Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep991: Disability, the Church, and the Gospel: Eric Targe

Episode Date: July 18, 2022

Eric Targe gives leadership and oversight to the College (Crossroads) and Disability (139) Ministries at Moody Church in Chicago. He is also an adjunct faculty member of Moody Bible Institute. Originally from New York, Eric has lived in Chicago since 2009. He was born into a Puerto Rican-Jewish family and came to faith during his teen years. Eric is passionate about seeing people come to faith in Christ and grow in the use of their spiritual gifts. Eric has a BA in Theology from Moody Bible Institute and an MDiv from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.  In this episode, Eric and I talk about disability, focusing largely on the Deaf, Deaf culture, a theology of healing, the proper language to use, and how churches can better embody Jesus toward the largest minority population on earth. If you would like to support Theology in the Raw, please visit patreon.com/theologyintheraw for more information!  –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Sign up with Faithful Counseling today to save 10% off of your first month at the link:  faithfulcounseling.com/titr or use code TITR at faithfulcounseling.com –––––– Save 30% at SeminaryNow.com by using code TITR –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review. www.theologyintheraw.com

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is Eric Targe. We had a little mix up on how to pronounce his name. So yes, it's Eric Targe. Eric joined the staff at Moody Church in 2013, where he now gives leadership and oversight to the college and disability ministry. He's also an adjunct faculty member of Moody Bible Institute, where he teaches a class on a theology of disability and ministry. And I explained how I got to know Eric over the last few months. He came out to the Exiles of Babylon conference and that began what hopefully will be a long-term relationship. But this conversation is really relevant because it's been an interest of mine for at least a couple of years.

And it's also going to be one of the four sessions at the Exiles in Babylon Conference in 2023 here in Boise, Idaho, March 23rd to 25th. We're going to be talking about the future of the church. We're going to be talking about theology of disability in the church. We're going to be talking about multi-ethnic perspectives on American Christianity.

And then we are going to have a conversational debate on the problem of evil and suffering that Saturday morning, March 23rd to 25th. Get your tickets now. At the time of recording, okay, at the time of this recording, we have about 150 early bird tickets available, 150 early bird tickets available. They're at a discounted rate. But by the time you are listening to this recording, the number might be a lot smaller than that. In fact, they might be all sold out. I'm not sure, but all the details are on the Theology in the Raw

website, theologyintheraw.com to sign up for Exiles in Babylon 2023. All right, let's get to know Eric Targe and his theology of disability and the church. Eric, thanks so much for coming on Theology in the Row. Yeah, I'm so excited to be here. I mean, I've been listening to the podcast for about a year and a half, and it has been such a blessing. I was at the conference, and yeah, I'm so excited to be able to talk with you about it. So that's how we connected. It was after you came out to the exiles in Babylon conference. I don't think that we can, did we talk there or no, I don't remember. No, I don't think so. I think, uh, I, I saw you and passed by you a couple of

times, especially at the after party, but you had swarms of people around you and I mean, it was packed and it was, it was happening. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. That, that was, um, the after party. It's like about 500 people crammed in kind of a small space. It was a blend of cloud nine exhilaration, people that I've seen from a distance, people telling me stories about the podcast, what it's done for their journey. i was so emotionally overwhelmed in in just i was just like i can't i just can't get my heart around these stories and yet as an introvert who was in speaking for two days straight to go i was like my body just almost started to shut down a friend of mine saw me kind of starting to just started to kind of like he saw my face and i was just starting to kind of collapse mentally and so he kind of pulled me another day i got a little away and i'm like i

just i need to i think i need to go to bed like this is just overwhelming yeah well when i saw you nearby it looked like there i was like oh i'd love to introduce myself but i saw the sharks going around like everyone was waiting they were circling and like oh when this person leaves i'm gonna hop in i was like oh everyone's waiting to talk to i didn't even depress that's so funny to lay a hand on his garment and i was like yeah i'm just oh my god stop yeah that's so funny so afterwards it was a phenomenal conference yeah so just to tell my audience so you reached out afterwards and said hey um would love to come back next year do you know if you're gonna have a a sign language interpreter at the next one instantly i

was like i felt horrible because i'm like and that was not my intention no it's great the answer is yes and i was instantly felt horrible that we didn't have one at the first one why for sure we're having one not only at the next one but for everyone here on now is because next year we are spending a whole session on a theology of disability in the church. And then you said that's kind of the area. Oh, because you were asking because you were going to bring out some, I think, leaders who are deaf, right? Yeah. So I wanted to really push to my leadership team. I wanted for our disability ministry here at my church. I serve at the Moody Church in Chicago. And I was like, hey, I'd love to advertise it to my leadership team and even see if I could give them a scholarship to come, but I didn't want to send it to everyone except for our

deaf leaders. I was like, no, I want to make sure that it's accessible to all before advertising it. And so I wanted to hear, and I was so glad that you guys are planning on doing that for the next conference. Absolutely. And, um, yeah, it's why I'm, I'm, I'm on a journey with this whole conversation, theology of disability, uh, which is why I want to have you on. So yeah, it's why I'm on a journey with this whole conversation, theology of disability, which is why I want to have you on. So yeah, tell us a little bit about what you do and really in general, but also as it pertains to disability. Yeah. So I'm a pastor here at the Moody Church.

I've been on staff here for, let's see, nine years now, eight years of leading the disability ministry. We actually started the disability ministry here eight years of leading the disability ministry. We actually started the disability ministry here eight years ago. And so I've led it to kind of have five different main areas. And we could talk about that in a little bit if you want, because I know one of our conversations that we had was just like, what actually is covered in disability? What parts is disability? What is other things. And in addition to that, right down the street is a college called Moody Bible Institute. And so I serve there as an

adjunct professor. And so I teach a course called Disability Society in the Church. So my main roles are working with university students and disability. And down at the institute, I do that. And up here, I do that though, with students from a lot more different universities. So I'm sure there's a story there. How did you get into it? Is this part of your educational background? Is there something in your personal story that's related to disability? Yeah, you know, there isn't. It's funny. The reason I got into it has nothing to do with my personal experience with disability, which I think I only reflected on much later in life, like later in that journey.

But when I was a teenager, I'd gotten saved as a teenager, came to faith in Christ and was at a church where they had a deaf ministry. And I became friends with a teenager who's about my age, I think he was like a year younger than me. And we became friends through passing notes back and forth on a piece of paper. He was deaf, his name was Ebby. Was a really good friend for quite a few years.

We haven't stayed in as much contact over the years, but we went back and forth and he just regularly talked about how there was nothing for deaf teenagers to do. And so this was in the days of AIM, if you remember AOL Instant Messenger. And so we would go back and forth and days of AIM, if you remember, AOL Instant Messenger. And so we would go back and forth and even on AIM and talking about that. And one night, as he was telling me, I'm like, hey, I'm just bored all the time. I was like, you know what, I'm going to do some

research. And I'm going to find, this is early 2000s, I'm like, I'm going to find out what is there to do. So I went on to AskJeeves.com and I asked Jeeves, what is there for deaf teens in New York? That's where I'm from. And so I looked into all of that and found nothing. Everything was focused on deaf adults. A lot of stuff in New York is for the deaf LGBT community. That's a longer conversation.

There's a lot of intersection between the deaf world and the LGBT world. Really? Yeah. Isn't that interesting? I did not know that. Yeah, there's a lot of intersection. In fact, I think they say the majority of ASL interpreters identify, especially male interpreters, identify as LGBT. So it's a really interesting parallel. And I think it has to do with a lot of the narratives and personal stories of not being fully understood by parents. Like there's just a lot of overlap in understanding and like in the narrative and the person's narrative. But yeah, but I'll put that to aside for a second. So I started doing research and found with the limited things you could find on Ask Jeeves back then, found

that it was like, oh, deaf teenagers have a higher rate of depression and anxiety. They had a really high rate, especially in New York, of gang activity and drug abuse. And I was a new believer, just getting involved in our church and went to the leaders and said, hey, I think we should start a youth group for deaf teenagers. And like one of their first things was like, well, one, who are you? And like, why do you why would you do that? And like, do you know sign language? And my response was, no, I don't know sign language. I don't know any of these things. But I just I feel like we need to do this. And I was so blessed that through multiple conversations, they, the church in New York really got the mindset that like, hey, listen,

it's not that we're not reaching out to them. It's not that that's the only problem. The problem is the world is reaching out to them and Christians aren't. Like we need to move forward. And so that's how I really got entered into disability ministry, focused on the deaf. And then as time has gone on, I've reflected more just realizing some people said, like, well, why is that? Why was that important to you? And for me, I'm like, well, I'm a Christian. When I came to faith in Christ, I was like, shouldn't everybody be welcomed into the body of Christ? Like, there shouldn't be any exclusions. Deaf people shouldn't be, like, turned away from the youth group or those things. And so that was a big thing. But also, I grew up with a sibling who

had some learning disabilities. And my father has chronic illness, severe Crohn's disease, since I was little, which I never put into the category of disability until I grew in my understanding of the theology of disability and just how the disability world is seen and went, oh, yeah, that affected so much of our lives and affects his life on a daily basis. But yeah, does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah. What's your educational journey? Did you do a degree in disability ministries or theology or anything? Or is it something that you just kind of self-taught along the way? at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. And so, but throughout most of it, I really did do a lot of focus on a theology of disability. So whenever I had a paper in class that was like, hey, you can write on whatever, I was like, hmm, I wonder what like John Swinton has to say about this. I wonder

what like Stanley Hauerwas was writing a little bit on mental health and different things. So I tended to focus on the disability view of theology. Yeah. So let's come back to that question I asked earlier. Maybe we'll ask it to you online originally. Like what, I think I asked you about like mental health. Like if somebody suffers from depression, is that a disability or anxiety or is mental health questions a different conversation? Yeah, that's such a, so it's such a complicated question, right? I think for one, because there's such a stigma with disability, so that so many people who have a mental health diagnosis

will say, well, I don't see myself as having a disability. I don't want to be seen as having a disability. However, they would recognize that their different mental health diagnosis is often disabling. And so, for that reason, oftentimes mental health is put under disability, and especially depending on how that really looks in your life. So, for example, someone who experiences depression and anxiety, I find that oftentimes they'll say, oh, well, no, I'm not in the disability ministry, which is why for us at Moody Church, we actually decided there are a few things that we had to say, okay, the disability ministry covers five areas at our church, but we know that we have to section certain things out on our website so that people of varying abilities

know that we hear them and we love them and we understand them. So like with mental health, if you go to the disability ministry page, which is like moodychurch.org forward slash 139, it's based on Psalm 139, fearfully and wonderfully made. You can get there and then you can click to mental health. But a lot of people feel weird about that. And so all they have to do is go to moodychurch.org forward slash mental health, and they go to just the mental health page. And the same thing's true for our deaf ministry, because a lot of deaf actually reject the term disabled. In fact, that was like, oh yeah, that was a big advocacy movement, especially in 1990, which kind of brought about the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act, because of a protest that took place at Gallaudet University,

if you've heard of that. It's a big deaf college in Washington, D.C., and they had a rather large protest when a new president was put in place, a woman who wasn't deaf and didn't know sign language. And so they had a big protest at Gallaudet calling for a deaf president to be installed and someone who knew sign language, which resulted in a guy named I. King Jordan being the first deaf president of an American university. And I. King Jordan had acquired deafness, so he wasn't born deaf, but he did know American sign language. And he's famous for a phrase in the deaf community that the deaf can do anything hearing people can do except hear. And so the whole philosophy there and on a lot of the signs and the marches and especially at Gallaudet still today is that deaf is not disabled. And so tends

to take the form of diversity. So the diversity model or the social model of disability, as opposed to the medical model of disability, as opposed to the medical model of disability. Can you unpack that a lot? I know where you're going with that, but can you unpack the difference there? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. So there's so many different views just in the disability world. I think that's one of the things that I've loved about serving in the disability ministry and just doing disability theology is that I'm regularly interacting with people, especially being in the city, because you have people all over the political spectrum, which definitely has some influence in your theology. And like all of that,

just because they're advocating, they're doing different things. So the medical model of disability would look primarily at disability as dealing with the biology of a person. And so the focus is always on cure, or it tends to be a focus on cure. So biomedicine, how does biomedicine help to cure a person? Whereas the social model of disability will tend to use the word healing. And so you'll find in the social model of disability, it tends to focus not simply on a person's biological difference, but rather how it is that the world responds to that biological difference. I mean, one of the great examples of this is in John 9, right, where all of a sudden the disciples, we don't know which disciple it was. I always assume it was Peter because he put his foot in his mouth, right? know which disciple it was. I always assume it was Peter because he put his foot in his mouth,

right? So, Peter says, or one of the disciples says to Jesus, who sinned that this man was born blind? Was it him or his parents? And Jesus says, no, it was so that the glory of God might be put on display. And so, that's one example that many people using the social model will look at and they'll say, listen, disability has a social component where the world looks in and has a problem and rather God's glory is simply not being seen properly. Okay. With that, and from a Christian perspective, even in that story, there still is healing of the biology that happens. And even like part of the messianic vocation is the deaf will hear, the blind will see, the reversal of that. So, I mean, from a Christian perspective, would you say it's kind of a both and, or there is a biological, there is something that needs to be healed in the biology?

Yeah. I mean, so there's so much debate about this. Like there's, there's really a lot, there's a great book that was written by a woman, Bethany McKinney Fox. She wrote a book about actually the different ways that the narratives of healing are treated throughout the Gospels. And she brings out some interesting points about how all these different people have read those healing narratives. Because some will, like, there's, I think she really brings out like three main ways that people will take it. Either they'll say, listen, this isn't to be authoritative. Jesus was functioning within his time, and he was a product of his time. So he was just trying to heal, and he wasn't really seeing the diversity of the people.

Then there are those who would say, no, the body is broken, and it needs to be healed. Your disability is an abnormality that needs to be normalized. And so you tend to get those words of normality rather than the words that a lot of the disability community uses now of typical. It's a typical body as opposed to normalized body, a normal body. And then you get another view that would say, hey, it's got to be a little bit more in between, and we've got to figure that out. And for us at Moody Church, it's always difficult because, again, urban church, different places where people are coming from. But the mindset that I've taken, or at least what I've taught, what I've taught our volunteers as we train them, just our team. And even when I teach

our classes for those with intellectual disabilities, I really teach this idea that I call holy, holy, holy. And it comes from basically a conversation I had with a few of the students in our class for adults with intellectual disabilities. We were going through the story of Doubting Thomas. It was like about seven years ago. So it was like the start of the disability ministry. And we had a curriculum that we don't use anymore. And it had like a picture of Thomas, right? So I give a picture of Thomas and a picture of Jesus with his holes in his hands. And we're talking about it. And I'm talking about like the doubt and how it's okay to doubt. And I'm like, that's the thing that they really need. And then one of our ladies with Down syndrome asked me, she said, like, she was just so fixated on Jesus.

And she said, what about me? And I thought she was talking about doubting. And then as I got further into the conversation, she said, am I going to look like me when I get to heaven? Like, will I have my eyes? Will I have, like, will I have my nose? Will my feet be similar? Or will I be completely different? Will I be like everybody else? And so, there's this question of will her diversity continue in some way in the kingdom? And as we looked at Jesus, who has holes in his hands, for me, one of the things that as I was reading, I decided to do a whole bunch of reading on this. I wanted

to understand, like, how can I help gain some clarity on this? I think one of the things that we took away is that for our discipleship process, we want to always help people to understand that you can be holy, holy, holy, meaning you can have holes in your hands and be holy, like in that way, like there's holy. And then even if you have holes in your hands, you can still be whole, W-H-O-L-L-Y, and you can be holy living for Christ. And so, it's three different types of holiness, right? But we actually see that in Jesus Christ, that discipleship can be holy, holy, holy. And even as we look at Luke 14, which is like one of the big images of the eschaton,

like one of the things we have to notice is that people with disabilities are at the king's table, which is unsettling, right? Like Jesus says, the kingdom will look like this when he's telling his host that, hey, your table doesn't reflect my table. You invited all these people, but if you wanted it to look like the table in the kingdom of heaven, you would have brought in the deaf, the lame, the blind, the foreigner, the refugee. They would have had a place at my table, according to Luke 14. And so I think there is something in that that we would have to say that there is some form of our holiness, H-O-L-E, right, that does continue into eternity. And I think for me, when I've had that question, I've said, hey, I think it seems to me whatever is beautiful, whatever is truly redemptive, whatever brings glory to God, I believe that will continue on. I don't think the inhibitions will continue, but I do believe that as we look at the stories of the gospel, the marks of our faithfulness and the marks of our diversity can continue on. Like you look at people with autism, and the joke in the autism community is if you've

met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism. But many in the autism community, you find that they have just a beautiful honesty that you find nowhere else. Like Lamar Hardwick even talks about this. He says, in his church, you can trust what he says, because he's just like, I don't like my facial depressions. Like, it's like, I don't read facial expressions properly. And so he says, listen, I'm just going to speak honestly. And so if that's the case, will that honesty, will that neurodiversity that brings about just absolute

honesty continue on? Yeah. Like some of our people with Down syndrome, they have this absolutely amazing uninhibited love and hospitality. Will that, will that continue into the kingdom? Totally. Yeah. And so, yeah. And it's hard to separate those virtues from their disability, right? I mean, exactly exactly i've got a good friend of mine here in town he's got two he's adopted two kids with down syndrome and him and his wife the way they talk about how much jesus they see in their kids is just so precious like they're um yeah never depressed always like excited to see people like um the social like just love and joy they have and like unaware of just when people are like like say something mean or whatever like they're just

they don't even care it's just like they're just living in the moment there's so many virtues that they embody and other things that they miss out on you you know? Um, but it's like, there is that, I think we, I don't know, I'm just kind of thinking out loud, but like, however we connect disability to the fall and resurrection, there should always be a here and now diversity component to it. Right. I mean, even if say his down syndrome might be changed in the resurrection, he will no longer have that. His chromosomes will look typical. Now, in this already not yet, there is a beautiful diversity component that's intertwined with the disability that God has made beautiful through something that might have otherwise not been enjoyable for the person or whatever, you know? Yeah. I mean, I even look at it this way. Like, I think for me, one of the most challenging things

when I was wrestling through that question with our class was how prideful am I that I think she needs a greater transformation than I do? Because I think in my mind, I had always assumed I'm like, yeah, eventually you'll get to be like me and how wonderful I am and how like, look at all the things I can do as opposed to, oh, wow, you're going to be transformed into glory and I'm going to be transformed into glory and there's going to be continuity for both of us. And maybe I just don't know what that continuity fully looks like. I don't believe that she's going to have any inhibition.

I think for the deaf, I don't believe that the deaf are going to be eternally unable to communicate with others. But do I believe that the ability to use sign language will continue into eternity, that that beautiful form of expression will have its place. And the pieces of deaf culture, like Revelation says, every kingdom will bring their glory in. It's like, will the deaf culture be able to bring their glory in?

Because they really have culture. And I look, I'm like, yeah, I think that's going to continue. And all the people that struggled learning ASL in heaven, it won't matter if it takes them a million years to figure it out, but they'll be able to do it just as the deaf will be able to learn Mandarin. I didn't even think about that. Like there's certain aspects of the human experience that are created because there is a deaf culture, right? I don't know. I've got attention in my mind right now. On the one hand, you know, I look at, again, the messianic promise of death will hear, the blind will see. What does that, does that mean the deaf won't hear or only if

they want to maybe? I don't know. I don't know. You see Jesus healing the deaf as part of the in-breaking of the new creation. From a natural law standpoint, this is something I think I brought up to maybe Lamar or somebody or just, it's more of a question. It's like, so like I'm deaf in my left ear. I don't know if you know that I'm deaf in my left ear. And like, like I, like if you go from a design perspective,

human, almost the ears on homo sapiens are, have a design. They're, they're designed to hear. So it's not doing that. It's not functioning according to its design. So I would assume that the designer would set right his design

when he repairs all things so that's one side of my thinking is just like well it makes more sense that the blind would see the deaf would hear but then like does that mean sign language will be non-existent in the creation that's like because there's no you know like or like you said there's certain i i've learned this recently that there are really interesting, beautiful aspects of a deaf culture. I went to one of the largest deaf ministries in the world, Door International. The guy who helped me start the center helped start that, Claire de Graff. I don't know if you know. Oh, that's wonderful.

Yeah. So I went to one of its headquarters in Nairobi and sat there in the worship service with all deaf. And I'm like, there are, there's different things going on here that I'm like, I wouldn't have been able to experience that they wouldn't have been able to experience if they weren't deaf. And then one of the guys explained to me, yeah, there is a whole deaf culture. Like it's, it's a whole, it's not just they can't hear like that as a creator, this whole different cultural environment is all that going to be done away with if all the deaf are healed. So I don't know. It's a weird tension, you know? It is a weird tension. And I think a lot

of people get really freaked out by that, especially like I teach at a conservative school, like Moody Bible Institute is known as a very conservative theological school. And Moody Church is, I would say, theologically conservative. I'm not talking politically, politically more diverse, but theologically conservative. A lot of people feel really uncomfortable when you talk about like deafness going on into eternity. But I think that's because we're so focused on the biomedical model. We're focused on that medical model as opposed to the social model.

And even the deaf have a differentiation there that I don't think we typically think about. So like if you've done any work with the deaf, you've probably noticed that the deaf will typically use capital D, deaf. And that refers to deaf culture. So you wouldn't say to someone, oh, this is a deaf person with a lowercase d, because that would only describe the physical reality that they're unable to hear. But the capital D talks about someone who's like, oh, yeah, I'm deaf, but I'm involved in the culture as a whole. Typically, people who are capital D deaf will say, oh, I am deaf. And that's part of their

identity. Unlike a lot of the other people in the disability community, they have historically rejected people-first language. So if you know people-first language, it's like, for example, someone with Down syndrome historically has said, hey, I don't want to be called Downs. Rather, I want to be called a person with Down syndrome or a person who has autism as opposed to being called autistic, though that's even creating some debate now. I know there's some people who prefer the title autistic, and that's in part because a culture has formed around those communities where there's greater pride in it. And for the deaf, I think as Christians, I think we can and should affirm that the capital D deaf, like that culture, is going to go on into eternity.

Does that mean that they won't be able to hear into eternity? I don't think so. I don't think that there's going to be inhibitions. But I think the beauty of their culture, that won't go away. What's made them them and what they can introduce to the beauty of creation. This just came into my mind. what's made them them and what they can introduce to the beauty of creation. Yeah. What I just, this has come, came into my mind. Like what about the beauty of music?

You know, like that. Oh yeah. Is there a set? Like to me, there's a sadness that music is one of the few, I don't know. I may, maybe it's not few, but like one of the things that transcends culture,

like it does seem to be so built into creation and just when something's out of tune, no matter what country you're in, no matter what language, no matter where it's people know that there's an in tune and there's out of tune, there's music that has the rhythm of creation built into it. Others that go again, you know, it's just, it's such a beautiful aspect of creation and to think that deaf people can't hear that, you know, and I've, you know, I was born deaf in my left ear and my mom put me in sign language when I was a kid

or lip, actually lip reading class. I, I, I didn't continue. I don't know how to read lips, but she was like, Hey, I mean, you're, I mean, if your other ear goes out, you're deaf. So, we need to prepare you ahead of time for, for that. And I probably will. I mean, people lose their hearing as they get old. I'll probably lose my hearing a lot quicker. Um, especially since I listened to really, really loud, heavy metal music when I worked out. Well, Preston, honestly, I'm so glad that you asked that question. Cause I'm sure that like one or two of our deaf are at Moody church are going to be watching this on YouTube with captions and they'll be like, you better say the right thing there. Uh, because that's actually one

of the big debates in deaf culture, like, or not debates, but probably I should say it's one of the big frustrations within deaf culture that there's a perception that deaf don't enjoy music. In fact, it's a common trope that's used in like most deaf movies. And listen, I love these movies. Like I thought Coda was phenomenal. I have a lot of, I have deaf friends that hated Coda. Same thing with Mr. Holland's Opus or all those things. But this constant theme that typically comes up in movies that feature deaf actors is this sense that, oh, the deaf don't enjoy music. So if you saw Coda on Apple TV, that was a big thing. It's like, oh, why would you do music?

We can't enjoy music. Or Mr. Holland's Opus, his son doesn't enjoy music. But actually, a lot of deaf really enjoy music. They enjoy, one, they really enjoy the vibrations. So the vibrations are a big part of it. And there's actually even a lot of deaf poetry groups that use music, that use the vibrations to create something. And there's actually so much around it. Like there are deaf choirs. There's a deaf choir here in the city of Chicago that's been around. It's a deaf church choir that I've been friends with their leaders and different things. And so a lot of the deaf actually really enjoy music and being a part of music. And not everyone who's deaf has 0% hearing. And not everyone who's deaf has 0% hearing.

Okay. Many do have hearing at certain pitches and levels, and they do enjoy that. So what I want to get across is the fact that even within deaf culture, there is a way in which to engage in music in beautiful ways with poetry. Like deaf poetry is really beautiful and different. So like there's so many different ways of doing it. There's sometimes, like, so it changes the language in those moments. So, like, there's typical signs that you would use when you're trying to communicate a story. But when you're doing deaf poetry, you'll mostly use what are called classifiers,

which is basically you're kind of describing the picture with your hands rather than using the sign for it. And so if I was saying like, I'm going to sign here. So people are doing the podcast like I do. I listen to the podcast when I'm on the treadmill regularly, so they're not going to understand this as much. But if I said, oh, I went for a walk through the park, which would be the sign for walk and then the sign for through and then p-a-r-k because park is a finger spelled word uh instead what you would do in like deaf poetry is you would put the sign for trees and you'd have like the trees maybe even moving and you'd have a person walk by the trees and so there's a different way of doing it that has a beauty that might even go with a beat or something else around it and so so that's part of the deaf culture that is that kind of beautiful art is created,

can only be created because there is a deaf culture, deaf community. Exactly. Like, think about it. Like everyone else who does music, like there's very little, at least in American culture of using your hands to communicate music, to be able to go along with the beats. And that's something that the deaf bring. Now, there are plenty of different cultures that do use a lot of hands or different things. I think of Hawaiian culture, and we just did a luau for our disability ministry this past

Friday. So now I'm thinking about the Hawaiian hula dancers. But yeah, there's something about that. So the music, while there's certain aspects of music that a fully deaf person would not be able to enjoy or participate in, there's other aspects of music

that they would be able to experience or enjoy more fully than somebody who's not deaf. Like the vibration aspect and there's aspects of music that I'm not connecting with that because I'm so focused on the audio, the strictly audio aspects of it. Is that, would that be true?

I mean, there's- Oh, so true. When I was involved with the deaf church in New York, the first thing that just totally surprised me my first time there was that they had a deaf drummer. So the drummer went forward and he was drumming the beat to the song as someone led, like led and everyone was copying the signs that the leader was doing. But like, I had never felt the vibrations in this music. And he was playing

the same way that we'd play probably the song and like the drummer would play the song in the sanctuary with everyone else. i was really feeling the the vibration and and being able to hear that along with every like feel that and so like oftentimes i'm not feeling as i'm as i'm singing or as i'm listening and so there is something that they bring there even that culture brings when i worshipped with that deaf community in nairobi yeah they had a bit a drummer with big, it was just like a circle, like probably 40 people maybe. And, um, they had it as a church service and it was so eye-opening. There's so many, there's a lot of overlap with normal church service and other things that

weren't. One of the most shocking things that was like, obviously no brainer, but I just have an experience that was, they don't close their eyes during prayer. Like I was praying, I'm like this. And all of a sudden I look up and he's like looking at you and looking at, because they're the person praying, signing, and then they go to another person. It's like, it was so participatory and so involved. I almost felt a little bit uncomfortable. Like I'm looking at everybody and they're looking at me and, you know, but like, yeah, that's, we're praying.

Of course we're going to look at each other. How else can you pray with your eyes closed, you know? But that drum, it was a thump, thump, thump. And they were a lot of clapping, a lot of physical participation with the people because they were going with the vibrations, the rhythm and everything. And it was just like, wow, there's just aspects of human experience that were drawn out here that I've never experienced. And they were beautiful. Exactly. And so you look at things like that and you're like, wow, no, there's no way that that beauty doesn't have a role in God's eternal kingdom. But there are disabilities. Like, again, my father has chronic illness. He has Crohn's. He has an irreversible

ileostomy. He is in constant pain, has been in pain for years. My father is not a Christ follower, but I look at many people who are Christ followers who have diseases like that, and I look and I go, yeah, that doesn't seem like something that would continue into eternity. Pain not, like I don't see anything that, and that's where I think the social model of disability really begins to break down. Because there are a lot of people who would talk about the different pain associated with their disability. Some people who experience quadriplegia, I know that they just constantly have sores and all those things. And so there are some, it's funny, there's a spectrum here, because I have friends who have quadriplegia who regularly say, they're like, no, like, my wheelchair is part of me. I don't see my wheelchair as a negative thing. I see it as

something that liberates and frees me and allows me to move. And then I know other people who see their wheelchair as something that they can't wait to send to hell when they get to heaven. And so there's, that's why it's like, it's like you can't really speak for one group of people here, but you can look and you can say, okay, there's something here that is beautiful, and there are some things here that we have to say. It's like, no, that's going to be shed away, and that's going to be good, and we're going to celebrate healing. And we're going to celebrate, uh, the heal, we're going to celebrate healing, uh, which will have a, which will have a medical side, but it'll also have a

social side to it. That's good. So, yeah. So even in death with deaf and blind people, some would say, I would love to be healed. Other people are like, I'm good. Like I, this is part of my human experience that I don't want to see going away with because it's so wrapped up into who I am. And other people are like, I can't wait to get new eyes and a new creation. There's wide diversity and perspectives. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's so much of a different, different perspectives there.

And I, I get it. So like our ministry here focuses on the deaf, the blind, intellectual disabilities, accessibility, and then mental health. And I look at each of those areas, and they're very, very different. Like each of those areas, you're going to have people who are going to say, like, hey, this is part of me. I don't know what it would mean to not have that. And then there are others who are like, no, I want this gone. So we're a church that's in the middle of the city. We're in the heart of the city. We're just a couple of blocks from Michigan Avenue. And so we have a pretty large homeless population. And with that, we have

quite a few people who experience schizophrenia. And you look at some of them, and plenty of them would say, listen, I want this gone. Yeah. Like, I don't want to be this way. And then there are others you talk to and they're like, I'm not entirely sure who I would be if certain parts of this didn't continue on, which is so difficult because you're talking about a disability that truly alters your perception of reality. And so there's so many questions in disability theology that are really unsettling. I think John Swinton brought one out in one of his lectures that I still wrestle with, where he talks about a man who I think was brought to his hospital where he was a chaplain who believed

himself to be the king of England or something like that. And the question was, is it right to give this man medicine? And then all of a sudden he realizes, no, he's homeless. He has no connections to anyone and he's really struggling. Or is it more benevolent to say, you know what? Live in the reality of your being incredibly wealthy. Give him a crown. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Live in the reality of your being incredibly wealthy. Like there's – Give them a crown.

Give them a crown. Yeah. Yeah. And the same thing with – like the same thing with dementia. Like we know that like at least here on this side of heaven, we know that it's better for a person to be affirmed sometimes in their perception for their healing. in their perception for their healing. So an example I remember reading about a couple of years ago was a grandfather who is just constantly obsessed with monkeys coming loose in his yard. I think he lived like in Montana or something where there's not monkeys regularly getting

loose in the yard. And the family kept focusing on grandpa. There's no monkeys. There's no monkeys. And what they found that was most healing was actually like, okay, let's help grandpa round up the monkeys. And once we round up all the monkeys, then we can have a conversation with him and like go from there. And so there's, there's all these different things about perception, like in our ministry to people now, how do we meet them where they're at?

I think I just went on a rabbit trail there i'm sorry no that you got my mind spinning because i mean i immediately want to say like no we should align people with reality if we believe in totally but but i but you're throwing a wrench in that a little bit like and i think i'm talking pastorally like pastorally yeah how do we help someone to be able to get to reality is it that we start with with just saying, like, no, you're wrong, no, you're wrong. Like, I regularly have some people here with schizophrenia who have fights with people in the church that didn't happen. And it's so heartbreaking.

Like, it's really heartbreaking because relationships are truly destroyed, and the other member of the relationship doesn't even know what happened. And so sometimes people will come to me as a pastor, and they'll say, hey, I really need your help because they called me this, they said this. And it's easy to start off with, no, that didn't happen. Remember, you have schizophrenia. Or I can meet them where they're at and seek to affirm all of reality around that, affirm their history with the person, talk with them about how that made them feel when they saw that or they heard that. Because some have schizophrenia that is purely auditory. Some have schizophrenia that has a hallucinative part of that. And so what does it mean to, to affirm their reality, affirm their feelings and emotions, even if I'm not affirming, uh, their perception, like how do I affirm them for,

for what they're really freaking out about and then help them to, to find, to find reality. It's the same thing with the grandpa who has, uh, who believes that monkeys are released on his front yard in Montana. It's like, it's one thing to say, no, there are no monkeys. It's another to say, you know what? I want to affirm that, that he's freaked out right now. He's scared. He's feeling out of control. How do I help him regain control and then meet him in lucidity as opposed to trying to force lucidity on him? No, that's good. That's good. That's helpful. Tell us briefly about your church. I mean, No, that's good. That's good. That's helpful. Tell us briefly about your church. I mean, you're at a church that's very well aware of disability. And it sounds like you're attracting a lot of people that do have a disability. Is that okay for me? Correct my language too. I

want to learn and grow. Is that... You know, I'm someone who is always going to use people first language unless somebody tells me not to. And so people first language means exactly what you just did. People with a disability or people who have a disability as opposed to saying disabled people. But everyone is different and people want different things. So a lot of people I talk to who have acquired a diagnosis later in life, people like Lamar Hardwick and even other people at our church that I know, but I know Lamar is known by people who listen to your podcast because he's been on there. Like people who typically have a diagnosis later in life, I believe his came in his 30s, will typically take the title of autistic. They're like, I am autistic.

And they rejoice in that because it's a label that has given them freedom to understanding themselves. Whereas a lot of people who were raised with that diagnosis, they knew it. They're going to say, no, I don't like I have so much more to me. Like I've, I was raised with an understanding of that. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm Chris, I'm John, I'm, I'm Adam. Like that's who my identity is first. And then I happen to have autism. So I don't think there's necessarily a right or wrong. I feel like I'm regularly finding out that you're going to offend somebody no matter what. Yeah. Yeah. So you said the best default though, is to lead with people first language. And then if somebody doesn't prefer that, then make a change.

Yeah. I would say lead with people first language, except when it comes to the deaf, the deaf are, the deaf are pretty universally, uh, they would say, Hey, no, I'm deaf. And so it's considered typically like, uh, so hearing impaired is an awful phrase. We don't use hearing impaired. Uh, that's something that like I regularly have like been at conferences or spoken different places and been like, hey, you really should change that sign. Don't say hearing impaired. It's seating for the deaf and hard of hearing, if you want to say that. Hard of hearing is fine. Deaf and hard of hearing, because those are two different categories of people within the deaf community that make up the deaf community.

And so that, that's, that's fine, but we don't use hearing impaired, but yeah, broadly, I would say, try to be loving and try just to try to don't, don't be so afraid. I think so many people in the church are just afraid of interacting with, with people who have disabilities and it's, it's incredibly problematic, right? Like Like it's it's so incredibly problematic because all you need to do is say hi. Like, yeah, all you need to do is say hi. Introduce yourself. But the fear that comes with people with disabilities has resulted in people with disabilities being

among the most unchurched people in America. And like you have to look like I think the statistics are one in 10 Americans. I could have that wrong. I believe it was one in 10 Americans have a disability. And yet, most of us would look around our churches and say, like, we don't, we don't see that. Like, we don't see one in 10. I used to work for Johnny and Friends, if you know Johnny Erickson Tata. So I used to work as their urban engagement director for Johnny and Friends Chicago, like helping churches to really grow in their understanding of disability and love. And one of the most common responses I would get, because I was working for them and Moody Church at the time, they would say, well, can you just send them to your church? And I was like, no,

no, no, I want to help you to be able to love them well. And they're like, well, like, we're just not equipped for that. We're not. And it's such a problem, I think, when, I want to help you to be able to love them well. And they're like, well, we're just not equipped for that. And it's such a problem, I think, and this is more of an extreme thing, right? Jesus says you're supposed to go for the one as opposed to the 99. But what about when it's 10 instead of the 90 and you're still, at least it's 10 and you're saying, no, I'm not going to care for them. It's too difficult. Hopefully another church can manage it. I thought Lamar might've even said 20%. Don't quote me on that. You're probably, that might've been worldwide though. That might've been worldwide. Um, yeah, but either way, 10 to 20, that that's, I mean, he said people with disabilities are the largest minority population

on earth. That's definitely true. Yeah. You know what? It is 20%. I just looked it up because I thought I was probably wrong. Wow. So yeah. So it's, yeah, it's a 26% have some kind of, which is kind of wild, something that would be categorized as a disability that might include mental health or no, no mental health would be higher than that. Oh yeah. It's much higher than that. Uh, yeah. So you're a church where this topic is front and center. What does your church look like that makes it a lot more welcoming for people with a disability than maybe other churches? Well, I would say that we have a very, very long way to go. So I don't think that we have arrived. I think the fact that even I am the pastor for disability ministries is a sign that we have not arrived. I think truly like disability ministry is like, yeah, I mean, we will have

succeeded. I think when all of a sudden we say like, oh, there's no need for a pastor for disability ministries. Like people with disabilities are integrated and loved in every area of the church. And so one of my friends, Dan Vander Plaat, who works for Elam, he wrote a book about this called There's No Asterisk. And Dan says that there are five stages of attitudes toward disability. I'm not sure if you've ever seen that five stages chart. So if anyone's interested, you can look it up on Google, five stages of attitude toward disability. And what I love about it is it says, listen, it starts with ignorance. So again, you think of like the disciple who says, who sent this man or his parents that he was born blind? Like that's the ignorance stage.

Then from ignorance, you move to pity, right? Where you're like, wow, I just, I feel really bad that this person is blind. It must be so hard. And it's like that's better than ignorance. But that's not where we want to stop. And then it comes to care where we go, you know what? Maybe I should do something about this person who has a disability among me. Maybe I can I can guide them to the bus. You know, like when when the church service is over, I can offer my my arm and say, hey,

would you want to take my arm? And I can I can walk my arm and say, hey, would you want to take my arm? And I can walk you over to the bus stop. And then friendship is the next stage, the fourth stage, which says, you know what, not only am I just going to walk you to the bus, but I actually want to develop a friendship with you. I want to know your likes and your dislikes. I want to go to coffee. I want to share a meal. I want to enjoy time with you. But the ultimate goal is number five, which is co-laborer, where it's not simply that it's like, oh, I'm your friend. It's not simply that I care for you. It's not simply that I feel bad for you. But it's actually the point where all of those

get transformed to the point where we say, hey, you have a role in building God's kingdom. And you have a role in ministering to me. And I have a role in ministering to me, and I have a role in ministering to you. And we are actually co-laboring in the kingdom of God together, walking in the same direction. And so typically in membership classes at Moody Church, we always start with talking about disability and saying like, hey, where do people think we are? And so people will see the interpreter in the front of the sanctuary. People will hear about our class for adults with intellectual disabilities. It's called co-laborers, or they'll hear about our buddy programs, mental health ministry, all these different things. And they'll go, ah, surely Moody Church, we're at a five,

or they'll say we're at a four. And as someone who can kind of do a bird's eye view, I'm like, we're like two to three. We're like pity to care. Like we've got some care ministries. We have a couple people that are friends, very few that are really working and like co-laboring in ways that I would love to see that we're working on that. But it's a long way to go, I think. And so I would say that we're trying. And I think that's huge. And I think so many in the disability world right now who have been regularly pushed away from the church, who have been told, like I have so many people in our ministry that they came to us because they were asked to leave another church.

And so just to be able to say, hey, listen, we have a place for you. We have a room set up for if your loved one is really struggling during the service, maybe you yourself are experiencing overstimulation. We have a room where you can watch the service and we have sensory tools and different things so that you can experience, you can worship, but in a way that's not going to completely unsettle you, a way that you can be a part of the body of Christ. So we have a whole bunch of different venues to be able to do that even in. I want to get the, I want,

this is, I love these five stages stages. So ignorance, ignorance, pity, care, friendship, co-labor.

You got it. So this maps perfectly on the LGBTQ conversation. Dude, totally. I mean, a lot of what you're saying does, especially when you're talking about the identity piece and people you know um oh yeah but this is each one is exactly

like how when people say we want to disciple and care for and reach out to you know the lgbt community and all these things like i that code like going I mean, a lot of churches I would say are ignorance to pity. The really good ones are still in the sometimes care. Very few are in the friendship co-laborer. And that's really, I'm like, I always ask, you know, I come in, a lot of churches have me come in and talk to their leadership team. And I always, there's a question I always throw out.

I said, would you hire a gay pastor? Oh, it's so fun. Just a facial expressions and just all the like angst or, you know, some, some of the ones are like, well, you tell us where it's what, you know, like, I'm like, well, first of all, you need to ask, what do you mean by gay? You know, and, and if a human Christian is following a Christian sexual ethic and whatever their temptation is, but they're following a Christian sexual ethic and whatever their temptation is, but they're following a Christian sexual ethic, if there's still a glass ceiling on like leadership, if they cannot teach,

preach, be a pastor, then you're not, I would say that's kind of the ultimate test. Can you sit at the feet of somebody who is attracted to the same sex, has a different set of temptations you wrestle with, but is committed to the same gospel, committed to the same Jesus, committed to the same sexual ethic. If you cannot sit at the feet of that person, I would say you're still, we still have a ways to go. And people who are living pretty challenging lives and committed to holiness at all odds against them. If even that person is not, can at their feet then there's we we still

have a lot of work to do and kind of our our thinking so yeah this is i'm gonna can i use this so who do i need to quote yeah it was the guy use it dan it's dan vanderplatt yeah dan vanderplatt uh his book uh there is no asterisk uh and he talks about it you can just again you can google it uh five stages of attitudes towards disabilities. But I think you're absolutely right. There's so much that aligns with the story of the disability community and the LGBT community. I think one of the things that I found, especially because there's so much of an interaction with the deaf community. on a few years ago. I think you know of Christopher. And like we were talking about this, just the storyline, the idea that so many, like it's the statistics are kind of remarkable when you find how many deaf parents of deaf children don't know sign language. And so they have like a home language, but not true communication, especially because there are, there's a good amount of people who are deaf, who are immigrants. And so their parents were learning

another language. Like back in New York, we had quite a few people from Bolivia who like developed rebelle, like the mother developed rebella and then their child was born deaf. And like, so all these different things, like they came here trying to learn English. And so American Sign Language just wasn't added into all of that. And then sometimes you just have parents that choose not to learn American Sign Language for one reason or another. I can't get into all of that. And then sometimes you just have parents that choose not to learn American Sign Language for one reason or another. I can't get into all of that. But that feeling of like, hey, I don't fit into the rest of this world. I don't fit into my family. I was born this way. I didn't choose it. I have a different way of communicating than everybody else.

There tends to be a story that really does map onto each other. And so there tends to be just great compassion between these two communities, which I think does lend itself toward often working together in different ways. And they have for the outcome that it's brought. Yeah. We can wrap things up.

If somebody is listening, they're a pastor of a church or they're an influencer in a church and they're like, um, we can wrap things up. What, what, if somebody is listening and they're a pastor of a church or they're an influencer in a church and they're like, yeah, we've got, you say you got a ways to go. We need to get started on, on, on the way. Um, what are some big picture things that would you say, and you can be bold if you want, it's fine. Um, like what are some things that like, man, these are non, these are every Christian church should at least be doing this, this, and this just as a basic expression of the gospel toward 20% of the population that might not currently resonate with how your church is going about things.

Ooh, that's so hard. I'm trying to think of what to start. I think, I think the word I want to use is ramps. Build ramps. Okay. Start somewhere and build ramps. And so that might be physical ramps for, like, it's like, hey, we have a room that's unaccessible or a sanctuary isn't accessible. Put a physical ramp there, but also be thinking about what does it mean to build social ramps?

So what does it mean to build social ramps so that people can be truly involved in all aspects of the culture of your church? And I think that that can look like simply bringing a whole bunch of people into a room saying, hey, we just want to do a forum with people who have disabilities in our church. And we just want to hear from you all, like, what is it that you need? Like, so don't assume the need, but figure out what is the need and then try to meet there to begin with. So like when we did that eight years ago, one of the first things that we had, we had quite a few people in our congregation who are blind and they said to us,

and blind is another community that typically they do say that blind first. I know that's confusing. Again, every community is a little different. Blind and deaf lead with blind and deaf, not person with blind. For the most part. Yeah, that's, I'd say for the average,

like that's the way it's going to be. But for our blind congregants, like they said, when you do a new song, we have no idea what's going on. And I was like, what? And like, when you do scripture reading, we can't follow. And we were like, we never thought about that. And so we decided like, okay, how much will it cost? And it's not expensive to send out the music the week ahead of time and braille the songs to be able to braille the things or some of our, but you do want to, you don't want to assume that everyone who's blind knows braille. Many people don't and they don't know how to use braille. And so what you might want to do is you might say, Hey, listen, can we get them a seat partner so that when we do like a really cool video that has no words, but just has like, uh, has no spoken words, but only written words on the screen, some could be next to them and just tell them what the video is saying or be able to give them the verse like, hey, they're about to say this line before this song. So I'd say figure out what are the social ramps,

whether it's an interpreter, whether it's all those things, and figure out that first, figure out what the need is. And then one other thing I would say is I think one of the biggest excuses I've heard from pastors over the years about why they don't have a disability ministry. And again, I don't even like that term because I don't think everyone should have a disability ministry, really. But it's a good start, right? It's a start. Yeah, it can be a good start. I'm not advocating that I lose my job here at all. So if my staff is hearing this, that's not what I'm saying. Right. Uh, but I think one of the biggest things I hear from

people about why they're not doing anything for those with disabilities in their community is because they regularly say, well, we don't have anyone with a disability at our church. I know what I want to, what I want to point, point back to is like, hey, if you don't have anyone with disabilities in your church, that's your problem. Why don't you have it? Like I live in Chinatown. So I live in Chinatown here in Chicago. If I started a congregation, or I started a house church, and there was nobody Chinese, I think everyone would say, wow, you really haven't reached your community. That doesn't make sense.

Like Chinatown, Chicago is like 90% Chinese. If America and the city even more so is 20 something percent people with disabilities, if it's 13% those with physical disabilities, it's 6% those who are deaf. Like, if that's not showing up in your congregation, you've got a problem. Like, you're not truly contextualizing. And I would just encourage any pastors listening to say, hey, maybe we should do a survey on our zip code, figure out who actually is in here, and figure out if maybe we have a problem, if we haven't been contextualizing well. Eric, man, this is so much to chew on. Thank you so much for

everything. There's a lot more we could talk about, but I'm excited to see you at the next, the conference next year. Yeah. I don't know if I've made it by the time this is released. Yeah. Registration's open now and we do have, so we have Lamar coming out. Oh, that's going to be awesome. We have, I'm still trying to solidify. There's like a few other people I'm, I'm, I'm working on and I haven't really talked to him yet. So I don't want to say it public by the time this releases, maybe I'll already have talked to him.

Um, I also have Devin Stahls coming out. Cool. Do you know Devin? I don't, but that sounds like a great lineup you've got coming. Yeah. So she was on the podcast a while back cause she's a theology of disability. She has MS. Oh, I did. I heard her speak. Yeah. She's super. I heard that episode. Yeah. So I really want Lamar to kind of give a ecclesiological perspective, Devin to give a theological, and then I want some, a few more

practical people who are kind of boots in the ground ministry. Um, and yeah, I'm excited, man. This is an area that I just, I have lots of passions and interests. And this is one that's like, man, I don't have, I can't devote. I've got other things I'm devoting my full-time attention to, but this is always just right there,

nagging on my heart, tugging on my heart. And I just, I am passionate and well, growing in passion for the church to be more of the holistic body of Christ toward the largest minority population. And we have so many examples of the gospel going out to people who are physically atypical. Thanks, Eric. Appreciate your perspective and grace. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

This was a lot of fun. Really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun Converge Podcast Network.