This week's news 

Oscar Pistorius, the South African blade runner, has praised Britain’s attitude towards disability, suggesting the world will have to watch the Paralympics through ‘Britain's eyes’, to see a vision that could instigate a shift in attitudes not only to Paralympic sport but also to disabled people in general.

More tickets have been sold for London’s Paralympic Games than have ever been sold before. Tim Hollingsworth, the chief executive of the British Paralympic Association, said the public was ‘more excited’ than he had dared expect.  

Reflection

In last week’s piece, I promised to explain why, as a blind person, I should have accepted an invitation to join a committee of the Church of England’s General Synod concerning people with impairments. The simple answer is that I should have been prepared to serve humbly for, as Psalm 15 says, it is the person who is humble in his own eyes who will be regarded. And in last week's prayer I also dwelt on the thought that all of us, no matter what our impairment, are made in the image of God. But what I keep forgetting, as often as those without impairments, is that that includes me. There really is no point in advancing such a glorious theological concept and then excluding yourself.

Being a doer of the Word

So that puts me quite properly in my place. I have to accept what is coming and trust in God which, reflecting the impact of last week's readings, is all very well in its way, but this week I am at least offered a bit more solid assistance from the Scriptures. We are all – and that includes you – not surprisingly in Deuteronomy, obliged to keep God's statute; and, as that great protagonist of the deed, James, says, being religious and hearing the Word is not enough; we have to be doers of the Word and, as Jesus points out in Mark, the odd token gesture is not enough.

Reading James

Before going on, I think it's worth saying a few words about the General Epistle of James which got itself into so much trouble during the Reformation that Martin Luther excluded it from the Canon. The dispute between catholics and reformers was over the role of good works in salvation. Catholics said that a good life was essential and reformers replied that it was irrelevant, as only unconditional grace saves. This was a reaction to the catholic abuse of indulgences where the donor was supposed to acquire credit on the way to heaven, with a reduced term in purgatory. Few today in the Christian community would demur from the position that what good we do and whether we attain salvation are both by God's grace; but what matters is how we link the two. Within a few years of Luther's brave offensive against the connection between morals and salvation he was taking sides in a peasants' revolt in favour of the princes and threatening the rebels with damnation. Ever since an obscure Irish monk developed a fixed confessional tariff for sins in the sixth century we have found it hard to resist the temptation to amass credits against the fatal day.

Personally, I find the notion that we do good in order to attain salvation deeply worrying and rather believe that we do good because that is the nature with which we were created, pace Saint Augustine's anomalous doctrine of 'original sin'. Whatever good we do is in recognition of our status as patterns of Christ building his kingdom on earth where malice and, much worse, apathy turn us against our own creaturely natures as well as against God. 

Made in love

We were made in love to love but must always distinguish loving from liking, loving in particular those we do not like and those who are different from us; and, for many, that includes people with impairments. We, no less than you, are kingdom builders for which we need love, tools and mutual support and, as we are all stewards of God's gifts, including love and mercy, we have to be very careful before we deny to others not what we want for ourselves – the classic statement – but what they want for themselves, because our besetting fault is surely the judgement of others. That is why people with impairments spend so much precious energy campaigning to be treated in a way that accords with their view of themselves and, as spectators cannot imagine themselves into the situation of the protesters, they must have very good reasons indeed for denying what is demanded. I am, I must say, staggered by the modesty of the demands of my impaired brothers and sisters who largely want to be treated no better and no worse than their unimpaired peers. I wonder why they don't demand privileges to compensate for their disadvantages.

Existence as gift

Nonetheless, I return to where I started by saying that although it is my professional duty, as Chair of the Royal National Institute of Blind People, to campaign for what we now call the ‘rights’ of impaired citizens, my personal approach – flawed though it is – is to put myself into God's hands, as we all know we should, not thinking about rights but about our existence as gift.

And so, as we watch the Paralympics, it might be a good time to wonder whether we can construct a world where this event is an uninhibited celebration rather than a form of protest.

Prayer

Creator God, 

who made all of us in love 

to build your kingdom on earth, 

may we all, reflecting that love, 

mutually support one another 

so that we may all have the tools and the strength 

to be good builders. 

Amen.

Questions

• What can we learn from Jesus about our attitude to people with impairments?
• Has the Reformation dispute about faith and works been resolved?
• How do we square putting ourselves in God's hands with campaigning for human rights?
• What should your church community do to improve its welcoming of people with impairments?

Action

Follow the Paralympics over the coming days, even if you are not a sports fanatic, as an act of solidarity with all those taking part.

Young People

Can you identify a place or scenario where access for young people with disabilities (either physical or emotional) is poor? Develop a campaign and do some campaigning for improvement.

Kevin Carey was born blind and is the Chair of the RNIB Group; a novelist, a poet and religious writer.  He is a Church of England Reader in Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex and was a Member of the Church of England General Synod 2005-10.  Kevin's Christian resources can be found at www.jesus4u.co.uk 

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