As many of you will know, I am currently stydying for a Masters in Missional Leadership and European Studies. Last term’s module was on how trinitarian theology informs missional theology. Each term, there’s an essay question to answer the following question.

Critically explore a trinitarian approach to inclusivity, as a key characteristic of missional communities [approx. 2/3rds of the word count]. Evaluate how this applies/might apply to your own ministry context [approx. 1/3rd word count].

I’ve reproduced my answer here, as some may be interested! I chose one aspect of inclusivity – disability and tried to engage with some of the most well known disability theologians of recent years…

Missional Communities are a paradox of a strong sense of shared identity and belonging, and a purpose to reach out to those not yet part of the community an essential part of that community. Identity, belonging and purpose are held in tension. Most Churches are not missional communities, instead being inward looking and pastorally focused. In the post-Christendom age, a missional community must retain a strong identity as the called-out people of God, while being hospitable and actively welcoming to those not part of the Christian community. Inclusivity is therefore a key characteristic of a missional community. The development of trinitarian theology over the last century has much to shape what that inclusivity looks like.

Many of the scholars tackling trinitarian theologies around inclusivity are not evangelical. Like Cox (2009, p12), I utilise an evangelical approach, assuming the Bible faithfully records the words of God. As Amos Yong argues (2007, p22) “Theologians of disability can neither simply give up on the Bible nor allow traditional interpretations of disability to be perpetuated in our churches.”

This essay takes inclusivity to mean a wide open and welcoming door to the community so people can belong before believing the Gospel and following Jesus as Lord. There are many categories of society where people have not felt included in missional communities: race, gender, sexuality and disability. This essay engages with trinitarian approaches to disability inclusion as a key characteristic of missional communities.

Vanier observed that it would not be long before there would be no children with Down Syndrome in France, as they will all have been aborted. One, John responded, “That doesn’t make us feel very welcome, does it?” (Hauerwas, Vanier 2008, Kindle location 57). Chalke (2006, p31) describes inclusion as “essentially the task of working with and involving others – counting them in rather than out.” His view of inclusion loses the integrity of identity and belonging to Jesus as Lord. Volf (1994, p60) differentiates between a false ideology of inclusion as part of the myth of progress, countering with the metaphor of embrace, where Christ as victim made space in himself for the enemy. Inclusivity is the will to embrace othersi, and a key characteristic of missional communities because the Triune God is inclusive due to the divine interpenetration of the persons of the Trinity.

According to Karl Barth (1975, p301), “the doctrine of the Trinity is what basically distinguishes the Christian doctrine of God as Christian.” That statement highlights the Trinity isn’t just an abstract doctrine fought over during the first four centuries of the church, it is the “constitutive doctrine” for followers of Christ (Clark, 2015 p52). Trinitarian theology is the key lens for everything, shedding light on inclusion and mission. Two main threads of Trinitarian theology, the social and economic trinity are examined for inclusivity. The Trinity addresses “Who is God?” and therefore “Who are we?” as imago Dei. As will be seen, some theological approaches conflate the Trinity to a mere metaphor for human relationships (Clark, 2015 p52), whilst others theologians fall into the trap of re-making God in our image.

The Economic Trinity is a way of understanding the trinity in terms of how each person of the Trinity is active and revealed in creation, redemption and the eventual final consummation (Baik, 2011, p15). Western theologians have emphasised this aspect of Trinitarian theology. It starts with an affirmation of monotheism in the divine unity of God and moves to the three persons. (Zscheile, 2012a p14) The economic trinity is sending by nature. The Father sends the Son and the Father and the Son send the Spirit (John14:26). If God is a sending God, communities a sent people.

One aspect of being a sent people is hospitality (philoxenia). The Greek word philoxenia literally means to love the stranger/foreigner by providing a welcome and befriending. Reynolds (2008, p14) is quick to point out that this is “not as a spectacle, but as someone with inherent value, loved into being by God, created in the image of God and this having unique gifts to offer as human being.” Being a sent people can lead Christians to exhibit an arrogance that they have all the answers and to treat everyone else as needy. Reynolds (2008, p23) describes a wheelchair user’s experience of a healing ceremony where the person was made a spectacle and thus the subject of awkward gazes and whispered questions. They were left with a deep resentment of God and Christians, hardly an inclusive approach. The author recalls a friend with Motor Neurone Disease being prayed for with the laying on of hands by four of five people. He wasn’t asked whether it was okay for the hands on his body. The physical touch was extremely painful and the pained look he gave me once they had finished left a mark on me.

A key encounter in the Gospels is when Jesus asked a blind man “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51). Jesus did not assume he wanted to be healed of blindness. The question gave dignity to the man, who was then healed. However, Reynolds (2008 p24) argues that disability is not a personal tragedy that calls for healing. Yong (2007, p23) a Pentecostal theologian whose son has Down Syndrome argues that Scripture teaches that disabilities represent all that is unholy and imperfect before God and that Jesus’ healings of people with disabilities “may serve to confirm a number of traditional stereotypes of passive, pitiable objects fully dependent on God’s redemptive healing.” He does contrast that with the parable of the great banquet where the maimed, lame and blind are invited, but only after the “normal” people didn’t come. Disability theologians often argue against the need for healing and see missional communities that have an emphasis on healing as not at all inclusive. They argue impairments are intrinsic to a person’s being and therefore should not be cured or healed. This is often from a liberal or cessationist perspective. Yong (2007, p24) writes of people with disabilities considered by those with “ableist notions” to be less than whole and needing cure before being fully included in the Kingdom of God. For inclusivity to be a key aspect of missional communities, considering the unity in diversity of the Trinity will help alleviate looking down on those with impairments is seeing them need healing as a body adjustment to become normal. (Reynolds 2008, p26) However, taking the teaching of the New Testament seriously must still allow for people with disabilities to be healed of their impairments if they desire. Jesus healed persons with disabilities but treated them with dignity and often asks what they want. This introduces the idea that a sending model is about ministry “with”, rather than ministry “for”. Inclusivity treats all with dignity as people created in the image of God, which will be explored later.

Western Evangelical theologians tend to see the Trinity working within the church, sending the church on mission. It can give a blind spot to ways in which God is working outside of the church drawing creation towards Christ (Lord, 2012, p114).

Social Trinitarians think about the Immanent Trinity, referring to the inner relationships within the Trinity. This is often explained with the Greek word “perichoresis”, referring to the mutual indwelling of the three divine persons. Perichoresis literally means whirl, rotation or dance. In Trinitarian thinking it describes the dynamic mutuality, equality, openness and shared participation of the Father, Son and Spirit. Thus, for prominent Eastern theologian John Zizoulas “The being of God is a relational being: without the concept of communion, it would not be possible to speak of the being of God.” (Zscheile, 2012a, p14). The creation of humanity is for community with God and one another. This is in its very nature inclusive, but has the danger that God needs creation to be God – nullifying the evangelical doctrines of God’s simplicity and self-sufficiency.

Leonardo Boff, a Liberation theologian, roots his Trinitarian thinking in the relational trinity drawing humanity in the direction of the triune God. His perichoresis model starts with the divine relationships and then follows in the unity. He thus creates a model for a just egalitarian missional community (Lord, 2012, p115).

Rahner’s famous statement “The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity” brings Eastern and Western thinking together. (cited by Grenz 2003, p16) Considering the ideas of economic and immanent Trinity together has produced rich scholarship and many different positions – Baik (2011, pI) identifies seven. Grenz (cited in Baik 2011, p13-14) attempted to conceptualise the relationship between the Immanent Trinity (God in eternity) with the economic (God in salvation) in a way that holds onto the importance of the latter for the former and avoids collapsing the other way round of the freedom of the eternal God.

That leads to the problems brought by Eiesland and Yong to trinitarian disability theology, and inclusivity as a key characteristic of missional communities. Cox I will argue brings some helpful answers.

Before getting to grips with Eiesland’s “Disabled God” as model of inclusion, an examination into what many disability theologians think disability is required. Reynolds (2008, p26) and others argue that modernity made disability a medical issue to be fixed. He contends for disability to be thought of in a social model as a socially constructed category and human rights issue. The argument is that a person may have an impairment, but it becomes a disability when there are barriers to doing things. A wheelchair user is disabled by the lack of access.

This is helpful in thinking through the impact of inclusivity in the missional communities. Accessibility barriers need to be removed that hinder people with disabilities unable to be included. It also challenges the assumption that everyone with an impairment wants or even needs to be healed of that impairment. Disability theologians write a lot about “ableist” thinking, which looks down on those who are not as able.

The issue with this kind of contending that post-modern thinking means a move from a medical model to a social model is that Jesus healed all who came to him with disabilities – the blind, the deaf, the mute and the crippled. Jesus operated in a pre-modern world in that medical model!

The point is well made that Imago Dei is oft considered to be about rationality. Does that mean that a person with intellectual disability is less made in the image of God than someone who is neuro-typical? Disability theologians argue that people with disabilities threaten the modern self, revealing the false ideas of normalcy. In contrast to image Dei, being about rationality, the mutual interpenetration of the divine Persons gives us an inclusive communion where each person receives everything from the Other and at the same time is giving everything to the Other. Moltmann and LaCugna show us that as God’s being is relational, so is our being. They like Reynolds (2008, p14) point to the fact that humanity is radically dependent on each other, “I am because we are.” Perichoresis means that imago Dei is more about the capacity for relationships, than rational capacity. That still begs the question of imago Dei for conditions like Autism – which are is picked up by Harshaw.

Nancy Eiesland’s 1994 “Disabled God” broke the ground in disability theology, but suffers with flawed Trinitarian thinking. She lived with a congenital disability and wrote of the trite things Christians say about being special in God’s eyes, being whole in heaven and the character-building nature of her disability (Eiesland, 2004 p3-6). Her thesis is that Jesus is the disabled God because He bears the resurrection scars, as “marks of profound physical impairment.” Her book seeks to change the way in which persons with disabilities are treated within the church. This is commendable but she does so in way that contends that the Bible has been dangerous for people with disabilities. She argues that God becomes inclusive through the disability imputed to his being. For Eiesland, the disabled Jesus’ “resurrection offers hope that our non-conventional, and sometimes difficult, bodies participate fully in the imago Dei…God is changed by the experience of being a disabled body.” (Eiesland, 1994 p107).

Eiesland’s conception of Jesus as the disabled deity fails with its lack of trinitarian thinking.  She does not consider the implications for the Father and the Spirit, so God appears more mono than triune (Clark, 2015 p53). Another problem relates to Jesus’ human and divine natures. Was it Jesus’ human or divine nature that is disabled?

The social and economic Trinity reveal a diversity in the unity, which is a better model for inclusion, whereby differences can be celebrated and honoured. Eiesland’s logic is that the economic work of God in Jesus is determinative of who God is rather than a demonstration of who God is eternally (the Immanent Trinity). That leaves us with a God in our image rather than us in God’s image.

Eiesland finds comfort in Jesus being disabled for eternity. But where’s the hope for many of a Jesus who is the disabled God in heaven? And what kinds of disability? How can a deaf God hear our prayers? How can a mute God speak to us through the Spirit? How can a depressed God intercede for us?

Eiesland’s thesis that the resurrected Christ is the disabled God provides little hope for those who are suffer in their impairments. She, alongside other disability theologians, contend that in eternity people with disabilities will still have those impairments, but the social stigma will be gone. That may be a comfort for some people with disabilities but definitely not all.

Jesus’ resurrection body is arguably more able than before the cross. He can appear and disappear and walk through walls. Cox (2009, p81) argues that Jesus’ resurrection body is the model of the resurrection body of believers described by Paul in 1 Cor 15. The resurrection body is not bound by mortal limitations, no longer subject to decay and thus not dis-abled. Jesus is exalted not humiliated in his resurrection state. For Cox, the scars are significant, but not in the way Eiesland argues. Instead of a visible sign of disability, they remain to identify Jesus and reassure the disciples that he is the risen Christ who was crucified. Jesus is the suffering servant and conquering King and the scars reminded those who saw them that Jesus’ Messiahship and conquest of death was dependent on the cross.

Cox (2009, p12-13) argues that Jesus is the disabled God, but centred on the crucifixion and not the resurrection. For those six hours with eternal destiny, Jesus took on disability. The cross was a significant impairment – excruciating pain, unable to move, barely able to breath, needing help to eat or drink, he was blindfolded at arrest, scourged (similarly the bleeding woman is described as scourged). He went to his death mute and thus bore many of the disabling conditions humans experience. Smalley (2001, p104) put it well “One could argue that Jesus hanging on the cross at the time of his Crucifixion had taken on the persona of a man with multiple disabling conditions. Jesus’ vulnerability links him with all those who are helpless and vulnerable. God’s plan called for Jesus to both come into the world and leave the world as one who was totally helpless.”

Jesus’ resurrection body is freed from the limitations of mortal bodies, whilst recognisably Him. Traditional theology posits resurrection bodies in Edenic perfection, aged thirty. Powell (2021, p103) in critiquing Eiesland’s resurrection bodies with disabilities, writes of a “glorification or perfection of mutual care, interdependence, and vulnerability.” She hints at improvement over eternity and sees it as authentic identity with the Three Divine persons in participation in perichoresis.

What happened to Jesus on the cross has become part of the history of God in the trinity. (Moltmann 2007, p225) God who is limitless and ultimately able, chose to suffer with us and be broken for us. Using a Trinitarian approach to consider disability inclusion is far more helpful. The persons of the Trinity are distinct, so the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit and so on, but they interweave and interpenetrate each other, respecting and honouring the difference. There is an eternal embrace in the triune God (Volf, 1994 p131) The cross is the place where the Triune God embrace his beloved enemy and welcome humanity to participate in perichoresis. All are individual and autonomous but interdependent on each other. Therefore, Cox’s understanding of the disabled God is a more hope-filled richly trinitarian expression of God’s love for all humanity, than Eiesland’s.

Each disability scholar is coloured and somewhat limited by their own disability experiences. Eiesland grew up with a congenital condition and trite Christian platitudes. She wants disabled people rightly to not have to experience that and critiques the ableist colouring of theology. But what of someone who experiences disability through significant trauma. Joni Eareckson Tada writes of the hope of a resurrection body without a spinal cord injury and paralysis. Her broken paralysed body the seed of a new resurrected body (Tada, 2018 p55). Inclusivity needs to take account of differing conceptions of what it means to be disabled and the differing eschatological hopes. All should be treated with dignity, welcome and humility.

To sum up, the economic trinity demonstrates to us that churches must be a sent people a missional community, sent into the world on a mission to bless every family on the earth (Gen 12:1-3) and to make disciples of every people group. The immanent trinity shows us that there is unity in the diversity and the perichoretic dance between the persons of the Trinity who invites us to whirl and dance with people of every description, making inclusivity a key characteristic of missional communities.

Evaluate how this applies/might apply to your own ministry context

The author’s ministry context is a local church. Scriptural metaphors for church include: temple, body and people of God. As Fiddes (2003, p70) suggests each of the closely related metaphors are related to the Trinity – the body is of the Son. The image of the temple is as the temple of the Spirit, indwelling the church. The idea of the people of God begins with relationship to the Father. The perichoresis idea of the Trinity as a participation dance in the life of God helps to earth an inclusive approach to people with disabilities. That dance can be a circle dance, inward looking and maintaining existing relationships and ways of doing things. But the more Eastern way of looking at the trinity with its dynamic inter-relationships makes it more of a progressive dance (Hobden, 2020 p124). That means that people are seen less as like us or unlike us but being with each other, growing into the image of Christ.

The DWP estimates 23% of the UK population is disabled, up from 16% ten years previously, due to an ageing population (DWP, 2024).  It is therefore vital a missional community makes inclusivity of disabilities a key characteristic.

The Church is body of Christ and the Apostle Paul encourages members of the body of Christ to give greater honour and treat with modesty the various parts of the body (1 Cor 12:23). Just as the perichoretic idea of the Trinity is interdependent, the people of God are all interdependent and equally valued.

How do missional communities like mine view the nature of salvation especially for people with intellectual disabilities or those who cannot speak? Jesus is looking for a response of childlike faith. Belief in the Gospel has a pistis (faith) and a gnosis (knowledge) component. As Yong (2007 p235) argues “All can have a pistis relationship with God through Jesus even though they may not be able to articulate that in terms of gnosis.” Normally new Christians are expected to be able to articulate a testimony of how they came to faith before the practice of believer’s baptism. An inclusive approach will make allowances for differing cognitive awareness of their story without making the individual a spectacle. Our baptistry will not be accessible for all physically and so we have different ways of baptising including the local beach as well as our tank. Perhaps we will one day do a baptism in the hydrotherapy pool in our local complex needs school.

In recent years, we have worked hard at being welcoming to families with additional needs children, especially those with autism. Two of our autistic children are involved in the Sound team, which is a positive example of inclusivity being about ministry “with” not “for.”

As a charismatic church we take seriously the encouragement of 1 Cor 14:26 for body ministry and therefore a less formal programme or liturgy to our services. That can be hard for someone on the autistic spectrum to cope with. Thinking of ways of making spontaneity not a stumbling block to including people with autism is a challenge!

As a reformed charismatic church, we value preaching from the Bible, with sermons of 30-45mins length as typical. That cognitive, rational didactic approach to preaching is less inclusive to people with intellectual impairment.

As a church we practice healing prayer and encourage our congregation to pray for people in and preferably out of the Sunday context. We understand healing to be a demonstration of the Gospel often done as a precursor to preaching the gospel in the New Testament. Yong (2007, p245) sees a difference between disability on one hand and sickness, illness and disease on the other. He proposes one can be improved and one can’t. Citing Block (in Yong 2007, p245) he writes of curing the physical and healing the holistic. I recall one family who were going through a diagnosis for their autistic daughter. At the time they asked me to pray for her, but now would be very against praying for autism to be healed. Jesus’ approach to the blind man “What do you want me to do for you?” is instructive.

There is clearly much that has been left out in considering a trinitarian approach to inclusivity as a key characteristic of missional communities – how Imago Dei relates to profound disability for one. To conclude the economic trinity shows us missional communities are a sent people, the immanent Trinity reveals a complex dance and relationality that means we are sent in humility to walk alongside not over, to be outward looking and welcoming and to treating people with dignity.

References

Baik, C-H (2011) The Holy Trinity – God for God and God for Us. Eugene:Pickwick Publications.

Barth, K. (1975) Church Dogmatics Volume 1 GW Bromiley Translation, Edinburgh: T&T Clark.

Clark, J. (2015) “A disabled Trinity”— help or hindrance to disability theology?, St. Mark’s Review: A journal of Christian thought and opinion, 232 (2), pp. 50-64.

Cox, J.A. (2009) The ‘Disabled God’:An exploration and critique of the image of Jesus Christ as the ‘disabled God’ as presented by Nancy Eiesland. Murdoch: Murdoch University. Available at https://researchportal.murdoch.edu.au/esploro/outputs/graduate/The-Disabled-God-An-exploration-and/991005541700007891, (Accessed 10^th April 2024).

DWP (2024) Family Resources Survey: financial year 2022 to 2023. Available at:https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-resources-survey-financial-year-2022-to-2023/family-resources-survey-financial-year-2022-to-2023#disability-1. (Accessed 15^th April 2024).

Eiesland, N. (2004) Encountering the disabled God, Bible In Transmission Journal, Spring 2004, p4-6.

Fiddes (2003) Tracks and Traces: Baptist Identity in Church and Theology. Milton Keynes: Paternoster.

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Hauerwas, S., Vanier, J. (2008) Living gently in a violent world. Kindle eBook, Downers Grove: IVP.

Hobden, M. D. (2020) When I am among friends, I am least disabled. Available at https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:327863&datastreamId=FULL-TEXT.PDF, (Accessed 8 April 2024).

Lord, A (2012) Network Church: A Pentecostal ecclesiology shaped by mission.  Leiden: Koninklijke Brill.

Moltmann, J. (1993) Trinity and the Kingdom of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Reynolds, T. (2008) Vulnerable Communion. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press.

Swinton, J., Hauerwas, S. (2005) Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas’ Theology of Disability. 1st edn, Abigdon: Routledge.

Swinton, J. (2011) Who is the God we worship? Theologies of Disability; Challenges and New Possibilities. IJPT, DOI 10.1515/IJPT.2011.020.

Tada, J.E. (2018) Heaven. Grand Rapids:Zondervan.

Volk, M. (1994) Exclusion and Embrace: A theological exposition of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation. Nashville: Abingdon Press.

Yong, A. (2007) Theology and Down Syndrome. Baylor: Baylor University Press.

Zscheile, D. J. (2012a) ‘A missional theology of Spiritual formation.’, Luther Seminary Faculty Publications, 302.. Available at: https://digitalcommons.luthersem.edu/faculty_articles/302, (Accessed 10^th April 2024).

Bibliography

Baik, C-H (2011) The Holy Trinity – God for God and God for Us. Eugene:Pickwick Publications.

Cox, J.A. (2017) Jesus The Disabled God. Eugene: Resource Publications.

Dodds, A. (2017) The Mission of the Triune God. Eugene: Pickwick Publications.

Holmes, S.R. (2014) Two Views on the Doctrine of the Trinity. 1^st Edn. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Moltmann, J. (2015) The Crucified God. 40^th Anniversary edition. London: SCM Press.

Powell, L. (2021) Disability and Resurrection: Eschatological Bodies, Identity, and Continuity. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, DOI: 10.5840/jsce2021614.

Reynolds, T.E. (2008) Vulnerable Communion. 1^st edn. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press.

Swinton, J., Hauerwas, S. (2005) Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas’ Theology of Disability. 1st edn, Abigdon: Routledge.

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Volf, M. (1997) After our Likeness. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Yong, A. (2007) Theology and Down Syndrome. Baylor: Baylor University Press.