Articles

Opinion: Embracing Our Neighbors with Disabilities Enriches "Home" for Us All

by Mark Crenshaw
Faith And The City E-Letter
Volume 1 Issue 4
July 8, 2002

Home is the place you go where they want to welcome you in, call you by name, and set a place for you at the table. People with disabilities want to find "home" in their chosen communities of faith, and our families of faith are not complete unless this is possible. When we make "home" for people with disabilities, we also make "home" a more enriching experience for everyone. People with disabilities offer gifts and teach lessons that are important for all. Yet, we know that our families of faith have not always remembered to make a place at the table for our neighbors -- our sisters, brothers, and friends -- who live with disabilities.

A 2001 survey -- commissioned by Harris Research and the National Organization on Disability -- found that 84 percent of people with disabilities cite their religious faith as an important part of their lives. But only 47 percent of people with disabilities attend a religious service at least one time per month. This compares to 65 percent of people without disabilities who attend religious service one time per month. We cannot pretend to know all of the reasons for this discrepancy, but at least some have to do with barriers that people with disabilities face when they attempt to attend the faith community of their choice. There are many communities in the Atlanta metro area doing creative work to welcome people with disabilities, but there is still much to be done.

Barriers to the participation of people with disabilities can take many shapes. They may be barriers of architecture, such as lack of a ramp and accessible bathroom. They may be roadblocks to communication, such as the lack of a sound system in good working order.

Barriers can also occur due to the attitudes of members of the congregation. We must ask whether the faith community welcomes the stranger with a disability to fully participate in the life of the congregation. Barriers reach beyond the physical and the obvious. People with disabilities desire and need all the same things from their faith communities that people without disabilities need. The next question must be: "What can faith communities do to become places of hospitality to people who live with disabilities?"

How can we make "home" possible for more members of our human family?

Physical access is a very important step on the journey to providing "home" for people with disabilities in our faith communities. Let's face it, if people with disabilities cannot enter the house of worship then the rest of our discussion is irrelevant. Yet, I would not label physical access as the most important step on the road to full-inclusion. The most important step that faith communities can take is to welcome people who live with disabilities as sisters, brothers, and friends -- as members of a community of equals. Our communities must seek to provide "home" to people with disabilities who have often found themselves "home-less," without a community in which to practice their faith, use their gifts, and serve their communities.

Accessibility is, at its core, a conversation about hospitality. Who will we, as people of faith, choose to welcome into our congregations? Are we building communities in which all people are welcome to come, worship, share their gifts, express their fears and, most of all, participate with their families of faith in a place called "home"?

The vision of the Interfaith Disabilities Network is that communities will choose to continue to create "home" for people with disabilities and, by doing so, enrich the lives of those with and without disabilities. I hope that you and members of your community will join us in this important work.

Mark Crenshaw is director of the Interfaith Disabilities Network with the Atlanta Alliance on Developmental Disabilities. He can be reached at 404-881-9777 x231 or via e-mail at mark@aadd.org.