard of Hearing and Deaf-Blind and the meaning of healing for each.
Hans Reinders: After Disability Theology: What's next?
Over the last twenty years the field of theology and disability has been guided by the philosophy of the disability rights movement. More recently, work on theology and disability develops in different directions which this presentation will describe and explore.
Tom Reynolds: Beyond “Normalcy”: Reconsidering Disability and Theology
Recent literature on theology and disability has underscored the need for a thorough revising of the way faith communities understand disability. For this to take place, a critique must be levied against the way features of normalcy in society come to measure what counts for being human and become uncritically adopted by faith communities.
John Swinton: Moving through the sadness: Theological reflections on depression, suicide and the dark night of the soul.
Depression is a theological disease. The experience of profound meaninglessness, the deep sense of dispiritedness, the way in which it separates one from one’s friends, from one’s community, from one’s Self and ultimately God, makes depression almost by definition a deeply spiritual experience, even if that spirituality is expressed in the negative. This talk explores multi-disciplinary perspectives and offers an understanding that is theologically interesting and practically significant.
Amos Yong: The Spirit Poured Out Upon All Flesh: Disability & the Renewal of the Church"
This presentation re-examines what it means to see the charismatic gifts of the Spirit as being given to all, including people with disabilities, and how this might call forth a revolutionary and more hospitable form of ecclesial life and praxis.
II. Institute on Disability and Theology: July 12 (evening) through July 16.
Disability and Theology: The Call and Promise for Pastoral Leadership and Theological Education.
A theologically diverse, international faculty will focus on leadership and faculty development related to the intersection of theology and disability with emphasis on the growing research, training and inclusive congregational ministries with and by people with disabilities and their families. It will be structured in two tracks, one for theological educators and the other for pastoral leadership (congregational clergy, clergy leadership in specialized ministries who work with congregations, etc) with joint plenary sessions and other shared discussions.
Registrations limited. Priority is given in the seminary education track to faculty from Pennsylvania seminaries.. For more information, contact Kathleen Reed (kreed@ltsg.edu) or Bill Gaventa, Director, Faith Community Leadership Project, (732-235-9304 or bill.gaventa@umdnj.edu)
Plenary Presentations
Erik Carter
Better Together: Inclusive Religious Education for Children with Disabilities
This presentation will draw from research addressing inclusive education to explore the ways in which congregations might support the meaningful participation and contributions of children with disabilities in the life of their church.
Bill Gaventa
Hidden in Plain Sight: The Unseen Presence of Disability in Pastoral Care and Theological Education
The rising visibility of people with disabilities and their families presents challenges and gifts to every area of congregational life and pastoral leadership. Disability, especially when seen through lenses of diversity and vulnerability, is all around us. Its call be promise and gift for our understandings of pastoral care and theological education.
Peggy Johnson
Healing and the Deaf Community: “There’s Nothing Wrong with My Ears, I just Can’t Hear.”
This session will focus on the unique worlds of people who are Deaf, Late-Deafened, Hard of Hearing and Deaf-Blind and the meaning of healing for each. Faith communities have the opportunity to bring awareness, access and advocacy. Advocacy includes the vitally important work of empowering people with hearing loss to answer the call to ministry and serve as leaders and teachers. Healing includes being “open” (Ephratha) to the prophetic “voice” of the Deaf witness
Hans Reinders
Two kinds of communities, two kinds of people.
This lecture focuses on the difference between the civic and the ecclesial community and argues for a distinct ethic of the latter. Whereas much of the work on theology and disability in recent times has been focusing on citizenship and its moral ramifications, the ecclesial community has a different life to live, which is the life of friendship
Tom Reynolds:
Educating Care: Transformation and Disability in Theological Education
For care to be educated and for education to be caring in a transformative way, one that liberates and empowers both non-disabled and disabled people, care must be problematized and rethought as a practice and value embedded in relations of mutual giving and receiving and integral to faith formation.
John Swinton
‘Whose story am I? Spirituality, personhood and dementia’
How do we know who we are? The answer: we become who we are in and through the stories that we tell about ourselves and the stories that other’s tell about us. We are in essence storied beings. But what then happens when we can no longer tell our own stories? When a person encounters dementia, particularly in its later stages, their story is inevitably told for them rather than by them. The question is: who will tell their story well?
Amos Yong
“Re-Enabling the Hermeneutics of Suspicion & of Charity: Disability & the Renewal of Theological Education"
On the surface, the biblical references to disability are generally marginalizing and stigmatizing with regard to such conditions, resulting in a history of ambiguity in the church’s attitudes toward and treatment of people with disabilities. Contemporary disability scholars and theologians have thus generated a hermeneutics of suspicion resisting such “normate” or “ableist” presuppositions. This presentation suggests how theological education, including theological curriculum and pedagogy, might be renewed by adopting such a hermeneutical approach informed by disability perspectives.
Leonard M. Hummel
Pastoral Theology/Pastoral Care and Ministry with Persons with Disabilities and Their Families: Some Concluding Observations and Remarks
In this summary presentation, Leonard Hummel attempts to locate ministry with persons with disabilities and their families within the fields of pastoral care and pastoral theology, as he also attempts to locate those fields within this particular ministry. In doing so, he suggests that this ministry is pastoral care both for some persons and also pastoral care for all persons.