The Works of God

When I blogged about a ‘hermeneutic of suspicion‘ a few weeks ago, I should have given them credit for being honest about their assessment of the Bible.

Frequently, we aren’t given that warning.  I recently came across an article written in 1997 by Avi Rose, “Who Causes the Blind to See: disability and quality of religious life,”* for the journal, Disability & Society.  There was no warning about religious bias or disdain for the Bible.

Rather, the following were offered as a statements of fact:

The root of the apparent alienation of individuals with disabilities by religion may lie in the ancient belief systems of the Judeo-Christian theology which views disability in a highly negative manner. . .

As you can see, the category ‘disability as evidence of a good and sovereign God who has the right and the authority to whatever he wants with his creation, for his glory and for our good’ is missing.  Every one of the above categories is presented about as negatively as possible in that article, while trying to sound academic.

And it wouldn’t bother me all that much, except that when disability enters our families a whole army of people also enter our lives.  Social workers, doctors, teachers, and other government employees read articles like that and conclude that religious affections are actually bad for us.  And because biblical literacy isn’t all that high even in families that attend church, many families stand defenseless in the face of such arguments.

Fortunately, the bias in this article is so blatant, such knowledge isn’t necessary to know something probably isn’t right or fair about the argument being presented.

Tomorrow, the ‘conclusion’ Avi Rose comes to about religion and the Bible.

*Unfortunately I cannot link to that article, but if you have access to an academic library or database, you can find it by searching on the above journal and title.