At the Gates: Disability, Justice, and the Churches by Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Emily Richardson

I'd like to recommend a book called At the Gates: Disability, Justice and the Churches by Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Emily Richardson. (Jacobs is on Mastodon: @[email protected])

It's a powerful book describing the experience of some disabled folks engaging with the Christian churches, including

• having difficulty accessing church services, due to physical barriers or inaccessible technology.
• being barred from exercising their spiritual gifts because of the charity model of disability, treating them as objects of pity instead of participants.
• being accosted by fellow congregants and strangers with attempts at miraculous healings without their consent.
• worshiping a Savior who retains his wounds after his resurrection, rather than them being erased or ignored.

What has stayed with me the most since I read the book last year is that several Christians with disabilities describe heaven not as a state where their disabilities will be taken away, but a state where the world will be fully accessible to them as they are.