Mark Stephenson

Jeanne, I praise God for the loving community at your church. From your description, it sounds like your church, this family, and this young man made decisions about his involvement in church based on his needs and his spiritual growth rather than on what people are most comfortable with. An expression of what a healthy body of Christ looks like!

Bill, I disagree. You mention physical ability and mental capacity as ways to define adult, but in Canada and the US we define "adult" by chronological age. When someone reaches 18 or 21 (depending on what responsibilities are granted) we call them "adults." To put a 10-year-old in the nursery, or a 12-year-old in a Sunday School class for 3rd graders does these individuals a great disservice. Likewise, baby-talking to people who are in their 40's. We need to treat people who are of age as adults. Sure if an adult has intellectual disability, we do Bible Study on a level that he or she understands, but surely not have him sit in a Sunday School class with little kids.

Thanks Bonnie. You provide another good reason why it would be good for adults with intellectual disabilities to be with the adults without disabilities in Sunday school classes and other activities. My experience with adults who have intellectual disabilities is that many of them are much less limited by adult conventions than we who call ourselves nondisabled.

It's nearly impossible for science, good science, to make a blanket statement about a condition as complex as autism. However, the article I cite says, "The American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC, the World Health Organization, and the Institute of Medicine all agree that there's probably no relationship between autism and vaccines." Considering the enormous, real, and documented risks posed to unvaccinated children, compared to the highly unlikely connection between autism and vaccines, I still feel the need to express my belief that the most responsible and loving choice a parent can make is to have his or her child vaccinated.

Regarding your final question, I'm strongly prolife. Your question is a difficult one, though you ask it in a misleading way. Your question makes it seem as if babies are continually aborted in order to create vaccines. In fact, some, not all vaccines, use stem cell lines from three babies that were aborted decades ago - two in the 1960's and one in the 1980's. Just because these abortions happened decades ago does not make the action of the abortions morally acceptable. However, as this article from Right to Life of Michigan  points out, "The further away the current act (using a vaccine) and intent (protecting a child from a disease) of an individual are from a previous immoral act (aborting a child), the less that individual is restricted by the immorality of the previous act. While the act of aborting the child was certainly immoral, all of the steps involved with the development and use of the vaccines thereafter did not cooperate with the abortion." This article goes on to cite a number of authorities who agree that using these vaccines is morally acceptable.

Chong,

Thanks for sharing this resource. The Registered Disability Savings Plan is another program for people in Canada that people with disabilities and care givers need to learn about.

Mark

Thanks for your comment. You are so right. Many kind people made it possible for my wife and me to have time just with the two of us. I assume that single parents of kids with disabilities need respite help at least as much as couples. Some families could really use assistance during worship times on Sundays too.

Sometimes, government agencies will provide funding for or will provide places for respite care. Churches can come alongside families too. Among other ideas for caring, this page on the Disability Concerns website has suggestions for setting up respite care in a congregation.

Pam, great questions. Although Jeff's blog entry, Universal Design and the Christian Church, does not exactly answer your questions, it provides a lot of what you are wondering about. Mark

Jeff, thanks for this explanation and challenge to all of us who believe our own churches are "friendly" without realizing that we exclude people from relationships because they are not able to follow the social rules of our church.

You also raise an interesting question in your suggestion that "the reason for the exclusion of persons with disabilities from churches is social skill deficits." Do others of you have examples of people pushed to the margins of a church because they have social skill deficits?

Doug, this is a great example, and a common one. I would suggest that no one is "driven away" by a person who talks too much, but they choose to walk away and stay away. It may be lack of verbal discipline, but as likely as not there could be many other factors involved in someone talking too much. So what can be done? Clearly, individuals need to help this person understand in a loving way that their not allowing others to get a word in edgewise is preventing them from hearing from others and learning from others who also have important things to say. Then those loving individuals would need to ask permission to give some sort of prompt when they are with the person who talks too much to remind them to stop speaking so that others can speak. As McNair says, the people who can adjust their social style need to do so to be able to lovingly interact with those who find this more difficult. 

This call to adjust our social style is not a call to abandon setting boundaries on what we will and will not accept as appropriate behavior. But it does call us to lovingly help people understand how their behavior affects others and to help them learn new and socially more effective behaviors. We might be tempted to say, "That's not my job," or "It's none of my business." But in the body of Christ, mentoring and being mentored are both called for in the pursuit of learning to love in a Christlike way. 

The hardest part about this is that it requires a lot of patience, but then imagine how we try God's patience every single day. If God is so patient with us, should we not also demonstrate some patience with others?