Episode 10: Heather Morgan and Erin Raffety

The Mad and Crip Theology Podcast

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On our tenth episode of The Mad and Crip Theology Podcast, Amy and Miriam speak with Heather Morgan and Erin Raffety, two contributors to the Fall 2021 issue of The Canadian Journal of Theology, Mental Health and Disability.
Heather's article: Disability and Gregory of Nazianzus’s Oration 14: No Body Without Our Bodies offers a reading of Gregory of Nazianzus’ Oration 14: On Love of the Poor through the lens of disability theology. Though it initially served as a fundraising speech to build one of the first ever Christian hospitals, this Oration is much more than that. Amongst his plea for donors, Nazianzus calls for a new theological understanding of those with abled and disabled bodies within the life of the Church. Interleafing modern disability experiences with this early Christian text, this paper invites readers to embrace a counter-cultural model of disability and ability, and our mutually interdependent membership in the Body of Christ.
Erin's article: Listening Even Unto Rebuke. In 2020, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic and racialized violence by the police against Black citizens in the United States, a white college classmate of mine publicly apologized to a Black classmate for failing to acknowledge racism that happened nearly twenty years ago while we were students. Our Black classmate responded that it was too little too late. That incident caused me to begin to think about the witness of holy rebuke that often looks like mere condemnation but also acts as relational bid, humanizing the oppressor by calling them to accountability. As I revisited my research on disabled ministers and leaders, I started to see how the unruliness of lament in church spaces was often unable to be heard by the church, because it smacked of rebuke. However, I am convinced this is the Spirit’s wisdom and grace in translating lament: it offers oppressed peoples the opportunity to press prophetically in on oppressors and oppressors the invitation to repent as they grapple with being complicit in oppression. Of course, churches want to include disabled people when it is easy to do so. But to listen unto rebuke is vital if the Church really wants to be transformed.
All articles are available here https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cjtmhd/issue/view/2302

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