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A faith in humanness: disability, religion and development

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A faith in humanness: disability,

religion and development
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Matthew J. Schuelka
a
University of Minnesota , Minneapolis , USA
Published online: 17 Sep 2012.

To cite this article: Matthew J. Schuelka (2013): A faith in humanness: disability, religion and
development, Disability & Society, 28:4, 500-513

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 Disability & Society, 2013
Vol. 28, No. 4, 500–513, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.717880

A faith in humanness: disability, religion and development

Matthew J. Schuelka*

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA

(Received 28 December 2011; final version received 10 July 2012)

This paper traces religious scriptural conceptualization and praxis of disability

through pre-monotheistic Hellenic, Judeo-Christian, Islamic and eastern religious
contexts. Secular-rationalistic conceptualization of disability through the medical
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model is discussed and situated within its origins of Judeo-Christian ethics. This
is especially relevant in the history of eugenics. Universalization through the
social model of disability is contrasted with the increase of faith-based organiza-
tions in development practice that bring their own religious world-views. I argue
that understanding historical scriptural conceptualizations of disability are impor-
tant to understand current trends in international development that affect persons
with disabilities.
Keywords: culture; religion; development; disability

Points of interest
• An exploration of historical and religious conceptualization of disability is rel-
evant to today’s thinking around disability, culture and citizenship.
• Pre-monotheistic, Christian, Islamic and eastern religions conceptualize dis-
ability in contrasting ways, although there are similarities in views of spirit
possession and negative views of congenital disabilities.
• There is a link between Judeo-Christian ethics and secular-rationalization that
is important to understand, especially in the history of eugenics.
• Those involved in international development work from both a religious and
non-religious ideology need to better understand disability as a culturally con-
structed phenomenon.

Introduction
Groping, uncertain, I at last found my identity, and after seeing my thoughts and feel-
ings repeated in others, I gradually constructed my world of men and of God. As I read
and study, I find that this is what the rest of the race has done. Man looks within himself
and in time finds the measure and the meaning of the universe. (Keller 1908/2003, 76)

Christian ethics does not (as is often supposed) teach the duty of preserving and multi-
plying life at all hazards. Once convinced that so-and-so was an undesirable citizen,
the Church, while it believed in itself and had the power, lost no time in hurrying him
out of the world … [M]y point is that there is nothing inconsistent with Christianity

*Email: schu1168@umn.edu

Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis

 Disability & Society 501

in imposing as well as enduring personal sacrifice where the highest welfare of the
community is at stake. (Inge 1909, 34)

What does it mean to be human? The answer may be more elusive than you think,
for participation in humanness is a messy process. If God/s made us, why do we
look different, have different abilities, think differently, create different cultures,
have different religions? It would seem easier for society if homogeneity ruled
supreme, but we know that is not the case. If we are to presume a world of differ-
ence, the guidance of our cultural–religious codes provides some blueprint for how
to navigate these differences. In other words, our traditions guide our interactions
with ‘others.’ This applies to exogenous cultural–religious groups, but cultural–
religious teachings also inform how people negotiate diversity within their own
group as well. Religious teachings have been descriptive and prescriptive when it
comes to understandings of both outside-group and within-group heterogeneity.
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Within-group difference is the broad definition of disability for the purposes of

this paper. While many efforts throughout human history have made attempts to cat-
egorize disability and create disability hierarchies, I eschew these narrow conceptu-
alizations. Instead, disability in this paper is descriptive of any deviation from
cultural depictions of humanness and the ‘cult of normalcy.’ This may take on the
form of a physical or cognitive difference, but it may also describe how ‘othering’
has been used to define defiant cultural behavior. On creating norms and ‘others,’
Clapton and Fitzgerald (1997) write: ‘In doing this, we have created an artificial
“paradigm of humanity” into which some of us fit neatly, and others fit very badly.’
This paper is focused on religious interpretations of difference, both from sacred
texts and the humans that have interpreted their meaning. Specifically, I will be speak-
ing of religious conceptualizations of persons with disabilities. While I hope to provide
an overview of the major world religions as they have interpreted the presence of
disability, much of the literature comes from a Judeo-Christian perspective. This bias is
unfortunate but, I argue, necessary to understand how Christianity and secularism have
coalesced in promoting the development of nations and of their citizen’s souls.
The structure of this paper will trace the conceptualization and treatment of dis-
ability from antiquity to Judeo-Christian, Islamic and eastern religions. This is done
through the sacred texts themselves, but also through the interpretations of their
practitioners. Religious theology has been anything if not inconsistent on the sym-
bols and meanings drawn from scripture. Different interpretations have led to differ-
ent conclusions on humanness. This will be evident in the second section of this
paper as I draw on ‘secular’ thought on disabilities but argue that the origins of sec-
ularism are inseparable from religious world-views – especially Judeo-Christian
thought. This has a major impact on how we view modern global development. At
the conclusion of this paper, I argue that acknowledging Judeo-Christian influence
on secular development thinking is as important as acknowledging the importance
of local cultural–religious practices.

Conceptualizations of disability in antiquity

Human spirituality in antiquity was based on the praxis of everyday living and cen-
tered around agricultural practice and social community (see Durkheim 1995). Gods
became important symbols in everyday life to explain weather, sunlight, fertility,
and other natural occurrences (see the works of Joseph Campbell; for example
 502 M.J. Schuelka

Campbell 1959). This is, of course, only one way in which to view the origin of
religion. Disability was another common occurrence during antiquity, given the high
prevalence of war, famine and disease (Braddock and Parish 2001). Conceptualiza-
tion of disability in antiquity needs to be located in the understandings of medicine,
economics and religion at the time.
During antiquity, disabilities were accepted and practically expected to occur
during the lifetime of an individual (Stiker 1999). Both the Greeks and Romans had
laws protecting the rights of persons with disabilities, even assigning guardians to
assist persons with intellectual and cognitive disabilities. Maintaining economic and
property rights was especially important for returning soldiers who had been physi-
cally injured in battle (Braddock and Parish 2001). The agrarian economy and col-
lectivist society of most cultures during this time allowed for greater inclusion of
adults with disabilities as their presence was normative and the tasks for daily living
non-literate and technologically simple (Hanks and Hanks 1948). In describing the
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history of deafness, Groce writes:

Most of Europe’s population, of course, were peasants, who owned little property and
for whom education was beyond reach. These people, often living of the verge of pov-
erty, could hardly have allowed healthy, intellectually capable adults to do little or
nothing simply because they could not hear. (1985, 100)

Similarly, Rose (2006, 22) argues that while deafness was looked upon negatively
in upper-class Greece, ‘it is important to remember that more people in the Greek
world were interested in farming than rhetoric.’
While developing a disability during the course of life was not inherently
viewed as negative in the pre-monotheistic era, being born with a disability was an
entirely different matter. Being born with a physical disability was commonly
viewed as having displeased the gods in some manner. As Braddock and Parish
(2001) observe, infanticide because of the presence of a disability was a widespread
phenomenon. However, infanticide was limited to immediately recognizable con-
genital physical disabilities. Those children born with not-immediately recognizable
disabilities such as deafness, blindness, muteness, and cognitive disabilities were
supported publicly (Braddock and Parish 2001), although still with some stigma as
culture, speech, language and reason were understood as one and the same (Rose
2006).
In providing a brief overview of pre-monotheistic societal views on disabil-
ity, especially in the Greek and Roman context, some links to Judeo-Christian
conceptualization will be noted in the next section. However, observations on
disability in antiquity also problematize our contemporary views that these cul-
tures were entirely and hopelessly ‘backwards’ when it comes to humanness
and citizenship. It cannot be easily dismissed that pre-capitalist agrarian com-
munities were socially inclusive and had a greater degree of egalitarianism.
From a religious perspective, gods were involved in people’s lives by acting
upon them. The same gods that may have ‘cursed’ a family by causing a dis-
ability in an infant also allowed a soldier to live after losing a limb or endur-
ing a traumatic brain injury. It is a complex relationship between humans and
the gods that depicts a nuanced view of disability lost in our contemporary
characterization of ancient culture.
 Disability & Society 503

Judeo-Christian conceptualizations of disability

The Old Testament is the basis of sacred scripture for both the Jewish and Christian
religions. In Leviticus is written:

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to Aaron, saying, None of your
offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the
bread of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame,
or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or a man who has an injured foot
or an injured hand, or a hunchback or a dwarf or a man with a defect in his sight or
an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles. No man of the offspring of Aaron the
priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord’s food offerings; since he
has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. He may eat the
bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy things, but he shall not go
through the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not
profane my sanctuaries, for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.’ So Moses spoke to
Aaron and to his sons and to all the people of Israel. (Leviticus 21:16–24)
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As Stiker (1999) argues, this passage informs Judaic Law on the definition of
‘blemish’ as synonymously meaning spiritually unclean and being a person with a
disability. Like pre-monotheistic religions, however, the conceptualization of disabil-
ity is complex and often paradoxical. In this section I will explore these paradoxes
in the sacred texts, but also in the historical practice of Christianity.
While the Jewish God is one of punishment akin to the gods of antiquity, there is
also a great deal of passages in the sacred texts on compassion and charity. This cre-
ates interesting paradoxes to explore. For example, just before God’s condemnation of
those that are ‘blemished’ in the Leviticus passage above, in Leviticus 19:14 it states:
‘Thou shalt not curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind, nor maketh
the blind to wander out of the path.’ In the same chapter of the Old Testament, the
followers of the Jewish god were implored to be compassionate towards the blind and
deaf and warned that the blind and deaf were not to approach the sacred altar.
Further complicating matters is the fact that in the Bible it becomes clear that
disability is both a punishment meted out by God and a reminder for charitable
obligation and compassion in society for persons with disabilities (Braddock and
Parish 2001). For example, Deuteronomy states:

… if you do not carefully follow His commands and decrees … all these curses will
come upon you and overtake you: the Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness
and confusion of the mind. At midday, you will grope around like a blind man in the
dark. (Deuteronomy 28:15 and 28:28–29)

In general, the Old Testament presents a God very much like his contemporaries in
Greece, Rome and Egypt – willing to punish and curse those that are unfaithful or
have committed sin.
The teachings of Jesus in the New Testament present a significant shift in dis-
ability conceptualization. Instead of persons with disabilities being excluded from
the temple, Jesus welcomes them inside so that he may heal them (Stiker 1999). In
Christian theological practice during the Middles Ages, disability becomes less
about God’s wrath and more about the inhabitation of the Devil or cursed by evil
(Shapiro 1993). This changes disability from being conceptualized as a lifelong
curse enacted by God to being an opportunity for exorcism, miracle, cure, and
observance of God’s compassion. As Black (1996, 29) observes, the stories of
 504 M.J. Schuelka

healing in the New Testament relate the idea that people have disabilities ‘… to
show the power of God.’
If there was more emphasis in the New Testament on disability as an opportunity
to show God’s grace, it also established a dynamic wherein sickness and disability
necessitated a ‘cure.’ Koosed and Schumm (2005) observe that in the chapters
Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus performs ‘cures’ to ‘heal’ persons with disabilities
through faith; but in the gospel of John, Jesus performs ‘signs’ of healing that
proclaim Jesus’s identity as Christ. The prevailing narrative of Jesus curing persons
with disabilities was that sin caused disability (Braddock and Parish 2001; Koosed
and Schumm 2005). This occurs in Mark 8:22–26, Mark 2:1–12, Matthew 8:5–13,
John 9:3, and so forth. Believing that disability can be miraculously cured or allevi-
ated changes the relationship between the religious and the person with a disability
as pity establishes the person with a disability as a vehicle for another person’s act of
kindness and a responsibility of charity. In other words, it dehumanizes the individ-
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ual into an object of burden (Rose 1997). As Betcher (2006) pointedly writes: ‘…
encounters between the protagonist Jesus … and a person with a “disability” become
medicine shows. In such scenes, disabled characters appear as but stage props in the
constituting of humanism.’
Protestantism, introduced by Martin Luther in the 1500s, does not rewrite the
sacred texts but changes the interpretation of them. To Luther, the devil was the pri-
mary source and cause of disability, although he also believed that God could
directly cause a disability (Miles 2001). However, Luther also believed that hearing
impairments and blindness were not barriers to become Christian, writing: ‘to the
Word of God nothing is deaf’ (in Miles 2001). Miles (2001) argues that Luther
advanced the idea that persons with disabilities had full human value, although
Luther remained convinced of devilry and witchcraft as an explanation of disability.
This was not surprising given the prevailing sentiment during the Middle Ages of
demonic possession and religious exorcism (Braddock and Parish 2001). These
ideas would later transplant themselves to the colonial-era United States. Both
Increase Mather, president of Harvard University, and his son Cotton Mather,
preached on the birth of children with disabilities as evidence of God’s wrath in the
1600s (Covey 1998). The burning of ‘witches’ was common practice during this
time, as their deviance and disability presented a challenge to the conceptualization
of humanness in God’s image. As Rose (1997, 398) argues: ‘Though it may be
uncomfortable for modern society to acknowledge, the Bible is clear in its message
that perfection and beauty should surround things religious and that imperfection is
to be rejected.’
Christianity, especially in its Protestant form, is a deeply evangelical religion.
Mark 16:15 commands: ‘Go into all the world and preach the good news to all cre-
ation.’ As Miles (2001) observed in Martin Luther, persons with disabilities were
seen as an opportunity to be taught Christianity and be ‘saved.’ In the proselytizing
fervor of the United States during the 1800s, persons with disabilities such as those
that are deaf were viewed as a perfectly pure vessel in which to plant God’s love.
On deaf education pioneer Revd Thomas Galludet, Baynton writes:

[Sign language] was ideal for alleviating what Galludet saw as the overriding problem
facing deaf people: they lived beyond the reach of the Gospel. They knew nothing of
God and the promise of salvation, nor had they a firm basis for the development of a
moral sense. (1992, 222)
 Disability & Society 505

In conclusion on Judeo-Christianity and disability, there is a mixture of many

different conceptualizations of disability at play in its theology. It should be noted
that interpretation of the Bible is an evolving process, and often used to serve the
persona of the interpreter. For example, a Liberation theological interpretation of
the Bible is pro-disability rights in that it seeks to alleviate poverty and advocates
for the accepted humanness of all (Danforth 2005). While much of the Bible
contains negative imagery of persons with disabilities (Selway and Ashman 1998),
nonetheless, positive conceptualizations of disability – in the modern sense – have
emerged from Christian theology. There are, however, legitimate concerns by
disability rights scholars and advocates as to the paternalistic and power-differential
relationship imposed by Christian charity and evangelism.

Islam and disability

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Similar to Judeo-Christian monotheism in its roots, Islam differs significantly in

how it conceives of a person’s relationship to God. Watters (2010) suggests that
illness and disability in Islam are not viewed as punishment, but rather as an oppor-
tunity to endure suffering in order to receive Allah’s grace. Christianity, on the
other hand, views illness and disability as challenges and tests to overcome. In both
religions, disability can be seen as a test of faith. The difference between Islam and
Christianity is how the individual is supposed to react to the test. Because of the
Islamic belief in submission and acceptance of suffering, the religion is often
stereotyped as being fatalistic (Miles 1995). Like all characterizations, however, it
fails to capture the nuance and complexity of religious theology and practice.
Within the sacred text of the Qur’an, disability seems to be positively regarded.
Al-Nour 24:61 states: ‘no blame attaches to the blind, nor does blame attach to the
lame, nor does blame attach to the sick.’ Wafi (1991) suggests that because Islam
believes all people are descended from Adam and Eve, there is no need to discrimi-
nate between people. The rights for all people to live independently and have a
family are part of Islamic doctrine (Turmusani 2001). As Ahmed (2007) observes,
the Qur’an has many passages that implore society to not only accept disability as
a reality, but stress the protection of the ‘weak.’ This obligation seems similar to
the Christian concept of charity, but Miles (1995) argues that a better word to
describe this obligation is ‘justice.’ He writes: ‘Disabled Muslims’ expectations
were founded on a traditional sense of mutual responsibility and religious duty
within communities, under the all-seeing eye of Allah’ (Miles 1995, 58).
While Islamic scripture may have relatively positive views on disability, the
humanness of interpreting sacred texts leads to negative cultural realities. Ahmed
(2007) writes that the Muslim scholars of the Middle Ages were early adopters of a
medicalized approach to disability. Thus, they viewed disability as deviance from
normality. Watters (2010) also suggests that traditional Muslim cultural belief of
being inhabited by a djinn connects mental illness with devil or spirit possession.
As can be read in this paper, this is a theme that runs throughout every religious
tradition.
Similarly to Christianity, Islam is evangelical in nature and seeks to educate
others about its beliefs. Ahmed (2007) observes that education of the Qur’an is the
sacred duty of every Muslim. Thus, it is the duty of Muslims to teach the Qur’an
to persons with disabilities. A famous parable in Islam is of Abdullah Ibn-
Umm-Maktum, a man who was blind but charged by the Prophet Muhammad to
 506 M.J. Schuelka

govern Medina. He later was killed on the battlefield holding the Muslim flag, after
telling Muhammad: ‘I will carry it for you and protect it, for I am blind and cannot
run away’ (Bazna and Hatab 2005). This is one of many examples of persons with
disabilities who served their Islamic communities (Ahmed 2007). These stories
build up the belief that a Muslim person with a disability should be viewed as a
human with full participation in society. As in all religions, cultural interpretation
and actualization of religious ideology is varied.

Disability in East Asian religions

While the traditions of western thought from Aristotle to Descartes suggest a duality
between mind and body, consciousness and unconsciousness, Watters (2010) argues
that it is inappropriate to project and export that concept onto an analysis of eastern
religions. Indeed, duality is not a world-view that Buddhists, Hindus, and other
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eastern religions purport. In contrast to the Hellenistic idealization of the body,

Asian conceptualization of the ‘body’ is fluid, dynamic and temporary (Miles
2000). This does not hide the fact that persons with disabilities faced discrimination
in Asia as in other parts of the world, but the eastern conceptualization of disability
as different than the West and important to understand.
Daoist philosopher Chuang-Tzu wrote in the fourth century BCE that ‘… beg-
gars, cripples and freaks are seen quite without pity and with as much interest and
respect as princes and sages’ (cited in Miles 2000, 608). Stoltzfus and Schumm
(2011) suggest that Asian religious philosophies – such as Daoism – destabilize
human categorization and promote holistic and dynamic societies. Miles suggests
that ‘Buddhists may appear fortunate in avoiding mental debates with themselves
for or against a possibly capricious deity who gives some people a disability while
others enjoy good health and faculties’ (1995, 58). However, Buddhism also
emphasizes personal enlightenment through meditation and mental achievement,
which can be a barrier to persons with physical, emotional or cognitive disabilities
(Matsumoto 2004; Miles 1995). Matsumoto suggests: ‘Disability was not a primary
factor in the attainment of realization. Rather, it was seen as a misfortune, or retri-
bution for offenses committed by the individual or someone close to him in the
past’ (2004, 24).
The concept of karma, present in Buddhist and Hindu religions, is a major
cultural obstacle for persons with disabilities in Asian societies. Much like the
Abrahamic monotheistic religions’ belief in disability as incurred by God because
of personal or family sinfulness, disability in karmic cycles is believed to be caused
by the sins of past lives. On the one hand, the belief in past lives suggests
‘misfortune’ in the current life was a result of retributive consequences (Miles
1995). On the other, disability provides an opportunity for compassion in this life.
King aptly describes this dilemma:

Though Buddhist teachers have emphasized that disability should call forth our
compassion and our readiness to help, popular understanding based on the idea of
karma has provided a rationalization for people to turn their backs on the disabled; it
thus has been a psychological barrier against assisting the disabled or improving their
condition … The proper response by Buddhists should not be to blame or reject those
born into poverty, disability and the like. The past life is gone; the person who did
those supposed bad deeds is no more … it is simply a misunderstanding of the
Buddha’s teachings. (2009, 163–164)
 Disability & Society 507

In eastern religious philosophy, mental illness is just as likely to be viewed as

being an imbalance of the body or the presence of toxins as it is to be viewed as
harmful attachment to people or objects (Dorji 2004). Humanness in eastern con-
texts is fluid and the body is viewed only as a vehicle to reach enlightenment.
Disability in an eastern religious conceptualization, as noted by Miles (1995), is
poorly covered by the disability literature, and a deeper understanding of religious
world-views would greatly enhance our global understanding of humanness and
disability. As noted previously, the dearth of (western) literature on eastern
religious conceptualizations of disability makes this article seem unbalanced. This
is, indeed, unfortunate.

Rationalism, religion and development

Disability becomes severely problematized after the Enlightenment as the medical
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model of disability emerges from rationalism. This way of thinking about disabil-
ity puts the onus on the person with a disability to either be cured or rehabilitated
into society as best they can (Clapton and Fitzgerald 1997). During this period of
the 1800s, the notions of nationalism, normality, participation, economic produc-
tion, and citizenship become complexly enmeshed (Baynton 1992; Trent 1994).
The conceptualization of disability from the medical model approach took on a
statistical and rationalistic bent. As Davis notes: ‘statistics is bound up with
eugenics because the central insight of statistics is the idea that population can be
normed’ (1995, 30). In other words, disability was associated with deviancy and
being ‘not-normal’ and allowed Social-Darwinist eugenics to masquerade as
ethical science.
Nowhere is the entanglement of Christian ethics, practice and rationality more
messy than the history of Eugenics. Rosen writes:

Most ministers responded to the growing influence of science not with denunciations,
but with well-intentioned efforts to incorporate scientific methods into their own belief
systems … religious leaders lent credibility to the scientific enterprise at the same time
that they unwittingly prepared the ground to receive a science with far more radical
implications for their faiths: Darwinian evolution. (2004, 8)

Charles Darwin tried to reconcile God and evolution (Miller 1999; Phipps 2002);
but what Darwin envisioned as an explanatory theory of God’s creation, others used
evolution as a prescription to eradicate ‘defectives’ in society. Huntington and Whit-
ney argue:

It was not God who made the defectives. We made them, or our forefathers did. God
kills them off, for that is Nature’s stern way; we make them by disregarding the laws
of heredity, by preserving the weak and imbecile, and by making it easy for defectives
to reproduce their kind. (1927, 136)

This thinking was not so radical a notion in the early twentieth century and, in fact,
was quite widespread (Barnes 1926; Inge 1909; Moore 2007; Rosen 2004).
Another supposedly scientific and secular idea that may not be so religiously
pure is capitalism. In his seminal sociological work The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism, Weber (1905/2002) makes a compelling argument that the root
of capitalistic thought is Protestant theology. Snyder and Mitchell (2006) observe
 508 M.J. Schuelka

this symbiosis of capitalism and Protestantism through John Winthrop’s ‘A Modell

of Christian Charity.’ They argue that:

Winthrop in his sermon likened Christian charity to a legal contract, or ‘binding cove-
nant,’ among classes and penitents in order to assure that charity’s operations would
remain intact. Thus, the Puritan settlement instituted a critical relationship between
economic and religious orders that has remained in force to the present. (Snyder and
Mitchell 2006, 55)

Earlier in this paper it became clear that the Judeo-Christian conceptualization on

disability, especially in the New Testament, revolved around charity. Shakespeare
(2006) argues that charity has a negative impact on the lives of persons with
disabilities because it creates dependence and inequality, although Stiker (1999) saw
Christian charity in the Middle Ages as an institutional redistribution of resources
to – ideally – create a more equal society. While I do not propose to settle the
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debate on the positives and negatives of charity in this paper, I do want to promote
the argument that Christian charity, as articulated by John Winthrop, creates a
binary between those who need charity and those who give charity. Indeed, if we
were all equal, whom would we be charitable toward? However, as Hutchinson
(2006) rightly argues: charity, Christianity, and disability have a complex and
nuanced relationship.
This idea carries through to development as well. As scholars have noted, devel-
opment has been traditionally viewed as secular (Deneulin and Bano 2009; Selinger
2004). While some would associate secularism with anti-religious zealotry (Beek
2000; Berger 1999; Deneulin and Bano 2009), its historical roots of capitalism and
rationalism are so entangled with Judeo-Christian thought as to make them unrecog-
nizable from each other. Secularism has a long tradition in western and eastern
religions and philosophies from Confucius (Fingarette 1972) and Muslim philosopher
Ibn Rushd (Akhtar 2008); Aristotle and Plato, Lucretius, Erasmus, Thomas Aquinas,
Poggio Bracciolini, and Thomas More (Greenblatt 2011; Hitchcock 1982); to
Christian deists Adam Smith, John Locke and most of the founders of the United
States (Kowalski 2008). Jesus spoke in Luke 20:25: ‘Then give to Caesar what is
Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.’ As Rose argues:

The views of Western religious institutions have helped to create the social construct
of disability as a political state of oppression and have been instrumental in maintain-
ing its power and pervasive nature. (1997, 396)

In short, my point is that the political, medical and rationalistic conceptions of dis-
ability to come out of European Enlightenment are based on Judeo-Christian reli-
gious theology and thus exported through the modern development project.
While the medical model on disability still strongly lingers, the more recent
conceptualization of disability can be seen in the rights-based or social model. By
displacing the responsibility of disability onto society rather than the individual,
disability as a constructed societal and cultural phenomenon became mainstream.
Thus, ‘charity’ and ‘rehabilitation’ are replaced by ‘rights,’ which is articulated in
the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
(Kayess and French 2008). In describing the nexus of the CRPD and the rights-
based approach, Bickenbach argues:
 Disability & Society 509

What both the CRPD and the human rights approach share – I will argue – is an
unbending commitment to universalism about rights, by which I mean the position
that human rights are applicable to everyone, and to everyone equally, independently
of all contingent differences between people – race, religion, language, culture, geo-
graphical location, and so on, including disability. (2009, 1112)

What is especially germane to this article in the above quotation is Bickenbach’s

argument that the universalization of human rights transcends religion. The United
Nations has been critiqued – especially by Muslim religious leaders – as purport-
ing Judeo-Christian ethics in the name of ‘universal’ rights (see Mayer 2007;
Abiad 2008). While the presence of ‘disability’ in societies is most certainly a
universal experience, the cultural conceptualization of ‘disability’ is relative (for
example, Ingstad and Whyte 1995). The social model of disability recognizes this,
although when this constructed approach becomes ‘rights-based’ it implies action.
What exactly is to ‘be done’ about disability in societies becomes understandably
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touchy when it steps on the toes of cultural–religious conceptualizations of

disability.
The middle ground in development practice using the medical model – a ratio-
nalistic entanglement of Judeo-Christian conceptualizations and ethics with ‘secular’
science – and the social rights-based model – a universalizing approach that can
whitewash religious difference – may be a hybridization of the two models. In the
World Report on Disability (World Health Organization [WHO] and World Bank
2011), a bio-pyscho-social model is put forth as such a hybrid approach. However,
much still needs to be done to assist international development organizations in
realizing realities and cultural imaginings other than the secular–rational.
Buddhist, Daoist and Hindu beliefs in compassion, body-mind holism and the
transience of the body can help inform a reconceptualization of disability in the sec-
ular medical community. For example, the WHO, in its recommendation to expand
the mental health system in the strongly Buddhist country of Bhutan, includes
increasing the availability of psychotropic medication, expanding the capacity of
psychiatric wards, and making available electro-convulsive therapy otherwise
known as ‘shock’ therapy (WHO and Bhutan Ministry of Health 2007). Clearly, the
WHO should explore Buddhist–cultural alternatives to conceptualizing disability if
it wishes to effectively engage with these communities. As numerous authors have
articulated, disability and illness are cultural–religiously constructed and realized
(for example, Fadiman 1997; Ingstad and Whyte 1995; Jenkins and Barrett 2004;
Watters 2010). To conceptualize a universality of disability experience by interna-
tional development organizations and to universalize a prescription seems like a
fool’s errand. Miles (1995, 2000) reminds us that Eurocentric (i.e. Judeo-Christian)
conceptualizations of disability have exported themselves as ‘universal’ and not
collaborated with differing views in other cultures and religions.
Otieno (2009) argues that negative views on disability in Christianity impact the
development of persons with disabilities in Kenya, writing that ‘… people make a
direct connection between physical perfection and spiritual righteousness.’ Otieno
(2009) notes that the churches in Africa discriminate towards allowing persons with
disabilities into the ministry. Selway and Ashman argue that religious organizations
may need to revise their interpretation of scripture:

Challenging outmoded language and discriminatory practices towards persons with a

disability as represented in religious texts may be on way of bringing the rights of
 510 M.J. Schuelka

people with a disability to the attention of religious communities and the community
at large. (1998, 437)

It is important to recognize scriptural and institutional discrimination towards per-

sons with disabilities before allowing development to be operated by religiously-
affiliated organizations and churches.
The involvement and increasing salience of faith-based organizations (FBOs)
and other religious groups in development practice (Clarke 2006) raises key ques-
tions in the role religion is playing in development. Stambach (2010) notes that
evangelical Christian organizations have proliferated in East Africa under the guise
of educational development. American FBOs – here, evangelical non-denomina-
tional Christian – send an increasing number of ‘missionaries’ to perform educa-
tional development work, teaching literacy through scripture. The increase of FBOs
in development and civil society has also been noted by Piot (2010) in West Africa.
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Piot argues that in the post-Cold War reduction of state power in West Africa,
Pentecostal churches rushed in to fill the gap. Similarly, Pentecostalism is rising
precipitously in South America and has become a major player in the development
of civil-society (Gooren 2010).
What I am suggesting in this article is that the increasing role of religious organi-
zations in developing civil society in the absence of the state may have an impact on
the conceptualization of persons with disabilities within society. As has been argued
in this paper, religious scriptural interpretations of disability are filled with paradoxes,
especially in theological practice. In the public sphere there are competing universal-
isms, with ‘secular’ non-governmental organizations and FBOs advocating for an
imagined universal world (Stambach 2010). The presentation of universalist ideals
may serve to whitewash local constructions of disability that deserve contemplation
before its upheaval in the name of ‘progress.’ Not to mention that these development
narratives of ‘progress’ – mainly evangelical Christian – have a troubled and complex
relationship with human difference, as was shown throughout this article.
In conclusion, let me first state that the arguments in this article are subjective,
and rely upon the subjective arguments of the others cited here. Generalizing
religious experience is a messy business, and I do not wish to take away each
individual encounter with their personal religion. While I refuse to believe that
every religious practitioner can be assessed upon their religious texts, nevertheless
these texts and the historical record point to several major themes in how religious
world-view conceptualizes human difference.
If there was one theme that emerged through the examination of many of the
major religions, it would be that all of them viewed disability as a condition that
inherently exists; can be caused by evil and sin either through fate, family or personal
acts, or an inherent condition of the world; and provides humans an opportunity for
action. In the world of antiquity, disability was a common accepted condition but
problematic in imaging a world of fate controlled by spiritual deities. Judasim broke
with polytheism in imaging a world in which one had freewill but was punished by
God through death or disability. Christianity again changed the conceptualization of
disability by seeing those ‘afflicted’ and ‘suffering’ as opportunities to conduct charity
and to ‘save’ those infected with evil. Islam would later reinterpret the relationship
with Allah as one of enduring ‘suffering’ and an opportunity to practice ‘justice.’ In
East Asia, karmic cycles led to a mistrust of persons with disabilities but the teachings
of Daoism, Hinduism, and Buddhism all remind us to practice ‘compassion.’
 Disability & Society 511

These religious and ethical ideas are all present today: appropriated, re-imagined,
and redefined. The process of international development serves to highlight these
differing world-views, and into these spaces must go the person with a disability to
become defined, imagined, and appropriated. In order to understand how to contend
with human difference in the twenty-first century it is important to examine the
religious roots of our societies, for they inform and guide us in myriad and
unexpected ways.

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Dr Robert Osburn and Darin Mather for their initial review
and comments on this paper.

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