Disability, inclusion and the Christian Church: practice, paradox or promise

In Western society, Christian Churches historically have been, and contemporarily are, involved with people perceived with disability. While they may practise biblical ethical imperatives such as care, compassion, mercy, support, welfare and charity, Churches have, paradoxically, only minimally offered cohesive or explicit moral notions for the 'inclusion' of people with disability in communities. Importantly, Churches have paid little attention to the historical construction of 'exclusion'. This paper proposes that matrices of patriarchal theology and patriarchal ethics continue to sustain structural positions of societal exclusion for people with disability because of implicit assumptions and values in the matrices about difference and different bodies. By examining a conjunction between feminism and disability around the issue of embodiment, the paper contends that 'inclusion' needs to be explored through the formation and embracing of matrices of feminist theology and feminist ethics.