Multiple Identities We all have multiple identities. We do, honest. Who I think I am, who you think you are, isn’t everything. There are radical differences between who I think I am, who my fiancée thinks I am and who my dentist thinks I am. So there is the potential for a serious issue in working out with clarity who we are and what kind of person we want to be. As a disabled person, training for ordination as a vicar in the Church of England, there are a lot of voices and agendas competing for my time, energy, money and lo yalty. It’s easy to feel like I’m being pulled in many directions all at once, and even easier to lose sight of the answer to the key question: who am I? As Christians, we are identified by Christ and His love and action in our lives, not anything else. Following from this, we as people who are designed to be identified by Christ, I would argue, don’t very often look to Christ for the answer to questions about our identity or look to Christ to help us give a good identity to others. Instead, we seek our identity and validation from the dominant voices in our lives and culture, the ones to whom we give power, or who have power over us by virtue of authority. In many cases throughout the world, the dominant voices identifying disabled people are not those of the people themselves. This is a societal problem to which we must find the solution. We allow many voices to speak for us, to tell us who we are, what we should and should not be, what we should aspire to and hope for. Just as history is written by thos e who win, so the narrative progress of cultures and societies is often dominated by those at the top of the hierarchical pyramid. As it continues to be clear that “disabled” people are the single biggest minority group in the world, and the most discriminated against, often those at the very bottom of the pile, both in far flung corners of the world and right here at home in Britain, it is clear that we have a lot of work still to do. Being an impaired person is part of my life, for certain, but it is not the whole of my identity. God delights in me, rejoices over me with singing (Zeph 3:17) because I am His son, made in His image, impaired body and all. My Cerebral Palsy is a gift, not a curse. It doesn’t define me, it enriches me, just as those with impairments and disabilities enrich the Church. Without impaired people, the Church is not the Church. The Church has the gospel imperative to be the primary driving force for social change in Western culture in the 21s t century, leading the way in being the area of society in which social disablement is truly and properly eradicated. Social disablement has no place in the kingdom of God. The Church should always be a social leader. We need to love it, we are called to. At the same time, we need to challenge t he Church to truly take hold of, and carry, the radical mantle offered to it by Jesus, to see people become lovers of God, themselves and their neighbours to the fullest, deepest extent possible. Faith in Jesus as Lord is not an individual lifestyle choice, it is a welcome in to a living, breathing community. One which is ever growing and developing, or should be, to welcome new members into its bosom. This absolutely includes those who are disabled by society. For the Church to truly be the Church, its membership and leadership should contain every strand of the wonder of God’s creation, people from every part of it. We are all to be identified as children, sons and daughters, heirs of a king, first, foremost and only. I pray that we, as a whole Church would work together all the more that this gift of God would not be denied to any, but extended to all.
One of the key consequences of sin being in our world today is our inability to have a clear and correct perspective on ourselves, how to relate to one another, and to God. However, wondrously, I think God calls us to partner with Him, and with one another, to learn to view ourselves, and all other people as beloved creations of His, called and known by name, and offered eternal life, hope, joy, peace and f reedom in His name. This is one of the key works of redemption undertaken by the Spirit in our time. In our culture which is so keen to categorise people for negative, largely financial and productivity based purposes, the future hope we have for freedom f rom all this is something we must communicate to ourselves and to others, so that the Church might truly live out the love, hope and challenge it has been charged to by Christ. If we want to be an Enabled Church, we must enable everyone in our communities to love themselves, one another, and God, that His perspective on individuals and communities might invade our culture and that we might shine the light of Christ ever more joyfully into the places we live and serve in. Wouldn’t it be something if Church was the one place in our society where no-one was made unwelcome because of their level of physical, emotional or mental function? Wouldn’t it be something. God is calling us to work with Him to make it happen. God offers life, hope, freedom and peace to all, in and through Jesus. He is calling us all into a kind of community which we can barely dream of, one not defined by which people or groups are excluded from it, but one to which every person is invited and in which each person will be enabled to reac h their full potential as sons, daughters and friends of the King. It’s our job not to exclude anyone from receiving that gift.