Many Tongues, Many Senses Pentecost, The Body Politic, And The Redemption Of Dis Ability

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Pneuma 31 (2009) 167-188

Many Tongues, Many Senses: Pentecost, the Body

Politic, and the Redemption of Dis/Ability

Amos Yong

Regent University Divinity School, Virginia Beach, Virginia 23464, USA

[email protected]

Abstract

Disability studies and Pentecostal Theology have not interacted much in the young history of both ﬁ elds of inquiry. This essay identiﬁ es some of the reasons for this missed interface, explores how disability perspectives might bring to the fore resources for rethinking Pentecostal understand- ings of disability, explicates (with the help of a disability hermeneutic) the Pentecostal theology of “many tongues” bearing witness to the gospel with the correlative motif of “many senses” capable of receiving and giving witness to the works of God, and reassesses the possibility of Pentecostal contributions to theology of disability and disability studies in light of the “many senses” motif. My thesis is that the dialogue between disability studies and Pentecostal Theology will be challenging but also helpful for both sides, even as our joint eﬀ orts might also testify to the wonders of God in and through the diversity of embodied human experiences.

Keywords

disability studies, Luke-Acts, Day of Pentecost, Pentecostal Theology, inclusion, political ecclesiology

Introduction

What do disability studies and Pentecostal Theology have in common? Are inter- sections between these two scholarly ﬁ elds of inquiry possible or proﬁ table? Can each discipline learn from and yet critically inform the other?

The following pages seek to respond to these questions in four steps, corre- lating with the four sections of this essay: (1) identiﬁ cation of some of the reasons behind the lack of interaction, so far, between disability and Pentecos- tal studies; (2) exploration of how disability perspectives might bring to the fore previously unrecognized resources for rethinking Pentecostal understand- ings of disability; (3) explication, with the help of a disability hermeneutic, of the Pentecostal theology of “many tongues” bearing witness to the gospel with the resulting motif of “many senses” capable of receiving and giving witness to

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the wondrous works of God; and (4) reassessment of the possibility of Pente- costal contributions to theology of disability and disability studies in light of the “many senses” motif. I will argue that the intersection of disability studies and Pentecostal Theology will be challenging but also helpful for both sides, even as our joint eﬀ orts might also bear witness, in a creative and distinctive way, to the marvelous works of God in and through the diversity of embodied human experiences.

Disability Studies and Pentecostal Theology: Roadblocks at the Intersection

The ﬁ eld of disability studies has exploded into prominence over the past gen- eration and especially during the last two decades.1 Landmark events inform- ing this new discipline include the emergence of the disability rights movement in the early 1970s in the wake of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, and then the passing of the American with Disabilities Act in 1990.2 Albeit focused on the human experience of disability, scholars approach the topic from a variety of (inter- and multi-) disciplinary perspectives, including the medical, technological, social, and political sciences, economics, law, lit- erature, history, philosophy, and even religious and theological studies, just to name a few.3

Why, then, has disability studies not interacted or interfaced with Pentecos- tal studies? One can think of a few reasons, including the relative youth of both scholarly enterprises.4 Yet, there are also at least two other speciﬁ c reasons

The standard introductions to the discipline are Lennard J. Davis, ed., The Disability Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 1997), and Sharon L. Snyder, Brenda Jo Brueggemann, and Rose- marie Garland-T omson, eds., Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2002).

See Doris Zames Fleischer and Frieda Zames, The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001), and Ruth Colker, The Disability Pendulum: The First Decade of the Americans with Disabilities Act (New York: New York Univer- sity Press, 2005).

Disability studies have now been represented for a while in discussions in both the American Academy of Religion (through the Religion and Disability Studies group) and the Society of Biblical Literature (through the Disability Studies and Healthcare in the Bible and the Near East program unit). See, respectively, Sharon Betcher, “Rehabilitating Religious Discourse: Bringing Disability Studies to the T eological Venue,” Religious Studies Review 27, no. 4 (2001): 341-48, and Jeremy Schipper, Disability Studies and the Hebrew Bible: Figuring Mephibosheth in the David Story (New York: T & T Clark, 2006).

Pentecostal Theology itself had its genesis also in the early 1970s; see my brief “history” in “Pentecostalism and the T eological Academy,” T eology Today 64, no. 2 (2007): 244-50.

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why disability studies scholars have ignored Pentecostal Theology. First, disabil- ity studies has been, by and large, motivated by a socio-political agenda directed toward the achievement of disability rights and the inclusion of people with disabilities into the mainstream of society. Insofar as Pentecostal Theology is understood (rightly or wrongly) as being apolitical in its representing the over- all orientation of the Pentecostal Movement, it would be seen as being out of alignment with rather than supportive of the goals of disability scholarship. Second, the experience of disability scholars such as Nancy Eiesland suggests that the Pentecostal Movement’s emphasis on healing is counterproductive and even oﬀ ensive to those scholars of disability who themselves have disabili- ties but understand these not as problems to be resolved (or healed or cured) but as part and parcel of their identity as human beings.5 In this case, the assumption would be that Pentecostal Theology is interested more in legitimat- ing the ideology of healing prevalent in the movement than in investigating how such ideologies perpetuate the oppressive status quo that marginalizes rather than values the experiences of people with disabilities. When combined, it is easier to see why disability studies scholars have either neglected or dis- tanced themselves from, rather than sought to engage, Pentecostal Theology.

On the Pentecostal side, we should note that the movement’s emphasis on healing is a central conviction with deep theological rather than ideological roots.6 At the heart of Pentecostal theology, for example, is the Fourfold Gos- pel of Jesus as savior, healer, baptizer (with the Holy Spirit), and coming king. This is predicated on the Pentecostal biblical hermeneutic that identiﬁ es the apostolic experience, especially that recounted by St. Luke in the book of Acts, as normative for the ongoing life of the church. Hence, the healings experi- enced by the early Christians — for example, that of the lame man at the Gate Beautiful, Aeneas, the crippled man at Lystra, Publius on the isle of Malta (Acts 28), and many others (for example, Acts 5:16, 8:7, 28:9) — are thought to reﬂ ect God’s primary intentions for believers. Further, believers empowered

Eiesland herself grew up in the Assemblies of God with a congenital form of degenerative bone disease; for her account of her experiences in the church, see her by now classic book, The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory T eology of Disability (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 116-18, and also “Avoiding Hospital Chaplains and other Venial Sins,” Candler Connection (Fall 2008): 8-9. For further discussion of this disability self-understanding, see my T eology and Down Syn- drome: Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007), 242-44.

Two recent studies of Pentecostal healing are Nancy Hardesty, Faith Cure: Divine Healing in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), and Kimberly E. Alexander, Pentecostal Healing: Models in T eology and Practice (Blandford Forum, UK: Deo, 2007).

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by the Holy Spirit to bear witness to the gospel are supposed to emulate Jesus himself, who through the power of the same Spirit “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10:38; cf. Luke 4:18). Along with the many healings recorded in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is said to have responded when asked if he was the messiah to come: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them” (7:22). In sum, if the ministry of Jesus and the apostles is marked by the healing power of the Holy Spirit, then so will the ministries of the followers of Jesus who are ﬁ lled with the Spirit.

More to the point, the healings accomplished by the power of God are thought to be signs heralding and inaugurating the coming kingdom.8 It is typically assumed, in conjunction with the eschatological vision of the Apoca- lypse about there being no more tears in the new heavens and new earth (Rev 21:4), that sicknesses, diseases, and disabilities will be eliminated before or, ﬁ nally with, the resurrection of the body in the life to come. The presence of these bodily inﬁ rmities and aﬄ ictions are a mark of the present fallen order. T eir persistence, and the lack of healing, is thought either to signal the ongoing eﬀ ects of sin (and, concomitantly, the lack of repentance or of faith) or, alternatively, to represent God’s testing of our trust in him. For the able- bodied, the unfortunate suﬀ erings of people with disabilities serve only as occasions for acts of charity toward them.

Given this background, I suggest it is important for both disability studies and Pentecostal Theology to engage in a mutual discussion. Pentecostal scholars are increasingly realizing not only that contemporary etiology of disability requires a rethinking of the connection between sin and disability,9 but that

Hence, we can better understand the disability studies critique that Jesus’ healings function “as erasure rather than acceptance of disability”; that “the restoration of bodies to normative health through acts of faith healing ultimately devalues our commitments to the demands of embodiment overall”; and that, in this view, redemption becomes “a form of social cleansing”; see David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder, “‘Jesus T rows Everything Oﬀ Balance’: Disability and Redemption in Biblical Literature,” in Hector Avalos, Sarah J. Melcher, and Jeremy Schipper, eds., This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Lit- erature, 2007), 173-83, quotations from 178 and 179.

See Howard M. Irvin, Healing: Sign of the Kingdom (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002).

Taking mental incapacities, for example, the biblical traditions identify its causes in terms that include God himself, sin (of one’s ancestors, if not oneself) and its eﬀ ects, or the devil and his demons. By contrast, contemporary etiologies of mental disabilities include environmental, genetic/chromosomal, and prenatal explanations, among others; see, e.g., James C. Harris, Intel- lectual Disability: Understanding Its Development, Causes, Classiﬁ cation, Evaluation, and Treat- ment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), chap. 5. The theological issues are much more

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Jesus himself had already called this into question (cf. John 9:2-3). Further, that Jesus’ resurrected body retained the marks of impairment in his hands and sides should give Pentecostals pause about too simplistically dismissing the “presence” of disabilities in the new heavens and new earth; might it be that God’s wiping away every tear from our eyes signals not so much the elimina- tion of disabilities but their redemption and the removal of the social and even ecclesial stigmatization that comes with them?10 Last but not least, healing is itself now seen to have not only biological but also social dimensions; this means that disabilities are, at least in some cases, as much if not more social constructions as they are physical conditions.11 All this is to say that Pentecos- tal scholars should now rethink popular Pentecostal theologies of suﬀ ering and healing in light of the work of disability studies, which challenges a one- dimensional medical, biological, and individualistic model of the human experi- ence of disability.12

On the other hand, I invite disability studies scholars to reconsider what Pentecostal Theology might have to oﬀ er toward what Eiesland calls a “liberatory theology of disability.”13 At the same time, as a Pentecostal theologian I recog- nize that unless and until Pentecostal scholars themselves begin explicitly to

complex, of course, but my point is that we cannot proceed as if contemporary diagnoses do not matter.

For elaboration of this point, see my “Disability, the Human Condition, and the Spirit of the Eschatological Long Run: Toward a Pneumatological T eology of Disability,” Journal of Reli- gion, Disability, and Health 11, no. 1 (2007): 5-25.

See Colin Barnes, ‘Cabbage Syndrome’: The Social Construction of Dependence (New York and London: Falmer, 1990); Bill Hughes and Kevin Paterson, “The Social Model of Disability and the Disappearing Body: Towards a Sociology of Impairment,” Disability & Society 12, no. 3 (1997): 325-40; and Gerard Goggin and Christopher Newell, Digital Disability: The Social Con- struction of Disability in New Media (Lanham, MD, and London: Rowman & Littleﬁ eld, 2003).

Both are already happening — e.g., Martin W. Mittelstadt, The Spirit and Suﬀ ering in Luke- Acts: Implications for a Pentecostal Pneumatology (London and New York: T & T Clark, 2004), has begun to rework Pentecostal theology of suﬀ ering, and my own T eology and Down Syn- drome, esp. chap. 8, has sought to reconceptualize theology of healing. The present essay is an extension of my theology of disability work in an explicitly Pentecostal idiom.

E.g., Leonard Lovett, “Liberation: A Dual-Edged Sword,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Soci- ety for Pentecostal Theology 9, no. 2 (1987): 155-71; Miroslav Volf, “Materiality of Salvation: An Investigation in the Soteriologies of Liberation and Pentecostal T eologies,” Journal of Ecumeni- cal Studies 26, no. 3 (1989): 447-67; Juan Sepúlveda, “Pentecostalism and Liberation T eology: Two Manifestations of the Work of the Holy Spirit for the Renewal of the Church,” in Harold D. Hunter and Peter C. Hocken, eds., All Together in One Place: T eological Papers from the Brighton Conference on World Evangelization (Shefield, UK: Shefield Academic Press, 1993), 51-64; and Veronica Melander, “‘New’ Pentecostalism Challenges ‘Old’ Liberation T eology,” Svensk missionstidskrift 87, no. 3 (1999): 341-57.

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engage issues pertinent to disability,14 their work will remain inconsequential to disability scholarship. Yet I wonder if there are resources within what I call the “pneumatological imagination” of Pentecostal spirituality that cannot only contribute to disability studies but also help rethink altogether the binary con- trasts of able/disabled. This essay is motivated in part by my anticipation of a positive response to this question.

What Has (Dr.) Luke to Say? Pentecostal Resources for Rethinking Disability

As a ﬁrst step toward a constructive Pentecostal theology of disability, I turn to the Pentecostal canon within the canon, St. Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. In making this move, I am relying neither on external testimonies regarding Luke as a physician (Col 4:14) nor on the assumption that he was therefore more sympathetic to people with disabilities. In fact, the former has been contested,15 and, as we have already seen (above), there is plenty in Luke’s text regarding the ambiguous status of the blind and the lame, and so forth, that would perpetuate discriminatory stereotypes regarding people with dis-

Some members of the Society for Pentecostal Theology are beginning to do this — for exam- ple, three papers presented at the 37th annual meeting of the Society at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, in March 2008: Jason Brothers and Wesley Scott Biddy, Marquette University, “T eology of Disability Within the Church”; Steven M. Fettke, the published version being “The Spirit of God Hovered Over the Waters: Creation, the Local Church, and the Mentally and Physically Challenged — A Call to Spirit-led Ministry,” Journal of Pentecostal T e- ology 17, no. 2 (2008): 170-182; and Christopher D. Rouse, also published as “Scripture and the Disabled: Redeeming Mephibosheth’s Identity,” Journal of Pentecostal T eology 17, no. 2 (2008): 183-99 — although these remain “in-house” discussions within Pentecostal circles rather than intentional eﬀ orts to interact with disability scholarship. For a further call for such Pentecostal engagement with disability in response to my book, see Martin William Mittelstadt and Jeﬀ Hit- tenberger, “Power and Powerlessness in Pentecostal T eology,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Theology 30, no. 1 (2008): 137-45.

E.g., Henry J. Cadbury, The Style and Literary Method of Luke , Harvard T eological Studies 6 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920; reprint, New York: Kraus, 1969), 39-51. Yet, defending the traditional view is W. M. Ramsey, Luke the Physician, and Other Studies in the History of Religion (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1956), 58-60. The recent study of a physician and clinical haernatologist, Audrey Dawson, Healing, Weakness and Power: Perspectives on Healing in the Writings of Mark, Luke and Paul (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2008), 152-55, is rather conclusive, in my view, against the traditional understanding. See also a summary of the discus- sion that concludes that while Luke may not have been a doctor in the ancient sense of the word, he was knowledgeable to some extent about ancient medicine — in Annette Weissenreider, Images of Illness in the Gospel of Luke: Insights of Ancient Medical Texts, Wissenschaftliche Unter- suchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.164 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 330-35.

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abilities.16 As problematic is the issue that our contemporary category of dis- ability is anachronistic when applied to the biblical material.17 At the same time, I think the tradition of Luke the physician can provide resources for a renewed theology of disability when his text is approached and carefully reread using a disability hermeneutic.

Helpful in this regard is the recent work of Mikeal Parsons on physiognomy (the study of bodily or outer characteristics) in the Lukan writings.18 While in the ancient Greek world physical bodily forms were thought to represent inward moral tendencies and characteristics through anatomical, ethnographic, and zoological correlations, Parsons argues in his groundbreaking study that Luke deploys widely accepted physiognomic characterizations only to subvert their usual moral associations. Of his four case studies — of the bent-over woman, Zaccheus, the lame man at the Gate Beautiful, and the Ethiopian eunuch — the last is particularly illuminating as all three of the ancient Greek stereotypes are undermined: neither his Ethiopian background (the ethno- graphic aspect), nor physical deformity as a eunuch (the anatomical), nor asso- ciation with the weakness represented by sheep in the Isaianic passage being read (the zoological) hindered the eunuch’s baptism and inclusion in the king- dom of God.

Following Parsons’ lead, I want to reﬂ ect further on Luke’s accounts of Zaccheus and, especially, the eunuch to see how they might provide new insights for a Pentecostal theology of disability.19 For those who are doubtful that eunuchs are to be included with the disabled, note that in the biblical traditions castrated males were categorized among those with physical, senso- rial, and functional disabilities — the blind, lame, mutilated, hunchbacked, dwarfed, and so on (Lev 21:17-23) — and, more problematically for ﬁrst- century Jews, the law explicitly excluded eunuchs and those with crushed tes- ticles from participating in the liturgical cult and worship of ancient Israel

On this point, see also Roth’s study about how Lukan references to the blind and the lame, among others, depict their weaknesses and vulnerability; S. John Roth, The Blind, the Lame, and the Poor: Character Types in Luke-Acts (Shefield, UK: Shefield Academic Press, 1997). We will return to this issue later.

As I argue in T eology and Down Syndrome , esp. chap. 3.

Mikeal C. Parsons, Body and Character in Luke and Acts: The Subversion of Physiognomy in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006).

The following discussion of the eunuch is an abridgment of my forthcoming The Spirit in the Public Sphere: Meditations on the Spirit in Luke-Acts [working title] (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2010), chap. 19.

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(also Deut 23:1).20 Yet, Luke’s inclusive vision of the redemption of Israel and the kingdom of God is revealed even in this case of people long marginalized because of their bodily defect. Just as Jesus had accepted the socially despised and short statured (physically disabled) Zaccheus, so also does Luke here record the early church’s acceptance of the physically impaired eunuch. Yes, in many other cases Jesus and the apostles healed the sick and “disabled” by the power of the Spirit. In these two cases, however, Jesus pronounced the arrival of salvation to Zaccheus’ household (Luke 19:9) and Philip baptized the eunuch (Acts 8:38) without any reversal of their physical conditions.

Further, the acceptance of the eunuch began to fulﬁ ll the promise of yhwh to include eunuchs just as they were in the eschatological redemption of Israel (Isa 56:3-5).21 Jesus’ own teachings foreshadowed the eschatological inclusion of people like the eunuch. In two parables, of the wedding feast and the escha- tological banquet (Luke 14:7-24), Jesus intentionally taught about humility rather than self-promotion, overturned the rules of “you-invite-me-and-I- invite-you” reciprocity, and warned his hearers that the kingdom would include those at the bottom rather than at the top of the social, political, and religious hierarchy. At the same time, his hearers (and Luke’s audience) would have been shocked at the presence of people with clearly recognized disabilities — the crippled, the lame, and the blind — at the eschatological table of the king (14:21; cf. 14:13). Tese were the outcasts who had no status and were inca- pable of reciprocating the “generosity” of the host. For that very reason, social conventions would have dictated that they politely decline the invitation to begin with, so that Jesus insisted they needed to be compelled to attend the banquet and, by implication, that they be carried in, if necessary (14:23). So while Jesus’ healing of people with disabilities would have conﬁ rmed some prophetic pronouncements that the blind, lame, and otherwise impaired would be cured on the coming Day of yhwh, in this case Jesus’ inclusion of such people just as they are in the Great Banquet picks up on other prophetic themes (for example, Jer 31:8-9, Mic 4:6-7, Zeph 3:19) about the coming kingdom involving the ﬂ ourishing of all people not because they are physically cured

For a disability rereading of these Levitical prohibitions, see Sarah J. Melcher, “Visualizing the Perfect Cult: The Priestly Rationale for Exclusion,” in Nancy L. Eiesland and Don E. Saliers, eds., Human Disability and the Service of God: Reassessing Religious Practice (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 55-71.

Saul Olyan thinks this Isaianic passage is perhaps the only text in the Hebrew Bible that contests the stigmatization of those with bodily “defects” (mumim); see Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Diﬀ erences (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 2008), 11-12 and 84-85.

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but because yhwh has acted to remove the barriers that segregate temporarily able-bodied people from those with disabilities and alleviate the social stigma attached to disabilities.22 In this view, the restoration and redemption of Israel would include people like the eunuch and Zaccheus, not “ﬁ xed” so that they can conform to our social standards of beauty and desirability, but precisely as a testimony to the power of God to save all of us “normal” folk from our own discriminatory attitudes, inhospitable actions, and exclusionary social and political forms of life. Here, then, we ﬁ nd another ironic Lukan reversal:

23 wherein the redemption of disability consists not necessarily in the healing of disabilities but the removal of those barriers — social, structural, economic, political, and religious/theological — which hinder those with temporarily able bodies from welcoming and being hospitable to people with disabilities!

I suggest that these inclusions — of such physiognomically suspect and stigmatized ﬁ gures as Zaccheus and the Ethiopian eunuch — should actually be taken for granted within the theological imagination centered on the Spir- it’s eschatological outpouring on all ﬂ esh on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17).

24 Let me elaborate on this proposal along three lines.25 First, Pentecostal theol- ogy has perennially understood the miracle of Pentecost to consist, at least in part, of the miracle of inspired speech. But this miracle is only a means to an end, which is the manifestation of “God’s deeds of power” (Acts 2:11). Read this way, the means can be seen as subordinate to the end, and God could just as well choose other means to accomplish these ends. Following out this line

For discussion of these inclusive-of-disability prophetic texts, see Sarah Melcher, “‘I Will Lead the Blind by the Road T ey Do Not Know’: Disability in Prophetic Eschatology,” paper presented to the Biblical Scholarship and Disabilities Program Unit, Society of Biblical Litera- ture, November 20-24, 2004 [http://sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/Melcher_Prophetic_Disability. pdf] (last accessed 27 July 2008).

Luke’s theology of ironic reversals is announced in Mary’s Magniﬁ cat — “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has ﬁ lled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52-53) — as well as pronounced by Jesus: “some are last who will be ﬁrst, and some are ﬁrst who will be last” (13:30). For further discus- sion, see John O. York, The Last Shall Be First: The Rhetoric of Reversal in Luke , Journal of the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 46 (Shefield, UK: JSOT Press, 1991).

Here I extend also the thesis I argued in The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global T eology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005).

I realize that my interpretation of Acts 2 in the following paragraphs is more inferential than some may be comfortable with. I am simply proposing a possible rather than necessary reading, as informed by a disability hermeneutic. While in the end readers will probably agree or not for diﬀ erent reasons, my claim is that Luke can be read from a contemporary perspective as being friendlier to rather than hostile against disability. Hence this particular disability interpre- tation of Acts 2 needs to be understood against my rereading of Luke-Acts as a whole, a rereading of which this essay can be considered a down payment anticipating future work.

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of thinking, if God not only is capable of inspiring speech but has also created the bodily members through which speech is produced, I suggest that the incapacity to speak is of no hindrance to what God can do. From a disability perspective, then, the God who creates the mute or enables the speech of the stutterer (Exod 4:10-12) is the one who empowers all communication about God’s wondrous and powerful works.

But second, there is also a minority reading of the Pentecost narrative that views its miracle to be one of inspired hearing. Luke records the crowd’s response that “each one heard them speaking in the native language of each” (Acts 2:6) and that “in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power” (Acts 2:11).26 So, the Spirit empowers not xenolalia, the speaking of unlearned languages, but akolalia, the understanding of unlearned languages.27 But again, his miracle of hearing can be understood as being sub- ordinate to the intended ends that manifest God’s deeds of power. So in this case, if God not only is capable of enabling hearing but has also created the bodily members through which hearing is accomplished, I suggest the inca- pacity to hear is in and of itself no hindrance to what God can do to reveal his glorious works. Hence, a disability perspective would simply then insist that God who creates the deaf or enables communication through signs — for example, as seen in Zechariah (Luke 1:22, 62-63) — is also the one whose speech-acts are capable of being manifest and received through the diversity of phenomenological and embodied discourses.

This leads, third, to my proposal that God’s communicative speech-acts engage human beings through the multiplicity of our sensory capacities. On the Day of Pentecost, Peter himself recognized that the outpouring and gift of the Holy Spirit was both seen and heard (Acts 2:33). Pentecostals have gener- ally focused on what has been most explicit in the Acts 2 narrative: the “sound like the rush of a violent wind” and the “divided tongues, as of ﬁ re” that alighted on each one (2:2-3). I suggest, however, that such explicitly thematized sounds and images, along with the sensory capacities that mediate them (hear- ing and seeing), are not exclusive of the other sensory modalities that consti- tute our being-in-the-world. What if the miracle of Pentecost is not only that of either speaking, hearing, or seeing, but also that of touching, feeling, and

I have added the italics in both verses; thanks to Steven Fettke for reminding me to empha- size this point.

For some of the distinctions between xenolalia and akolalia, see R. S. Spittler, “Glossolalia,” in Stanley M. Burgess and Eduard M. Van Der Maas, eds., The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, rev. and expanded ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 670-76, at 670.

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perceiving? What if inspired speech is not the only means to bear witness to the wondrous works of God but is one of a plurality of sensory capacities through which God is present and active in our midst? What if the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit redeems all people — Zaccheus and the Ethiopian eunuch included — neither by transforming “them” into able-bodied standards of normalcy nor by “ﬁ xing” their incapacities or impairments so that they can interact with us on our terms, but by transforming all of us so that we can together be the new people of God?

I would see this set of proposals as an extension of the view that the list of ethnic and national provenance in Acts 2:7-11 is a representative rather than exhaustive one.28 My point is that Luke’s inclusive vision of the kingdom inter- sects not only with the coordinates of language, ethnicity, gender, class, and culture, but also with that of disability. If I can demonstrate this point, then regardless of whether or not Luke’s credentials as a physician withstand critical scrutiny, in eﬀ ect he can be understood to have fulﬁ lled the medical doctor’s Hippocratic oath — except that rather than (merely) reporting about the heal- ing of the sick and disabled, his narrative would be a performative speech-act, an illocutionary invitation to each of us to inhabit the new world of the Spirit in which the stigmatization and marginalization of people with disabilities and sensory impairments will be no more.

Many Tongues, Many Senses: The Multiple Modalities of Spirit-Inspired Witness

Let us now see if the case can be made for the following pneumatology of “many tongues and many senses” capable of giving testimony to and receiving the witness of the wondrous works of God. T ere are two basic steps to the following argument: a general overview of the epistemology operative in Luke’s narrative that shows how there are multiple modes of human knowing and interaction, and a more focused discussion of Luke’s holistic soteriology, espe- cially in its kinesiological dimensions as manifest in the touch that is inspired by the Spirit. T roughout, I presume the Spirit’s charismatic anointing of the entire life and ministry of Jesus in the T ird Gospel and the extension of that anointing in the outpouring of the Spirit on all ﬂ esh in Acts, so that the entirety of the Lukan narrative can be understood to be about the “acts of the Holy Spirit.” My goal is to sketch a holistic Pentecostal theology of embodiment

I argue this point in my The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh , chap. 4.3.3.

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that in turn opens up conceptual space for a pneumatological theology of dis- ability beyond emphasizing only the healing of disabled bodies and minds.

To begin, I want to explore further the signiﬁ cance of both seeing and hear- ing as central to Luke’s theology of bearing and receiving the witness of the Spirit. This couplet occurs throughout Luke’s account. The shepherds praised God “for all they had heard and seen” (Luke 2:20); the disciples have seen and heard what prophets and kings have not (10:24), and later they cannot but testify to what they had seen and heard (Acts 4:20); the Samaritan crowds heard and saw the signs that Philip did (8:6); and Paul himself was called to bear witness to the world of all he had seen and heard (22:15). Whereas this combination of seeing and hearing is a fairly standard characterization of the two dominant epistemic senses — as is evident from the preceding, neither is privileged over the other; there is no standard form whereby one always pre- cedes and the other follows — I suggest that from a disability perspective their pairing together is signiﬁ cant as it points to not one but two basic modalities of human knowing.

This observation already advances the discussion of Pentecostal and pneu- matological epistemology.29 Within a Pentecostal schema in which inspired speech is perhaps the central manifestation of the Spirit’s empowerment for witness, the principal form of communication is speaking and the primary mode of knowing is hearing. Yet, our discussion shows that seeing is also important, and not only when paired with hearing. T us there are also occa- sions within the Lukan narrative in which the salvation of God is speciﬁ cally noted as seen rather than heard (Luke 2:30, 3:6; Acts 3:17). Even at the heart of the Pentecost narrative itself, not only will sons and daughters prophesy, but “your young men shall see visions, / and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17b). Here, seeing occurs under the power and inspiration of the Spirit even when our eyes are closed, even when we are asleep! My point is that besides speaking and hearing there is seeing, and that the Spirit’s revelatory and saving work is not only accomplished through the oral medium of testi- mony but is also received through the visual media of seeing, envisioning, and dreaming.

Proposals for a Pentecostal epistemology are still in the initial stages; for a starter discussion, see Mark J. Cartledge, Practical T eology: Charismatic and Empirical Perspectives (Carlisle, UK, and Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2003), chap. 3. In my own work, I have sketched the con- tours of what I call a “pneumatological epistemology” as informed by Pentecostal spirituality; see Yong, Spirit-Word-Community: T eological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective (Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, and Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), part II.

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The narrative of the blind man in Luke 18:35-43 is a case in point of the multisensory modalities and the multidimensional activities in and through which he witnessed (to) the presence and activity of God. (1) While sitting on the roadside, he is nevertheless not entirely passive; rather, he is begging. (2) He hears the crowd going by, and asks about what is going on. (3) His persistence results in his being brought or led to Jesus (by others). (4) He persists in shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” and when asked by Jesus what he wanted, replies, “Lord, let me see again.” (5) Upon receiving his sight, he fol- lows Jesus and gloriﬁ es God.

Note that the blind man bears witness to the wondrous works of God not only in the reception of his sight at the command of the Spirit-anointed Son of God, but also in his exhibition of faith — as manifest in his alertness, aggressiveness, and response. Note also that his heal- ing is mediated by those around who took the time to witness to and interact with him (leading him to Jesus), and then rejoiced with him.31

My claim is an extension of David Daniels’ 2007 SPS presidential address that emphasizes the reception end of sound and hearing rather than what Pentecostals traditionally focus on (speech and words).32 Insofar as Pentecos- talism is constituted as much if not more so by its music, worship, sound, “primal cries,” and joyful noises, Pentecostal orality requires Pentecostal audio for its completion. Hence, hearing is central to Pentecostal spirituality and piety, perhaps as much as if not more than speech is to Pentecostal witness. Daniels also mentions in passing the sense of touch (in the gift of instrumen- talization), sight (seeing visions), speaking (singing), and writing (poetry), and concludes, “Within the Pentecostal sensorium, the orality-literacy binary of the Enlightenment was recast in ways that challenged the coupling of reason and literacy and the hierarchy of the senses that privilege sight.”33

Blind theologian John Hull suggests that the main point of this pericope is just as much to demonstrate the conversion of the blind man toward discipleship in the way of Jesus as it is to highlight Jesus’ healing power; see also John M. Hull, In the Beginning T ere Was Darkness: A Blind Person’s Conversations with the Bible (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002), 44-45.

On the other hand, the social discrimination enacted against the man is also clear from the exclusionary attempts to silence him, to prohibit him from addressing the Son of David, and by doing so, to reject his claim to belong as a member of good standing to the inner circle of Davidic progeny. My thanks to Frank Macchia for this insight.

David D. Daniels, III, “‘Gotta Moan Sometime’: A Sonic Exploration of Earwitnesses to Early Pentecostal Sound in North America,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 30, no. 1 (2008): 5-32.

Ibid., 29.

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Building on Daniels’ proposals, a disability perspective would observe that rather than “normalizing” both seeing and hearing in ways that marginalize people who are blind and/or deaf,34 the Lukan text suggests instead that only one of these sensory capacities is needed for encountering and then bearing witness to the work of the Spirit. If so, then neither blind nor deaf people are excluded from being recipients or vehicles of the Spirit’s gracious and charis- matic work. By extension, the deaf-mute would also be capable of receiving the gift of the Spirit and bearing the fruits of the Spirit.35

Yet, in the remainder of this section I want to expand our discussion to include the somatic sensory capacities which will, in turn, have implications for dealing with a much wider range of disabilities than blindness and deaf- ness. I begin by noting, for example, the epistemic function of the body’s aﬀ ective and perceptual sensibilities.

On the road to Emmaus the two disci- ples saw and heard Jesus but did not recognize him until the breaking of bread.

T us the disability studies agenda would reject “normalization” theory in as much as it presumes what the disability community calls “ableism” — the oppression of people with dis- abilities via socio-politically and economically exclusive structures and practices that privilege the temporarily able-bodied; rather, what is “normal” is precisely the recognition, acceptance, appre- ciation, and “unleashing [of] multiple forms of corporeal ﬂ ourishing” (see Sharon Betcher, “Monstrosities, Miracles, and Mission: Religion and the Politics of Disablement,” in Catherine Keller, Michael Naus ner, and Mayra Rivera, eds., Postcolonial T eologies: Divinity and Empire [St. Louis: Chalice, 2004], 79-99, quote from 82; cf. Betcher, Spirit and the Politics of Disable- ment [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007], chap. 3). For further discussion of normalization the- ory in disability studies, see Robert J. Flynn and Raymond A. Lemay, eds., A Quarter-Century of Normalization and Social Role Valorization: Evolution and Impact (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1999), and Licia Carlson, “Rethinking Normalcy, Normalization, and Cognitive Disabil- ity,” in Robert Figueroa and Sandra Harding, eds., Science and Other Cultures: Issues in Philoso- phies of Science and Technology (New York: Routledge, 2003), 154-71.

Recent research on Deaf theology bearing out this point are Roger Hitching, The Church and Deaf People: A Study of Identity, Communication and Relationships with Special Reference to the Ecclesiology of Jürgen Moltmann (Carlisle, UK, and Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2003), and Hannah Lewis, Deaf Liberation T eology (Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007).

Stephen D. Moore, Mark and Luke in Poststructuralist Perspective: Jesus Begins to Write (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992), esp. chaps. 4-8, provides an intriguing analysis of the ears, mouth, eyes, nose, and body in the Lukan text. At one point, for example, he writes, “To smell is to draw in air, wind, pneuma, Spirit. The Gospels are in-spired, then inhaled. T eir sense is their essence or fragrance. To devour a book is to digest its meaning, but to sniﬀ out its es-sense is a more intimate act” (p. 152), and then he cross-references 2 Cor 2:14-16, Phil 4:18, Eph 5:2, and Gen 8:20-22, among other passages. My own inspiration derives more from a dis- ability studies hermeneutic than it does from Moore’s poststructuralist approach (about which many questions can be raised), although I think our goals converge in seeking to interrogate the assumptions regarding any normative epistemology in the biblical narrative in general and in Luke-Acts in particular.

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Yet, at that moment, they both realized, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). T en later, the resurrected Christ invites the disciples, “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have ﬂ esh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). While in the latter case, the touch plays an evidentiary role that conﬁ rms what is seen, in the former case it is plausible to view the entire somatic system as aﬀ ectively engaged in a process of discernment.

When we turn from epistemic to ministerial and missiological modalities, however, the touch can be seen to play a much more expansive role in the Lukan narrative. Jesus’ welcoming of children, for instance, led to the people bringing their infants to him “that he might touch them” (Luke 18:15). Jesus’ palpable acceptance of children and people on their own terms no doubt invited such a public response. One concrete expression of the fully aﬀ ective and embodied ministry of Jesus involved a “reverse” situation in which Jesus was the recipient of the sinner woman’s washing his feet with her tears, drying them with her hair, and kissing them in gratitude (7:36-50).38 As Simon’s reac- tion seemed focused more on who was touching Jesus rather than on the fact that he was being touched, we may detect in the background a widespread recognition and appreciation of the aﬀ ective and somatic dimensions of Jesus’ ministry.39

Yet, there was probably more to the desire for Jesus to touch their babies in these gestures of the people. T ere was also the expectation of receiving the life-transforming and transcending power of God associated with Jesus’

As argued, e.g., by Evan B. Howard, Afirming the Touch of God: A Psychological and Philo- sophical Exploration of Christian Discernment (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000). Pentecostal theologians like Steve Land and Samuel Solivan have also called attention to the centrality of the aﬀ ections in the knowing that is graced by the Spirit; see Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom (Shefield, UK: Shefield Academic Press, 1993), esp. chap. 3, and Samuel Solivan, The Spirit, Pathos and Liberation: Toward an Hispanic Pentecostal T eology , (Shefield, UK: Shefield Academic Press, 1998), esp. chaps. 4-5.

The woman’s kissing and tears may be ambiguous — e.g., communicating joy, sorrow, or mourning — but these somatic and kinesthetic cues leave no doubt that she is wholly taken up in her interactions with Jesus; see Bruce J. Malina, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 378.

Which raises the intriguing question about whether or not Jesus’ aﬀ ective-somatic ministry is but the completion of the aﬀ ective-somatic ministry of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35), on whom the Spirit “rested,” who was guided by the Spirit, and who took Jesus “in his arms” in order to dedi- cate the life and ministry of this infant to God. My thanks to Jack Levison for helping me see this connection.

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touch.40 Adults thus sought to touch Jesus whenever they realized that healing power exuded from his body (6:19), with the case of the woman with the issue of blood being the most notable (8:44). Otherwise there is one account — that involving the severed ear of the high priest’s slave (22:51) — of Jesus’ inten- tional healing accomplished via his mere touch, as well as a number of other occasions, as with a leper (5:13), the crippled woman (13:12-13), and the son of the widow of Nain (7:14), when his touch combined with his spoken word to bring about healing or a bodily resuscitation.41 If we recall that Jesus’ accom- plishments were empowered by the Holy Spirit, then we can recognize the revealing and saving work of the Spirit at work through the embodied and somatic-sensory ministry of Jesus. Unsurprisingly, then, the Spirit’s empower- ing of the disciples also produced miraculous healings and even exorcisms, in some cases mediated through Peter’s shadow (Acts 5:15-16) and handkerchiefs and aprons that had come into contact with Paul’s skin (19:12).

From a Pentecostal perspective, I would suggest that these somatic-sensory cues in the Lukan narrative have been internalized within the spirituality and piety of the movement and therefore manifest themselves most obviously in the palpability, tactility, and embodied expressivity of Pentecostal worship.42 Glossolalic utterances, the dance, the shout, the laying on of hands, prostra- tions, tarrying at the altar, being slain in the Spirit, and so on — each of these are aﬀ ective-somatic signs of the Spirit’s presence and activity in Pentecostal contexts. Note also that Pentecostal healing insists that God touches human bodies, restores human psyches, reconciles the psychosomatic dimensions of human life, and reconciles human beings. In short, God reveals himself to us

See Bruce G. Epperly, God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001).

Amidst the background of the Hellenistic world, the uniqueness of Jesus’ ministry of touch is explored by Pieter J. Lalleman, “Healing by a Mere Touch as a Christian Concept,” Tyndale Bulletin 48, no. 2 (1997): 355-61. David Paul Kliner, “Assessing Healing Stories in the Gospels: Analysis of Initiators, Conditions, Touch, and Gender,” Chicago T eological Seminary Register 86, no. 3 (1996): 33-40, esp. 35, further notes that Jesus’ touches frequently violated Hebrew purity codes, which may also explain why the “unclean” felt he was approachable to begin with.

For more on the kinesthetic dimensions of Pentecostal worship, see Daniel E. Albrecht, Rites in the Spirit: A Ritual Approach to Pentecostal/Charismatic Spirituality (Shefield, UK: Shef- ﬁ eld Academic Press, 1999), 147-48. For further discussion of the centrality of embodiment in Pentecostal spirituality and practice, see also Jonathan R. Baer, “Redeemed Bodies: The Func- tions of Divine Healing in Incipient Pentecostalism,” Church History 70, no. 4 (2001): 735-71, and Simon Coleman, “Textuality and Embodiment among Charismatic Christians,” in Elisabeth Arweck and Peter Collins, eds., Reading Religion in Text and Context: Reﬂ ections of Faith and Practice in Religious Materials (Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), 157-68.

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through the multiple sensory modalities of the human constitution, even as God redeems and saves us as fully embodied creatures.43

I suggest further that such a multisensory Pentecostal and pneumatological epistemology and holistic spirituality open up to and invite critical theological reﬂ ection on issues central to disability studies.

Let me elaborate brieﬂ y on these along two lines. First, following in the footsteps of Jesus means that our Spirit-inspired engagement with the world is neither limited solely to that of speech (and hearing), even if such may be the usual way that the Spirit enables our witness to others, nor even to that of our deeds (which are seen), even if these are also essential to bearing adequate witness to the world. Rather, the power of touch should not be underestimated as a vehicle of the Spirit, and this is felt rather than heard or seen. From a disability perspective, then, Luke’s narrative implicitly challenges modes of ministry, ecclesial structures and prac- tices, and communal forms of life that privilege seeing and hearing at the expense of touching and feeling. In other words, people with multiple sensory impairments should not be excluded simply because they do not go about being in the world like most of the rest of us.45 Instead, the church should dare to be diﬀ erent and creatively reconsider how the Spirit might empower inter- actions that are inclusive of people who are blind, deaf, blind and deaf, and sense-impaired in other respects.46

The preceding ﬂ eshes out what is indicated in the title of Virginia Stem Owens, “On Prais- ing God with Our Senses,” in Leland Ryken, The Christian Imagination: Essays on the Literature and the Arts (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1981), 375-82.

Consider the following a Pentecostal expansion and elaboration of Hector Avalos, “Intro- ducing Sensory Criticism in Biblical Studies: Audiocentricity and Visiocentricity,” in Avalos, Melcher, and Schipper, eds., This Abled Body , 47-59.

The work of Brent Webb-Mitchell has been exemplary in pointing the way forward toward an ecclesiological vision that is inclusive of people with disabilities — e.g., Unexpected Guests at God’s Banquet: Welcoming People with Disabilities into the Church (New York: Crossroad, 1994), and Dancing with Disabilities: Opening the Church to All God’s Children (Cleveland: United Church Press, 1996).

Here I am thinking of that icon of disability, Helen Keller, who was blind, deaf, and mute, but yet was nurtured toward a full life as well as an engaged spirituality. While disability studies has produced a growing amount of literature on Keller — e.g., Kim Nielsen, “Helen Keller and the Politics of Civic Fitness,” in Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky, eds., The New Disability History: American Perspectives (New York and London: New York University Press, 2001), 268- 90 — to my knowledge, no scholarly study of Keller’s faith has yet been done. For a selection of her religious writings, with some commentary, see Jack Belck, ed., The Faith of Helen Keller (Kansas City: Hallmark Cards, 1967).

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Second, Luke’s multisensory epistemology and holistic spirituality suggests that embodied and aﬀ ective reason is just as important as cognitive reason,

47 and therefore that the church should also be a haven speciﬁ cally for people with intellectual disabilities.48 Of course, there is a broad spectrum of intel- lectual disabilities, ranging from mild to profound retardation (to use the clas- siﬁ cation adopted by the World Health Organization),

and for many people with intellectual disabilities, visual and auditory interactions sufice when supplemented with other communicative strategies. The more severe or pro- found the retardation, however, the less capacity there is for cognitive under- standing. At this level, however, Pentecostals should be among the ﬁrst to afirm the power of the Spirit-inspired touch to aﬀ ect lives, to bring people together who may otherwise never relate to one another, and to mediate the presence and activity of God. Yes, the profoundly disabled will never be able to experience koinonia, the liturgy, or the call of God in the same way as oth- ers. This does not mean, however, that they are excluded from the fellowship and communion of the Spirit. It just means that the church needs to be sensi- tive to the workings of embodied and aﬀ ective reason and to nurture the capacities of each of its members — “strong” and “weak” according to their own particular needs — to utilize these modes of interaction more intention- ally and eﬀ ectively.

Here I am referring not only to the accessibility of our congregational events, whether understood in terms of physical and topologi-

The centrality of the body and the aﬀ ections to human reason is increasingly being recog- nized by many philosophers — e.g., Antonio R. Damasio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (New York: Putnam, 1994); William J. Wainwright, Reason and the Heart: A Prolegomenon to a Critique of Passional Reason (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995); and George Lakoﬀ and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western T ought (New York : Basic Books, 1999). While I agree with the general claim that cognitive reason is informed by and assumes embodiment and the aﬀ ections, I would go further to insist, in the light of our understanding of profound disability, that embodied and aﬀ ective reason is operative even when no evidence for cognitive reason exists (cf. Yong, T eology and Down Syndrome, esp. 207-15).

An electronic search of the digitized archives at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center of the Asssemblies of God reveals only two hits for the word retarded as compared with 167 for the word deaf and 123 for the word blind; see the search engine at http://ifphc.org/ (thanks to Regent University librarian Robert Sivigny for pointing me to this database).

See World Health Organization and Joint Commission on International Aspects of Mental Retardation, Mental Retardation: Meeting the Challenge (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1985).

Leading the way in this regard is the vision and ministry of L’Arche; see Jean Vanier, An Ark for the Poor: The Story of L’Arche (Toronto: Novalis, 1995), and Frances M. Young, ed., Encounter with Mystery: Reﬂ ections on L’Arche and Living with Disability (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1997).

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cal (for example, are there ramps or elevators), sensory (for example, are there interpreters), or rhetorical and discursive (that is, are we sensitive to using disability rhetoric in our publications and other oral discourses) terms. Rather, each of these aspects of accessibility contributes to the presentation of our churches and faith communities as being hospitable to, welcoming for, and seeking to be inclusive of people with disabilities.51 Hence, the goal cannot just be to minister to such people as objects of care, concern, or charity — although such ministry is precisely what is needed in many cases — but must be full inclusion of them and reception of their contributions resulting in the enrichment of our own lives.52 In many respects, this requires our own conver- sion so that our eyes can truly see, our ears can really hear, and our other senses can be fully activated to receive and be transformed by what such people have to oﬀ er.

Conclusion: Pentecostal Contributions to T eology of Disability and Disability Studies?

In the preceding, I have explained why there has not been much interaction previously between Pentecostal Theology and disabilities, identiﬁ ed some resources from within the Pentecostal theological tradition and Pentecostal spirituality and piety for rethinking disability, and elaborated on a multisensory episte- mology and holistic spirituality (utilizing a hermeneutic informed by disabil- ity studies) in the service of a pneumatological and Pentecostal theology of disability. In this concluding section, I would like to highlight what a Pente- costal theology of disability can contribute both to the wider theological dis- cussion and to the discipline of disability studies.

First, a pneumatological and Pentecostal theology of disability, informed by the preceding reﬂ ections, points the way forward toward a renewed vision of the church as a charismatic fellowship of the Spirit, one that is inclusive of

I provide a sketch of the practices involved in such an ecclesiology of hospitality in my T eology and Down Syndrome , chap. 7.

T us the argument of Hans Reinders that we might even receive the gift of friendship from people with profound disabilities! See Hans S. Reinders, Receiving the Gift of Friendship: Profound Disability, T eological Anthropology, and Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans, 2008).

T at Luke is interested not only in the conversion of Jews and Gentiles to Christ but also in the conversion of Christ-followers is evident in the Cornelius episode, where Peter’s conver- sion is as important as if not more important than Cornelius’ in their mutual encounter. For discussion, see Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the T eology of Mission (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans, 1995), esp. 59-62.

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people with disabilities.54 Such a pneumatological ecclesiology will appreciate all members of the body equally, because each one “speaks” in his or her own voice (whether or not he or she has the charismatic gift of tongues!) and fulﬁ lls his or her own role as empowered by the Spirit. T us there will be no segrega- tion in the fellowship of the Spirit since the mentality of “us versus them” or “able-bodied and disabled” will have been overcome. At the same time, there is also no totalitarian homogeneity that ignores the distinctiveness and par- ticularity represented by each member, both in terms of what he or she has to contribute as well as what he or she may need.55 On the Day of Pentecost, the many voices were recognized, each in its own language. Similarly, a pneuma- tological and Pentecostal ecclesiology that is hospitable toward all people, including those with disabilities, will be sensitive to the particular needs of each one as well as receptive to the gifts that each brings. In this way, as the apostle Paul indicated, “the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. . . . God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suﬀ ers, all suﬀ er together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it” (1 Cor 12:22, 24-26, NRSV).56

With regard to the Pentecostal contribution to disability studies, it should be clear from the preceding that such will come obliquely rather than directly. Pentecostalism is a religious movement rather than a social services agency or

Here I am extending the notion, developed by my colleague Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, of the church as a charismatic fellowship of the Spirit; see Kärkkäinen, Toward a Pneumatological T eol- ogy: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives on Ecclesiology, Soteriology and T eology of Mission , ed. Amos Yong (Lanham, MD, and Oxford: University Press of America, 2002), part II; cf. my Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh, chap. 3, and T eology and Down Syndrome , chap. 7.

This emphasis on diﬀ erence and yet on overcoming marginalization and oppression is at the center of disability studies; see, e.g., René R. Gadacz, Re-thinking Dis-ability: New Structures, New Relationships (Edmonton, Alb.: University of Alberta Press, 1994); David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, eds., The Body and Physical Diﬀ erence: Discourses of Disability (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997); Linda J. Rogers and Beth Blue Swadener, eds., Semiotics and Dis/ability: Interrogating Categories of Diﬀ erence (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001); and Rod Michalko, The Diﬀ erence that Disability Makes (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002).

Note, however, that Paul’s use of the language of “inferior members” (literally, “weak” or “lacking members,” from the Greek ύστερουμένω) is not one that should be understood as devaluing the lives of people with disabilities; in fact, it is precisely the Apostle’s point that those whom our social conventions would view as inferior are in fact those upon whom God has bestowed the greater honor. For a disability reading of this Pauline metaphor, see Gerald F. Moede, “God’s Power and Human Ability,” Ecumenical Review 36, no. 3 (1984): 290-98.

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political organization. It is true that Pentecostal churches and members of Pentecostal churches are socially engaged and that the stereotypes regarding an apolitical Pentecostalism are increasingly recognized as wrongheaded.57 At the same time, Pentecostal social and political engagement are more byproducts of living out the gospel and being the church empowered by the Holy Spirit than they are ﬁrst and foremost socio-political agendas. Similarly, Pentecostal scholarship is, in general, designed to serve Pentecostal theological reﬂ ection, and in that respect it seeks not to do the work of disability studies. Yet, insofar as Pentecostalism implies and then makes explicit a theological vision, it becomes, like all authentically theological discourses, a metadiscourse that has implications for other disciplines given the Christian convictions regarding the lordship of Christ and the universal work of the Spirit. Hence, in each of these respects, disability service providers, advocates, and scholars looking for Pentecostal Theology to support the disability agenda on its own terms will con- tinue to be disappointed.

T at said, perhaps Pentecostal Theology can contribute to the cause of dis- ability studies precisely by doing the kind of theological work such as that which has been attempted here so that Pentecostal churches and practices can be reordered to embody more concretely the hospitality of God for all people, including those with disabilities.58 As a subset of religious and theo- logical studies, then, Pentecostal Theology can contribute to those conversations, perhaps enriching them with insights not so readily available outside the tradi- tion of Pentecostal spirituality and piety so that such more general religious and theological discourses can then, in turn, have an impact on disabilities studies. In addition, perhaps Pentecostal scholars may also discover creative ways to retrieve and revitalize the virtues of the biblical and classical Christian traditions so that novel methodological approaches that include, involve, and empower people with disabilities in our congregations, communities, and lives will become regular features not only of Pentecostal praxis but also of the wider church. Pentecostal Theology can thus inform and transform Pentecostal praxis so as to provide further data for the work of disability studies — data

See Donald E. Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), and Amos Yong, In the Days of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political T eology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans, 2010).

I develop a pneumatological theology of hospitality in my Hospitality and the Other: Pente- cost, Christian Practices, and the Neighbor (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2008), chap. 4; see also T omas E. Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion: A T eology of Disability and Hospitality (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2008).

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that might either further illuminate or even challenge the methods, assump- tions, and theories of disability studies.

Is this too much to ask or hope for from the intersection of Pentecostal studies and disability studies? As a Pentecostal theologian, I think that the many tongues of the Spirit potentially include the many discourses of the modern academic disciplines.59 Might not the Spirit who empowers many tongues also speak through the many languages of the academy, including that of disability studies? Further, might not the Spirit who declares the wondrous works of God in and through the many senses also enable a diversity of gifts from and for people with disabilities so that each member of the fellowship of the Spirit will be ediﬁ ed? If this is indeed possible — and Pentecostals should be the ﬁrst to recognize that “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God” (Luke 18:27) — then so is it possible for God to redeem disability in ways that, in the process, redeem us all, even the world itself.60

See my “Academic Glossolalia? Pentecostal Scholarship, Multi-disciplinarity, and the Science-Religion Conversation,” Journal of Pentecostal T eology 14, no. 1 (2005): 63-82.

T anks to the following for their comments on a previous version of this paper: Rosemarie Scotti Hughes, Jack Levison, Stephen Fettke, Martin Mittelstadt, Timothy Lim, and Frank Macchia. Needless to say, all errors of fact and misinterpretations remain my own fault.

This essay is also dedicated to the memory of Nancy Eiesland (see also n. 5 above), who passed away on March 10, 2009 after a lifelong struggle with a congenital bone defect. I wrote this essay before her passing and she also graciously commented on a previous draft during what turned out to be some of the last months of her life. Her scholarship pushed the boundaries of the dis- cussion in theology and disability, and if this essay does, even minimally, something similar for the Pentecostal Theology and disability studies interface, it is only because I have attempted to follow in professor Eiesland’s footsteps (better: wheel-paths) as she has attempted to follow after Christ.

Many Tongues, Many Senses Pentecost, The Body Politic, And The Redemption Of Dis Ability

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