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Disability Theology: What I’m Learning
A Field We Always Needed.
Disability theology is an established field of academic theology. It has major scholars, landmark texts, and a growing body of work that intersects with liberation theology, pastoral care, bioethics, and biblical studies. It has been active for over thirty years.
The field has a central commitment that distinguishes it from most theology written about disability: it speaks from within disabled experience, not about it from the outside. That distinction matters. These are not able-bodied theologians speculating about what disabled people need. These are disabled scholars and their close collaborators doing theology from the ground up.
Let me introduce you to some of them.
Science vs. Religion: On Debate and Genesis
If you grew up like me, knowing that the Bible is the word of God, and then someone tells you that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, it can feel like you have to choose.
You don't have to choose between reason and faith.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t debate between religion and faith.
I’m saying that at the end of the day,
you don’t have to choose a winner and a loser.
There’s a Season for Debate
Debate is one of the only spaces where different perspectives are allowed to exist out loud without requiring resolution.
That's rare. That's valuable.
When religious communities critique science education, they can push scientists and educators to develop clearer, more effective language about what they're actually claiming and what they're not.
And when scientific critique pushes back on religious institutions, it can be the pressure that turns a community from causing harm toward supporting healing.
"Do No Harm”: How it became Wesley's Prime Directive, and then Standard Medical Practice
If you grew up Methodist — or anywhere near Methodist — you've heard the three General Rules.
Do no harm. Do good. Stay in love with God.
They sound like a bumper sticker. They're not. They're a protocol. And the ordering matters more than almost anyone realizes.
I used to think "do no harm" was just a nice way to start a list. Like stretching before a run. Important, sure, but the real work was in the next two — do good, stay in love with God. The action stuff. The exciting stuff.
Then I became a hospital chaplain.
Jonathan Stayed with His Abusive Father. The Bible Doesn't Call That a Mistake. Here's What It Calls It.
Jonathan — prince of Israel, military hero, covenant partner of David — spent his adult life inside a family system that was falling apart. His father Saul was violent, unstable, and increasingly dangerous. Saul tried to kill David, threw a spear at Jonathan, and publicly humiliated him. Jonathan could see what was happening. He was not naive. He was not trapped. He had a way out — David, the future king, his closest person in the world, wanted him. But Jonathan stayed with his father. He stayed with his brothers. He died with them at Gilboa. Interpreters have called this piety, or tragedy, or wasted loyalty. But there is another way to read it: Jonathan stayed because he was grounded. His covenant with David didn't pull him away from his family — it gave him the strength to remain present to them without being destroyed. This is not a story about martyrdom. It is a story about what it looks like to stay in a hard place when you have someone who holds you steady.
One Chaplain's Definition of “Harm”
I know what you're thinking. "Do no harm" sounds like it could mean anything. And you're right — if I don't tell you what I mean by harm, then anyone can fill in their own definition and use it against whoever they want. "Being gay does harm." Done. Framework dismantled.
In other words, I could just point at whatever my opponent is doing, and say “look! That’s harm!”
So let me share a definition of harm.
Not from a theology book. From a hospital.
In the hospital, you learn something about life that changes how you see everything else. You learn that in a clean, nourishing, safe environment, life tends toward certain things. Wounds tend to heal. Muscles tend to relax when the situation relaxes. Hearts tend to hear each other when the room is quiet enough.
You don't make a wound heal. You can't force it. But you can stop making it worse. You can clean the environment. You can remove the thing that's still cutting. You can let the body do what bodies do when they're given half a chance.
That's what I mean by harm: the thing that's still cutting.
And that's what I mean by "do no harm": first, stop making a messy situation worse.