EMQ » October–December 2019 » Volume 55 Issue 4
By Benjamin T. Conner
Downers Grove, IL: IVPAcademic, 2018
180 pages
USD $24.00
Reviewed by Geoff Hartt, local church pastor for over twenty years and executive Director of Hispanics for Christ, providing resources for church-planting among Hispanics.
“More than 25 percent of American families have at least one relative with a disability” (169). That statement alone from Disabling Mission, Enabling Witness is reason enough to read this book. The author addresses mission to and with a segment of our population with whom most Christians are not prepared to engage. The book helps the reader better understand how “people with disabilities can help the church to reimagine mission and witness” (27).
The book opens with an introduction to disability studies, giving the reader definitions and context for the various issues associated with disability. We are challenged to think about what disability means and does not mean, and how we can interact better with people with disabilities. Chapter two helps us view people with disabilities missiologically, integrating familiar concepts from missiology with disabilities studies. In addition, the author uses the concept of missio Dei to take a step back from missionary efforts to look at what God is doing among people with disabilities. The concepts of indigenous appropriation, contextualization and Christian witness all allow God’s activity and witness among people with disabilities to be expressed in their “own terms and in ways that reveal new dimensions of the reign and rule of Christ” (43).
Chapter three focuses on deaf insights into theology and missiology by investigating the history of mission and evangelism in the United States to and with deaf persons. Deaf theologians and other voices help the reader to see that deafness can be a potential source of rich theological insight. Chapter four focuses on how people with intellectual and developmental disabilities can be more than passive recipients by actively bearing witness to the Kingdom of God among us.
In the final chapter, the author challenges our theological institutions to respond to the absence of disability studies and the lack of students with disabilities. He provides suggestions for improving theological education among people with disabilities, including many real-life examples.
The title of the book becomes clear after reading it. The goal is to move from missions efforts to a group of people (those with disabilities) to enabling witness of God’s multifaceted kingdom work among this group. We all can benefit when we see God’s work across the expanse of human situations.
