Spirit and the Politics of Disablement

In this remarkable and incisive work Sharon Betcher analyzes our world and Gods embodied presence in the light of her own disability and the insight it affords. She claims disablement as a site of powerful social and religious critique and reflection. With searing honesty she reveals how our culture only recently tolerant and supportive of disabled people still fears them. The presence of disabled persons stands as a rebuke to our images of body and health to the distorted values of our consumerist culture and the globalized economy that embodies those values in unjust structures. Yet Betcher claims disablement has also revealed powerful alternative understandings of the body and body politic in Scripture in the actions of Jesus in the healing work of the Spirit at work in the world. Brimming with insight Betchers work is a revelation and a bracing challenge to all Christians.