DESCRIPTION

Inspiring and challenging study that rethinks the Bible's teaching on disability

The Bible has plenty to say about human disability; most of it is negative. Yet Amos Yong -- a theologian whose life experience includes growing up alongside a brother with Down syndrome -- argues that it is the way we read biblical texts, not the Bible itself, that causes us unthinkingly to marginalize those with disabilities. Applying a "hermeneutics of suspicion" to traditional methods of interpreting the Bible, Yong rereads and reinterprets texts from the Old Testament, John, Luke-Acts, and Paul from the perspective of people with disabilities. Revealing and dismantling the underlying stigma of disability that exists even in the church, he shows how the Bible offers good news to people of all abilities -- and he challenges churches to reorganize their practices as they strive to become more inviting, healing, and reconciling communities of faith.