A Seminar Paper on Pastoral Care and Disability

Submitted to: Dr. Mathew C Varghese

Submitted by: Abraham Christopher (MTh 1, H C)

Subject: Theology of Disability

1.1 Introduction

Disability is part of the human condition. Disabilities may be visible or

invisible, and onset can be at birth, or during childhood, working age years or
old age. Pastoral care has an important role to build up the disable persons.
Pastoral ministry is one of the most potent tools in the church, responsible for
communicating ideas, perspectives and attitudes. The attitude and the activities
of Pastors can influence the disable persons. This seminar paper is an study on
Pastoral care and disability.

1.2 Meaning of Disability

Disability is part of the human condition. Everyone is likely to experience it,

either permanently or temporarily, at some point in their life. People with
disabilities are diverse and not defined by their disability. Disabilities may be
visible or invisible, and onset can be at birth, or during childhood, working age
years or old age. There is no single definition of disability. The UN Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) recognises that ‘disability
is an evolving concept’. Persons with disabilities include those who have long-
term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction
with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society
on an equal basis with others.1

1.3 Meaning of Pastoral Care

Pastoral ministry is one of the most potent tools in the church, responsible for
communicating ideas, perspectives and attitudes. Pastors are respected and
given a sacred position within the religious community. 2 The term Pastoral in
1
https://gsdrc.org/topic-guides/disability-inclusion/background/definition-of-disability/
2
Nomatter Sande, “African Journal of Disability,” Pastoral ministry and persons with disabilities: The case of
the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe, 1
Pastoral care comes from the Latin Pastorem, meaning Shepherd, and includes
in its deep etymology the notion of tending to the needs of type vulnerable.
Since the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament were the products of the
pastoral societies, it is perhaps not surprising that the metaphor of the shepherd
emerge as a principal image for religious leadership: Jesus was the good
shepherd, the church his flock. In the early history of the church, Christian
leaders took on the role of the shepherd, caring for the members of the
congregations as a shepherd tends its sheep. Similarly the term care specifies
further the theme at the heart of pastoring-attenctive concern for another. To
care for someone includes the notion of affection, solicitude, accompaniment
and protection.3

1.4 Implications for Special Needs Ministry

1.4.1 Biblical Implications for Special Needs Ministry

Robert Perske has been an influential advocate, author, pastor, and journalist
who has specialized in the areas of pastoral care and religious education for
persons with developmental disabilities for over fifty years. In a 1965
conference, he clearly advocated the concept that the foundational framework
for effective ministry with individuals with developmental disabilities was an
adequate theological view of disabilities. Throughout the past three to four
decades, experts have alluded to this same idea of accurate theology as a
starting point for pastors and church congregations as they seek ways to include
individuals with developmental disabilities in the life and ministry of the
church. An adequate theological view must begin with an accurate
understanding of God's Word as it applies to disabilities. Understanding will
provide empathy and empathy will in tum facilitate acceptance and more
effective ministry with those with disabilities.4

A foundational matter in considering the issue of developmental disabilities and

Pastoral care is to explore the biblical doctrine concerning the image of God in
mankind. In the Old Testament, there are three distinct passages that explicitly
mention the image of God in mankind. The first passage in which the image of
God is addressed is Genesis 1:26-27. In Hebrew, the word Tselem is translated

3
Bonnie J Miller. The Williey Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology (NP:John Willey and Sons LT
Publication, Nd) 269.

4
Bobby Arlan Howard, Pastoral attitudes toward individuals with developmental disabilities (Ann
Arbor:UMf Dissertation Publishing, 2010)18-20.
as “image” and the word Demuth is translated as “likeness”. Genesis 5:1-3 the
Second passage. Genesis 9:6 is the third passage in Genesis in which the image
of God is mentioned. The context of the verse is the condemnation of murder
because all of mankind is created in the image of God.5

1.4.2 Historical Implications for Special Needs Ministry

From the days of the early church period, secular and Christian leaders have
impacted views of disability issues and the treatment of those with
developmental disabilities. These historical leaders have shaped attitudes that
continue to impact positive and negative experiences of those with
developmental disabilities as they seek to be involved in society in general and
a faith community in particular.6

Following the early church period, evidence points toward some degree of
benevolent actions and attitudes from some fourth and fifth century monastic
ordets as they established Christian hospice care and care for the
“feebleminded”. These early care centers were active in caring for the sick and
those with disabilities, but not without some negative results. There was
consistent work done in the area of healing which perpetuated the thought that
individuals with developmental disabilities were sick and in need of healing.
Efforts focused more on healing or segregating these individuals rather than on
assimilating them into their society.7

Throughout Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, literature

points to a waxing and waning effort among Christians to help those with
developmental disabilities primarily through the establishment of institutional
care. The vastness of the problem was likely too overwhelming for the church to
manage as in previous times and the secular society and government began to
play a prominent role in care for those with developmental disabilities. Some
Christian work continued in the area of segregated care for those with
developmental disabilities as is evidenced by the founding of care centers such
as a Quaker retreat center near the end of the eighteenth century in England.
Facilities for the care of individuals with developmental disabilities were
founded on Christian principles and held views that these patients had value and
should be treated as such. Care took on new concepts such as allowing
individuals with disabilities to wear their own clothes rather than institutional
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.,40.
7
Ibid.,40-46.
attire, the leaders guided behaviour using positive reinforcement, and gardening
and animal therapy was implemented in enclosed courtyard settings.

1.5 Attitude of Jesus, a model for Pastoral care

Jesus’ preference for the disabled and the marginalised could be seen in the
description of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus’ reply in response to the query by John the
Baptist regarding the messianic identity of Jesus clearly points to the
importance of the healing persons with disability received in the mission of
Jesus: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the
deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”
Jesus created a kinship with the excluded and the marginalised in the society by
freely mixing with them and accepting them into this new community which he
came to establish.8

The priority given to the poor, the oppressed, the exploited and the marginalized
is emphasized in the first sermon that Jesus preached in the Synagogue at
Nazareth (Lk. 4:16-30). The use of Isa.61:1-2 and 58:6 in Lk.4:18 stresses the
inclusive nature and scope of Jesus’ ministry.9

In the Beatitudes (Mt.5:1-12) at the introduction of the Sermon on the Mount

also we find a similar emphasis on the inclusive community in the teaching of
Jesus. It is noteworthy that although the immediate audience of the Sermon on
the Mount is the disciples of Jesus (Mt.5:1-2), the larger audience consists of
the crowd which included “those who were afflicted with various diseases and
pains, demoniacs, epileptics and paralytics....” (Mt.4:24) Therefore, the people
who are mentioned as “the poor in spirit”, “those who mourn”, “the meek”,
“those who hunger and thirst for justice”, “the pure in heart” etc. could be a
direct reference to these marginalised people. These Beatitudes affirm and
promise the reversal of conditions of the disinherited and marginalised through
the establishment of an inclusive community, the Kingdom of God/Heaven.10

Luke’s Gospel, which seems to have a special concern for persons with
disabilities, took care to include Jesus’ teaching that directly refer to the attitude
towards the disinherited and neglected people of the society. Jesus taught that

8
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264122670_Jesus_and_Persons_with_Disabilities_A_Re-
reading_of_the_Synoptic_Gospels_from_a_Disability_Perspective
9
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264122670_Jesus_and_Persons_with_Disabilities_A_Re-
reading_of_the_Synoptic_Gospels_from_a_Disability_Perspective
10
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264122670_Jesus_and_Persons_with_Disabilities_A_Re-
reading_of_the_Synoptic_Gospels_from_a_Disability_Perspective
the persons with disabilities are the ones who deserve to be invited to the feasts:
“But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the
blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be
repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." (Lk.14:13-14) In order to further
strengthen this teaching, Jesus told another parable (Lk.14:16-24), which
emphasizes the need to treat “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame” as
honoured guests in the banquet. Both these passages affirm the dignity, honour
and personhood of persons with disabilities, who are neglected and ostracized
from the mainstream. These Lucan accounts of the teaching of Jesus
unmistakably focus on the need to celebrate with the persons with disabilities –
to feast, sing and dance with those who are excluded and discriminated from the
society. By accepting them and celebrating with them the demarcating and
discriminating laws of purity and pollution are overthrown and the values of the
Kingdom of God are promoted. It was indeed a powerful challenge to the
existing structures of oppression and exclusion of persons with disabilities. This
could be seen as a stringent criticism and even rejection of the purity laws and
the Temple authorities who controlled the purity system of Judaism. These
actions reveal Jesus’ unity with the marginalised people in resisting their social
exclusion and oppression.

1.6 Dimensions of Pastoral Care

1.6.1 Care is described as “helping acts”

A classic definition of the care of souls, or pastoral care, includes reference to

“helping acts” done by “representative Christian persons” in the context of
“ultimate meanings and concerns.”11 Aspects of this definition can contribute to
broader understandings of care. Most basically, the ancient care of souls
tradition contributed the idea that care is responsive to persons and situations in
need, a quality that follows well from Weil’s analysis of attention.12

1.6.2 Care should be intentional

Care must be used carefully. In particular, those who seek to offer care must be
particularly attentive to challenges arising from the dynamic swirl of complex
relationships, especially those of power and authority, that are inherent in "care"
11
William A. Clebsch and Charles R. Jaekle, Pastoral Care in Historical Perspective: An Essay with Exhibits
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 4.

12
Naom H Annandale, Attending  to  Care: A Pastoral Theological  Responses to Families facing
isabilities(Nashville:NP,2015),184.
interactions. Care is complex and ambiguous, but that is part of its strength.
When it is used as an organizing category, it offers the opportunity of deeply
attending to the ways in which one individual’s personhood intersects with the
personhood of others, and how this intersection might be life giving, rather than
life depleting. By intentionally attending to care, therefore, human beings are
challenged to live conscientiously, attendant to relationships and dependencies.
This intentional approach to care can become a transformative practice that
accepts and carefully responds to persons, families, and groups as individuals,
not as representatives of a type, and by remaining aware of the danger, well
documented in historical work, of devolving into control.

Aware of the dangers of an emphasis on care, intentional care can, instead,

constantly adapt to the particular conditions of individual persons and thus
contribute to “the building of dynamic interrelated communities of well
being.”13

1.6.3 Care should be treated as an epistemological practice

Some thinkers, especially in early feminist ethic of care work, have presented
the practice of care as an unmitigated good. This is unrealistic, unwise, and, in
fact, potentially abusive. Some care, especially care offered thoughtlessly to
people with disabilities, may be unneeded, unwanted, and destructive.
Sometimes, for example, people may simply need supports (systems,
technology, adaptive construction) so that they can care for themselves. Also,
the ethic of care may offer its most illuminating work when it is employed as a
methodology, or an epistemology, rather than an ideal. As an epistemology, the
ethic of care encourages attention to the dynamics of care and lack of care,
power relationships, and the effects of these.14

This approach does not preclude a normative perspective. But beginning with an
epistemological approach means beginning by assuming that care, its
composition, and its effects, aids in understanding human experience not simply
judging it. As an epistemological practice for faith communities, therefore,
intentional care can reveal much about the lives of families facing disabilities,
and thus continually inform and reinform the faith community about how it can
be most helpful for these families, and most faithful to the community’s own
tradition. Epistemological care, then, produces a dynamic that is similar to the
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.,204-205.
work of pastoral theology, in which action and reflection contribute to constant
refinement of pastoral and theological practice.15

1.6.4 Care should be relational

The care perspective assumes that human beings flourish in relationship, that
relationships involve inevitable, sometimes varying dependencies, and that this
web of interdependence is simply an expression of humanity. Intentionally
employing a care epistemology involves attending to relationships,
dependencies, and the dynamic nature of both. This entails looking, for
example, not only at what churches can or should do for families with children
with disabilities, but at what children with disabilities can bring to their
churches; looking, for example, not only at the burden of caregiving that
families bear, but also at how the “good” in those families is “perfected by
care,” as Seneca would say. Additionally, this work entails asking how care
relationships ripple outward into the public, political realm, or how they might,
and what that outward rippling might represent theologically.16

1.7 Pastors responsibities

1.7.1 Correct errors about disability

God’s people often hold and spread wrong ideas about disability that pastors
should address directly. 

1.7.1.1 God does not love people with disabilities. 

This notion is a carryover from pagan beliefs. But the Bible makes it clear that a
disability is not God’s disapproval or punishment upon individuals who are
disabled. He allows disabilities for His intended purposes.17

1.7.1.2 People with disabilities or their parents sinned against God. 

A second wrong idea about the cause of disabilities is seen when someone
asked Jesus whether it was the man born blind or his parents who had sinned.
Jesus responded “neither” and explained that this man’s blindness existed “in
order that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:1–3)

15
Ibid.,206.
16
Ibid.,206-207.
17
https://trainingleadersinternational.org/jgc/31/shepherding-people-with-disabilities
1.7.2 Shepherd People with Disabilities Biblically

1.7.2.1 Evangelize people with disabilities (Matt. 28:18–20)

Pastors must consider how to lead people with disabilities to Christ. Pastors
must not place conditions on our love for persons with disabilities. This is all
too easy to do. For example, Pastors must not lead an unbelieving person with a
disability to think that we will not care about them unless they become a
Christian. This is manipulation and it is wrong. What is more, reaching some
disability groups with the Gospel will require additional commitment and care.18

1.7.2.2 Disciple and train people with disabilities (Eph. 4:11–13) 

People with disabilities need to be in Jesus’ church learning and growing.

Compassionate treatment and mercy ministry should be woven into the fabric of
every thought and deed pertaining to disability, not treated as an additional
component of disability ministry, or (even worse), pitted against evangelism and
discipleship.19

1.8 Conclusion

Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental,
intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers
may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis
with others. Pastors have an important role to encourage these people and bring
them into the mainstream of the society. For that, Pastors nee the attitude of
Jesus Christ. Through evangelizing, disciplining and training Pastors can
influence them and it will be a great encouraging element for them.

Bibliography

Annandale, Naom H. Attending  to Care: A Pastoral Theological Responses to

Families facing isabilities.Nashville, 2015.

Clebsch,William A. and Charles R. Jaekle. Pastoral Care in Historical

Perspective: An Essay with Exhibits. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964.

Howard,Bobby Arlan.Pastoral attitudes toward individuals with developmental

disabilities. Ann Arbor:UMf Dissertation Publishing,2010.
18
https://trainingleadersinternational.org/jgc/31/shepherding-people-with-disabilities
19
https://trainingleadersinternational.org/jgc/31/shepherding-people-with-disabilities
Lynch, Gordon. Pastoral Care & Counselling. Lonon:SAGE Publications, 2002

Miller,Bonnie J. The Williey Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology.John

Willey and Sons LT, Publication.

Redding, Graham. Pastoral Care Hanbook, October 2012.

Article

Sande, Nomatter “African Journal of Disability,” Pastoral ministry and persons

with disabilities: The case of the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe.

Webliography

https://gsdrc.org/topic-guides/disability-inclusion/background/definition-of-
disability/

https://trainingleadersinternational.org/jgc/31/shepherding-people-with-
disabilities