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Church Times article on the research and disabled Christians’ ministry in lockdown

Posted by Naomi J. on June 26, 2020
Posted in: research. Leave a comment

Forgive me for being late to share this, but I had an article published recently in the Church Times, about the ministry of disabled Christians in lockdown. I talk in depth about my research, as I share stories from other disabled Christians about how their ministry has been affected by COVID-19 lockdown and the move to online church.

Disabled people are suddenly finding their experience of isolation and exclusion useful to the rest of the Church. The relevance of disabled people’s own online church groups is suddenly clearer than ever before. Disabled Christians’ in-person initiatives, too, have long been showing us how to “do church” differently…

The Church has an opportunity to listen to and learn from the ministry of disabled Christians — which many of my research participants longed to exercise. The question, now, is whether it will. If not, institutional churches may become increasingly irrelevant to those disabled Christians who have been establishing their own ministries to each other in new spaces on the edge of the Church.

If you sign up for a free account with the Church Times you should be able to see the article, but contact me by email if you have difficulty—I’ll get a copy to you.

You can see a simple language version of the article on my website, here.

Research Launch: booklet in accessible language now available for download

Posted by Naomi J. on October 12, 2019
Posted in: research. Leave a comment

Today I am launching my research results, at the St Martin in the Fields/Inclusive Church disability conference.

You can download the booklet from my website here. It’s written in non-academic language, and it can be requested in other formats (just send me an email at naomilawsonjacobs@gmail.com .)

The St Martin-in-the-Fields annual disability and church conference has been hosting me in sharing my research results for many years, and members of their disability advisory group were involved in my research. Im launching the research results at today’s conference in grateful recognition of their support of my work.

Many thanks to them, and to everyone who took part in my research. Now that the PhD thesis is in the process of publication, I’ll be sharing reflections on the results here soon.

Poem: My Disabled God

Posted by Naomi J. on November 3, 2017
Posted in: disability theology, poetry. Tagged: disabled god, poetry. Leave a comment

Candle_(Slava_celebration)

Who is my disabled God?
My god has no hands, so I must be hands for my God.
I must paint pictures, and write stories,
and build homes, and plant gardens,
and feed many hungry children.
My god has no feet, so I must be feet for my God.
I must visit the elders, and walk on beaches,
and dance to the music, and travel the world,
and march many times for justice.
My god has no voice, so I must be voice for my God.
I must speak the truth, and sing for joy,
and wail with the grief of the world’s sorrow,
and tell someone I love you.
My god has no ears, so I must be ears for my God,
I must listen for the child waking in the night,
and the cries of the weary and forgotten
and the many-noted sounds of the birds.
My god has no eyes, so I must be eyes for my God.
I must marvel at the sunset, and notice
a friend’s smile,
and read as many books as I can,
and name all the colors.

My god has no body at all,
so I must be body for my God.
And if I am the body of God,
and you are the body of God,
what should it matter
if one has feet and another hands?
What should it matter
if one has voice and another ears?
We can be hands and feet and
voice and ears for each other.
What matters is that we welcome
each body into the sanctuary: so that God
might come in as well.

– Spike Johnson.

From With or Without Candlelight: A Meditation Anthology, ed. Victoria Safford (a Unitarian Universalist publication)

[Image description: a lit, burnt-down candle burns on a candle holder.]

Selections of work based on the research project (and more) now up at academia.edu

Posted by Naomi J. on November 22, 2016
Posted in: biblical studies, disability theology, disabled christians, emancipatory research, postgraduate studies, sociology of religion, thesis. Tagged: academia.edu, disability, disability and churches, disability studies, dissemination, sharing research. Leave a comment

I’ve been doing some work on my academia.edu profile this morning. There are now selections of work based on the research available for you to download. Perhaps most usefully, there is a poster aimed at general audiences, with an easy-read version. That was presented at the Living on the Edge user-led conference on disability and the churches, held at St Martin-in-the-Fields church in 2015. There are also powerpoint slides from a couple of talks I’ve given – including a recent one from a biblical studies conference, which gives an insight into some of the results of my research as I’m writing it up. There are also papers and abstracts from talks/panels not directly based on my research – but they’re about disability in society, and you might find them interesting.

Enjoy! And I’d love it if you’d point me to your websites or pages where you’re exploring your perspectives on disability and the churches, or disability and society in general. I’m happy to share the links.

A theology of access and equality?

Posted by Naomi J. on November 16, 2016
Posted in: biblical studies, disability theology, emancipatory research, research, research discussions, sociology of religion, thesis. Tagged: church, churches, critical theory, disability, disability and churches, disability studies, disabling structures, emancipatory research, exclusion, inclusion, participants, participatory research, research, social media, welcome. Leave a comment

On twitter, the tag #fullaccesschurch is gaining support among disabled Christians calling for access to the churches. It was created by the user-led group Disability and Jesus, who have encouraged disabled people to use it when tweeting about access difficulties they face at church. It was the official hashtag of the excellent Towards a Theology of Disability conference, also a user-led event, in the summer of 2016.

screen-shot-2016-11-16-at-09-22-37

The concept of ‘access’ may suggest the built environment, to some people. And while that’s an important part of disability access, it’s not the whole story. In the twitter conversation above, for example, a user of the hashtag tells me that there is poor access in churches for autistic people. The #fullaccesschurch tag has been used to talk about access to churches for people with mental health problems, people with sensory impairments, those with learning difficulties, and disabled children… The emerging interpretation of the concept of ‘full access’ to churches, across the disabled Christian community, is very broad.

Disability studies, too, talks about access in diverse ways: there is a focus on access to the built environment, but there’s also research on access to leisure, access to transport, access to education, and more. The definition of access there is often unclear, though. Accessibility is “a slippery notion… one of those common terms which everyone uses until faced with the problem of defining and measuring it” (Gould, 1969:64). Sometimes research draws on legal definitions of disability access, or practical access criteria for building codes or town planning. On the whole, though, disability studies research avoids the term altogether, presumably because of its lack of clarity. However, I am using the term in my research — because it’s being used by the community, and that matters in the kind of research that I’m doing.

I’m now writing a chapter on the stories of four of my participants. I began by thinking about these as stories of inclusion (to churches) and exclusion (from them). In writing the chapter, though, I have realised that the concept of ‘inclusion’ is a problematic one. It began as a positive concept, involving “the creation of settings in which difference is encouraged and valued” (Cameron, 2014:79). Instead, though, Cameron says that even in settings claiming to be inclusive, in practice “disabled people are still more likely to be met with patronising tolerance than with respectful acknowledgement as equals” (2014:80). Equality, he suggests here, where institutions — like churches? — fall short. Equality, I will argue in my chapter, is the goal behind the idea of a ‘full access church’. I will argue that such equality requires transformation.

In a previous chapter of my thesis, on mainstream disability theology (which is often not written by disabled people), I’ve talked about how this theology often focuses on welcome. Welcoming disabled people into our churches, argue many theologians, is what is needed. Inclusion, in short.

But when churches bring disabled people into their environment, when they try to include them in to their space, are they really changing what they do to accommodate others’ differences? Are churches looking at their practices and asking how far those practices exclude people, and how they could really challenge themselves on this? Are they asking what their environments communicate about who is welcome, and what their practices quietly reveal to people about their own value? Are they considering what they are saying to their blind members when they have not made their websites accessible to them? Are they asking what messages are communicated when the main church building is accessible to wheelchair users but the altar is not? On the whole, ideas of inclusion, of welcome, tend to focus on bringing people into spaces that already exist, rather than on changing institutions to make room for difference. Instead, transforming churches, in terms of their spaces, practices and culture, may be one way forward towards full access for all disabled people to all churches. More than simply asserting that the gospel is for all, a transformation of churches would make the gospel truly accessible to all.

Real transformation would require churches working in collaboration with the disabled Christians who are the experts on their own needs. The stories featured in my chapter include examples of people who tried to encourage their churches to transform their spaces, practices or cultures, but did not find that church communities were willing to do this.

This kind of transformation is compared with conditional ‘welcome’ by the disability theologian James Metzger, in his challenging response to the Parable of the Banquet, which is so often quoted by as a reason to encourage disabled people to come into churches. In the parable, from Luke 14, Jesus tells the story of a man who was preparing a great banquet, but whose invitations were all rejected by people with flimsy excuses:

“The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

“‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

“Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”

Metzger boldly turns the most common interpretation of this parable upside-down. If this man represents God, he argues, then this is a very ambivalent portrait of God and his reasons for ‘welcoming’ people, or not, into his kingdom. If you are a Christian, you might be offended by Metzger’s conclusions — he thinks that “The disabled cannot trust and likely would not wish to cultivate relations with the ableist, capricious, paternalistic God who surfaces in this parable” (2011:23.10). He observes that here, in being compelled to come in to suit the whims of the host, “the poor and disabled are stripped of agency and autonomy, an experience not unfamiliar to them” (2011:23.6). This experience is not unfamiliar to the people whose stories are featured in my chapter, either, some of whom spoke about having their needs ignored and their expertise invalidated in their churches. “Compel them to come in,” says the ending to this parable, an ending that is not always quoted. Does this call for a transformation, a dismantling of the church structures that exclude, so that all can worship? Or is it a conditional welcome, based on being able to survive in a church environment designed for the ‘mainstream’?

Metzger does not end on this depressing note. He says that the parables can still be seen positively by disabled people, perhaps as representing a Jesus who acknowledges the difficulties that ordinary people will have with God, “encouraging them to remain in conversation with God” (2009:75). Perhaps looking at the Bible through different lenses, seeing the possibility that disablism and exclusion are sometimes present there — and in other sources that churches use for their approaches to disability — could help churches in moving from shaky principles of inclusion to real transformation and full access. Not all Christians will agree, and that’s good. Another feature of the stories in my research is the diversity of theology and Christian perspectives that people hold, influencing their views on disability, and shaping their ideas on how churches can create access for all. (Glimpses of that can be seen in this chapter, although later chapters will consider diverse theologies in more depth.) But a critical approach to such concepts as ‘welcome,’ ‘inclusion’ and ‘access’ is important when looking at stories where people have felt excluded from, and included in, churches. This chapter of my thesis will consider the circumstances that create a sense of exclusion or access for disabled people in churches, and whether anything might be learned from the ways in which these participants’ access to churches is either impeded or enabled.

The stories in the chapter that I’m writing now reveal diverse experiences of access, exclusion and church transformation. They include the experiences of a woman with ME/CFS who has difficulties accessing activities when they are held at times of day that are difficult for her; a couple who are blind and are struggling in a church where their needs are often forgotten; a wheelchair user who cannot access large parts of the cathedral she attends. These stories are also not just about physical access. They show that the culture of a church can exclude people, as with the blind couple who cannot take part fully in social activities because of the ways in which their church organises them. They show that church spaces can shape church practice, as with the wheelchair user who does not have access to the high altar at her church.They show that disabled people’s experience of church can be transformed by small changes in culture, as with the woman who felt acknowledged and accepted through a mention in the church notice sheet that people were welcome to sit through the service if they needed to. These transformations of ‘the way things are done’ in church, whether small and simple or larger and more complex, can help people to feel that their bodies and minds can play a full part in that church community, different from the socially constructed norm though they may be.

There were many more stories of participants that I could have represented in this chapter too, other stories about different kinds of access, including those of my several autistic participants and people with mental health problems. (Their stories will absolutely be represented in future chapters: it’s just that they’re going to fit better in, for example, the chapter on church cultures and how they specifically exclude some disabled people with particular needs.) But these four stories give a glimpse of some of the ways in which a transformational theology and practice of access in the churches, rather than a passive theology of welcome, might help to create conditions in which people are fully and practically included. In which they are enabled to worship and be part of community, all their needs met, as much as non-disabled people’s needs are met in churches. In which disabled people might truly find a ‘full access church’.

I look forward to sharing the chapter with you, when my thesis is finally written and published.

References

Cameron, C.. (2014). Inclusion. In: Cameron, C. Disability Studies: A Student’s Guide. London & Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 78-81.

Gould, P. (1969). Spatial Diffusion. Resource Paper No. 17. Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers.

Lucas, Dave. (2016). Disability and Jesus. Available: http://www.disabilityandjesus.org.uk/. Last accessed 16th November 2016.

Metzger, J.. (2010). Disability and the Marginalisation of God in the Parable of the Snubbed Host (Luke 14:15-24). The Bible and Critical Theory. 6 (2), 23.1-23.15.

 

 

Stephen D’Evelyn on the Church of England and Human Realism

Posted by Naomi J. on September 18, 2016
Posted in: research. Leave a comment

I thought my readers might be interested in these fascinating thoughts from a disabled person who has been involved in ordination training in the Church of England. He identifies discrimination and issues with equality law, in relation to disabled ordinands/would-be ordinands. This is something I am finding in my research among a few of my participants. My study is qualitative, so the results can’t be generalised (meaning we can’t assume they apply to everyone). But it’s very interesting to hear stories of disabled people who are aiming to be ordained in the Church of England, and the barriers they are facing. Here, Stephen D’Evelyn reflects on his experiences of this.

Avon's Edge -- Stephen D'Evelyn's Blog

Recently, the Conservative government has decided to cut Employment and Support Allowance for new claimants. (See: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/29/employment-and-support-allowance-the-disability-benefit-cuts-you-have-not-heard-about). ESA is a state benefit which some disabled people receive to help level the playing-field when it comes to income. There is widespread statistical evidence that being disabled also means being financially disempowered. So the proposed changes should again bring to the fore questions about employment in the broad sense of what we as disabled people do with o9ur time.

In speaking of employment–‘vocation’ and the processes by which people become ministers, the Church of England is not always transparent, and certainly not always inclined to promote disenfranchised people actively. The actual procedure by which people are selected and then trained for ministry are in fact mysterious and often shrouded in mystery. God may move in mysterious ways, but when it comes to acting as an employer, the church should not.

My own…

View original post 653 more words

The Blogging Graduate Student

Posted by Naomi J. on November 25, 2015
Posted in: academia, blogging, digital research, disabled christians, emancipatory research, research, sociology of religion. Tagged: #AARSBL2015, academia, academic blogging, accessibility, disability and churches, disabled students, disabling structures, emancipatory research, experience, inclusion, phd-doing, research, research agenda. 3 Comments

“The irony is not lost on me, that I could never have been at the AAR conference in person. Travelling to conferences as a disabled student is getting more and more difficult… I blog so that I can share my developing ideas in a forum that is actually accessible to me.”

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Photo: Newspaper on a tube seat. Headline reads “20,000 a day start a blog”. CC Annie Mole, flickr.

Should postgraduate researchers blog?

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Allowing It To Happen, Pt 2: Academia, Accessibility and Elitism

Posted by Naomi J. on November 16, 2015
Posted in: academia, disabled christians, disabled students, emancipatory research, postgraduate studies, research, sociology of religion. Tagged: academia, accessibility, disability and churches, disability studies, disabled students, disabling structures, inclusion, normalcy, social model of disability, studying. Leave a comment

“Under normalcy, no one is or can be normal, just as no one is or can be equal. All have to work hard to make it seem like they conform, and so the person with disabilities is singled out as a dramatic case of not belonging. This identification makes it easier for the rest to think they fit the paradigm.”

– Lennard Davis, ‘Bodies of Difference: Politics, Disability, and Representation’

Some things have got me thinking more deeply recently about accessibility in academia.

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Allowing It To Happen Pt 1: Disabled Students, All Students, and the PhD Process

Posted by Naomi J. on November 15, 2015
Posted in: academia, disability, disabled students, emancipatory research, mental health, postgraduate studies, sociology. Tagged: #phdisabled, academia, accessibility, disability studies, disabled students, disabling structures, emancipatory research, feminist research, inclusion, mental health, stress, Uncategorised. 1 Comment

“Ethically, I believe that emancipatory work and social justice should be at the heart of everything we are doing – and that goes for people outside and inside the academy.”

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In memory of John Hull

Posted by Naomi J. on August 19, 2015
Posted in: disability theology, research. 3 Comments
Professor John Hull at the International Seminar for Religious Education and Values, Netherlands, 2006. Photo from his website at http://www.johnmhull.biz/ .

Professor John Hull, 2006. Photo from his website at http://www.johnmhull.biz/ .

Professor John Hull died last week.

Anyone who’s read my writing will not need an introduction to John Hull. I reference and quote him constantly. He was an inspired, innovative, critical and very thought-provoking theologian who approached disability and Christian theology in entirely new ways. He was blind, and spoke about disability and the Bible from a personal viewpoint as well as a theological one – reminding me that theology is always personal. He helped me to believe that I could research disability and Christianity in ways that could actually have impacts on the churches.

I was fortunate enough to hear John Hull speak twice, both times at the Inclusive Church/St Martin-in-the-Fields conference on disability and Christianity. I will always remember something John said at the first conference where I heard him. He was speaking critically, boldly, about the ways in which the gospels fail disabled people. Giving me permission to criticise too, through the power of his very honest speech. No cushioning here, no efforts to make other people more comfortable about their bigotry – instead, clear accusations of harm that the Bible has done through the ages.

And then a reference to the one incident from the gospels where he felt that Jesus finally understood him, as a blind man. When Jesus was blindfolded by the soldiers who taunted him and said “Prophesy!” As John said, while it wasn’t a full sharing of his experiences, “It showed willing.”

Sometimes it feels like Jesus and I constantly shuffle around each other awkwardly, never quite connecting with each other. The more I study the gospel healing narratives, and the modern experiences of disabled Christians, and the further I personally get from Christianity, the more alienated we often are from each other. Yet we’ll never be strangers. Because there’s always an echo in the gospels of the Jesus who shows willing. Who tells me I can criticise as well as celebrate. I’m very grateful for John Hull for showing me that.

Or, in his own words: “My relationship to God has become more intimate, but I had to overcome the sense that darkness is an alienating experience. I began to think of darkness as a time of intimacy, warmth, enclosure. It is in the darkness that we are with the ones we love and trust. Gradually, my image of Jesus Christ, my spiritual understanding of discipleship underwent a change as I fastened my imagination upon certain incidents in the life of Jesus, principally the blindfolded Christ.” – John Hull

There is another Inclusive Church/St Martin’s disability conference in October, and no doubt we’ll be sharing memories of John there. More info here later, or follow the website link below.

http://inclusive-church.org.uk/disability-conference-2015

Neuroqueering Academia! Conference Accessibility – Pt 1: Neurodiversity

Posted by Naomi J. on June 18, 2015
Posted in: academia, disability theory, disabled students. Tagged: #phdisabled, academia, accessibility, conferences, disability, disability studies, disabling structures, higher education, inclusion, mad studies, mobility access, neurodiversity access, normalcy, phd-doing, social model of disability, studying, Uncategorised. 9 Comments

This is the beginning of a series of blog posts on disability and academia, partly based on recent experiences I’ve had as a disabled/neurodivergent attender of academic conferences. Part 2 will be about physical access (oh, and how much fun I’ve had with that over the past year). And there will be a part with recommendations. This part, though, is about my experiences of neurodiversity access at conference. It’s going to be a long one, so I’m dividing it up with headings – readers can jump to the section that they’re most interested in.

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The Missing People

Posted by Naomi J. on May 12, 2015
Posted in: research. 13 Comments
Picture of empty church. By J.Guffogg & J.Hannan-Briggs - CC.

Picture of empty church. By J.Guffogg & J.Hannan-Briggs – CC.

Later edit: Please note that I have now finished the interviewing stage of my research. I was delighted that some people with mental health problems came forward to volunteer to be interviewed. Their experiences are forming part of my conclusions about disability and exclusion from churches.

There’s a missing group of people in my research into disability and churches, so far. It’s Christians with mental health problems.

I know from both existing research and personal/second-hand experience that churches can have varying responses to people experiencing mental health problems. There’s already some research and writing on the subject, but most of the academic research focuses on what churches are doing and comes from a medical ‘care’ perspective (or a ‘recovery’ perspective). I’d really like to contribute to better understanding of people’s lived experiences – of what’s really going on for Christians with mental health problems. I hope this will be helpful for them, and for churches.

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Calling for a real #fullaccesschurch

Posted by Naomi J. on April 26, 2015
Posted in: disability, research, sociology of religion. Tagged: access, accessibility, churches, disability, disability and churches, disability studies, disabling structures, inclusion, inclusive worship, mobility access, social model of disability. 4 Comments

Yesterday, the fantastic user-led organisation Disability and Jesus held a twitter action to encourage churches to think more about access for disabled people. The twitter tag was #fullaccesschurch – you can still go there are see the exciting, imaginative and involved discussions we had there about disability access to churches.

I ended up having a bit of a discussion with someone who said their church couldn’t afford access adaptations. Meanwhile, the wonderful Anne Memmot has written about focusing on access for those with other impairments, rather than letting the expensive ones distract us from doing anything. I understand both these perspectives. But I want to present a different perspective, from my vantage point as someone who no longer attends church, largely because I got sick of the terrible access everywhere I went, and having to fight for my right to get in through almost every church door I encountered.

I’ve been into some very well-off churches. One London church comes to mind where they installed a full cafe in the basement, with no mobility access to it, and began to hold all their Bible study and social groups there. Hint: there would have been no cost attached to holding a few groups in the wheelchair-accessible sanctuary and having some basic tea and coffee facilities upstairs. But they hadn’t thought of this – because it wasn’t important to them.

The official number of wheelchair users in the UK is 1.2 million (according to statistics collected in 2000 – the number is likely to have risen by now, with our ageing population). But that doesn’t include all the hundreds of thousands of part-time wheelchair users, electric scooter users, crutch and stick users, and many others with restricted mobility who benefit from mobility adaptations. I suspect the number of mobility-impaired people is actually much, much higher  – especially as other statistics show that 27% of young disabled people have a disability relating to mobility. That’s a lot of us disabled folks who are moblity-impaired in some way. Add older people, of whom a huge number use sticks, scooters etc, and you have a lot of people who can benefit from relatively cheap portable ramps and some thought put into where groups are held.

And now think about all the other people who benefit from mobility-friendly environments. Parents with children, including developmentally delayed older children. Older people who aren’t ready to define as having mobility impairments, but still appreciate flat access. People with other impairments, such as visual impairments, who can fall on badly-designed steps.

Many adaptations cost almost nothing – as Anne Memmot says. This is important for churches to know and think about. There are things they can do that will help a lot of people, for not a great deal of money – and sometimes for free.

But we have to face the fact that some adaptations do have a cost attached. Ramps may cost a few hundred pounds, more if they’re architecturally tricky. Hearing-aid loops may be about £1000 or a little more. The right kind of lighting for visually impaired and autistic people will have some cost attached. Basic toilet adaptations like grip-handles are not unaffordable but also not free. Large-print or easy-read Bibles are worthwhile for many congregations but will cost some money.

I don’t accept the argument that churches can’t afford adaptations. While not all churches are rich, it’s interesting that they can usually afford what’s important to them. At a group discussion I was at yesterday, a father of a wheelchair-using child spoke about the cost issue. “Cost?” he said. “You want to talk about cost? Jesus died for us!” The fact that churches don’t balk at putting in expensive cafe facilities, but do at disability access adaptations, shows what they value. And that’s often the comfort of the non-disabled people of God over the access of another part of the Body.

I, for one, am tired of the resistant tone and serious faces attached whenever I bring up access – especially mobility access. Stop talking to me about it as though I’m asking too much. If you woke up tomorrow and could no longer get into your local church, along with millions of other people who suddenly couldn’t get into their local churches, the world would hear about it very quickly. But disabled people, including mobility-impaired people, are always accused of asking too much of the churches. I don’t believe that we are. I believe we’re asking for our civil rights under British law, our human rights under European law, and justice from the people of God.

When people say “Access isn’t all about wheelchairs,” they’re absolutely right. We need to talk about all the other ways that people can be included. And as Anne Memmot says, that can be achieved for very little money. Some of it is even free. But not all of it will be free. So I’ll keep fighting for a truly #fullaccesschurch, with full access for ALL.

Whose ministry is your church missing out on, all because they can’t get in through the door or up to the pulpit?

Including Everyone in my Research

Posted by Naomi J. on April 23, 2015
Posted in: disability, emancipatory research, research. Tagged: accessibility, disability and churches, experience, inclusion, interviews, research. Leave a comment

Later edit: Please note that I have now finished interviewing. I am so grateful to all the people who were willing to be interviewed and share their stories with me. The results are on the way!

Although I can’t include absolutely everyone in my research, I’m making an attempt to make the research accessible to as many people as possible. I’m now moving away from discussion groups. Instead, I’m mainly interviewing people one-to-one, either in person or online. Here’s why.

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Former Christian/ex-Christian and disabled? I’d love to hear from you

Posted by Naomi J. on April 6, 2015
Posted in: church practice, former christians, research, research discussions. Tagged: churches, ex-christians, experience, interviews, representation, research. 1 Comment

Later edit: Please note that I have now finished interviewing. I am so grateful to all the people who were willing to be interviewed and share their stories with me. The results are on the way!

In my interviews about disability and Christianity so far, one important group is very under-represented: people who used to be Christians, but aren’t anymore. When looking at the way churches treat disabled people, those who haven’t stayed are just as important as those who have – and each group is likely to have quite different views.

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  • Naomi Lawson Jacobs

    I'm a disabled and autistic researcher.

    My research for my PhD looked at the experiences of disabled Christians in churches, from a critical disability studies perspective. I am now working on a book about the research, sharing disabled people's own stories of churches and Christianity.
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