John Anthony Dunne: Well, Professor Switten. Thanks so much for joining us.
John Swinton: It's a pleasure to be here good to talk.
John Anthony Dunne: so we're really excited to do this series on Disability and Theology, and
John Anthony Dunne: what we really want to do to in this episode is provide some clarity on terminology and different methodological approaches. to the study of of disability and theology. but we'd love to begin by hearing a little bit about your personal story and and your in your background. What sort of led you into this space.
John Swinton: That's a good question.
John Swinton: Well, my
John Swinton: my background is originally in in nursing, so i'm not for 16 years. Firstly, in the area of psychiatry, mental health, and and then I retrained and worked in the area of learning disabilities.
John Swinton: So for
John Swinton: most of my formative professional life, I was with people who perceived the world differently. People were, I know it had voices, or for found they depressed, or had the highest and loser by full of disorder. This people, just this so, and experience the world differently. And then, when I retrained, and what's in the area of
John Swinton: what was then called mental handicap, which is now called intellectual disability.
John Swinton: the same thing, you know the same question or same kinds of questions. It began to emerge from that kind of experience. So
John Swinton: what does it mean to,
John Swinton: understand the world when you don't have any cognition of symbols to make sense of it? What does it mean to understand spirituality in religion in particular, when the kind of language
John Swinton: that everybody else seems to use as the normal, you just don't have in that sense like. And ultimately, what does it mean to to know God? But it works so, these these kind of things, but they are very kind of challenging questions in a medical context. But there are more challenges in in a theological context. So when I moved into theology
John Swinton: the same set of questions they moved in with me.
John Swinton: and so I began to think about
John Swinton: What do these things mean in the theological context? What does it mean for somebody to live with the men's share, for example, to be losing their memory of God, and ultimately, perhaps to lose all memory of God, and still to have a relationship with God. What does it mean to know Jesus when you you don't know who Jesus is? Cognitively
John Swinton: so. Basically when I came into the Academia, that was the theological context, I brought with me, and that says, because to some extent
John Swinton: all theologies, autobiographic, biographical, in the sense that you bring your own story. Bring your experience, and you. You reflect in that, According to whatever that theological framework you you choose to do that? That's certainly been the case for me that everything I I've done, and listen to disability. Theology comes from that.
Chris Porter: So, John, I wonder if you could expand a bit more. a lot of the time we hear of the so, the I guess, the what, what is often known as a medical model of of disability and and that's often contrast to then with the the social model of disability. and
Chris Porter: and even now, more more recently, we're seeing other, you know, broader models of of disability coming forward and thinking about the theological models, etc. How how do you frame those in conversation with one another? what's the
John Swinton: so? What are the
John Swinton: challenging things for people with with disabilities is the fact that people
John Swinton: I kind of automatically frame it as a problem.
John Swinton: And so you're in a wheelchair. So they for you the problem to be fixed. That's probably be so. That a problem to be rehabilitated, and it's not the normal way to think of a disability as just another way of being in the world another. We have understanding, what it means to be a human being. As you move through the world.
John Swinton: So the idea of the medical model tops into the way in which many people within society think about disability, i. E. As a problem or as something that's wrong with somebody.
John Swinton: And so within medicine, you know that medicine exists to solve problems and to fix things that are are broken. And so within a medical perspective. The assumption is that whatever disability that you have is a problem needs to be fixed or rehabilitated.
John Swinton: which means it's that people are oftentimes overlooked as people as simply looked upon as people to be fixed, so that you can get close to what I am when you are as possible, and that's a very difficult way to live your life that people are always thinking that you're all and always thinking that you to be fixed.
John Swinton: and so the medical model works in the same way as medicine Does something wrong. You've got to fix it, and then you go back to normality.
John Swinton: And but there's a different way of thinking about it, and that would be first of all
John Swinton: that. Actually, it's your level of a disability. It's just to
John Swinton: live in a different way. It's it's not bad or good. It's just a different way of being in the world which brings it pluses and things like that. This is like always being in what i'll do. The the problem from many people with disabilities is not so much
John Swinton: the thing that they they are. They are carrying on their bodies.
John Swinton: It's way that people perceive that.
John Swinton: And so, if you're in a, you'll share. People may sympathize with you. I think it's not a shame, but it's not something which there's nothing for your confidence, and there's nothing for your person. There's nothing for you, since so, being a citizen in the world is value.
John Swinton: And so the way in which people treat one another as the causes somebody to be disabled in that sense, i. E. Not to be able to participate well within society within the premises of what they could offer.
John Swinton: so the social model says, the problem is not with you.
John Swinton: You're not the invalid person. They have problems with society.
John Swinton: and if we change their views in society, then a lot of the issues and challenges that people with disabilities experience will simply disappear. So, for example,
John Swinton: people very often talk about those centralized a form of suffering, and you have to ask yourself why
John Swinton: you know what if you spend time with people, with disabilities that you you know, with those interview. You know that people have good lives. People can be funny, and people be love it and care. And the problem is that loving and careing and being funny isn't particularly valid within a society. What's valid is
John Swinton: the intellect, reason, quickness of thought. And so, therefore, when you see somebody who's not going through these culturally shipped at Norms, you say, oh, something wrong with them. There's nothing wrong with them, something old society.
John Swinton: And so the social model points to society. It says that's where the problem is. No. But then you
Chris Porter: he's so just John, for the later, this might come out of sequence. So you might want to shift this. But one of the interesting things about what you just said then. Sorry, John done. That was so.
Chris Porter: One of the interesting things you just said about there is that,
Chris Porter: you people will try to then conform disability and and people's ability to. And so that idealized society, I guess. you know intellect and and ability and things like that.
Chris Porter: One of the things that strikes me is that the pandemic is actually for many people highlighted the differently ableness of our society. How society is, is often set up in different ways. Have you been seeing that come come through in a theological space as well? for
Chris Porter: has has this been reflecting in people's theological reflections.
Chris Porter: as as people have wrestled with the impact of the pandemic.
John Swinton: Well, one of the things that the pandemic did positively in some sense is, was it? It helped us to see that the individualistic way that we live within society is just. It's it's an it's a. It doesn't exist
John Swinton: that we are all caught up in our intricate network of relationships globally and interpersonally.
John Swinton: and and the idea that we are simply individuals who just do the best that we can for ourselves, simply doesn't make sense. So I think I suspect we've lost that message. Now that the pandemics, the fear and the anxiety that by next pass away. But that's really really important, because it indicates that we are the way that we look at society
John Swinton: is actually fluid.
John Swinton: and that we kind of fool ourselves into thinking that we we are a unique individuals, and that that the way to be a a good citizen. A good human being is to make sure that you're strong and tough and intellectually able and able to compete in the marketplace.
John Swinton: The pandemic points that very clearly, as really not the way it is. That's where it looks sometimes in in good things, but in reality it's not like that.
John Swinton: So I I think one of the things that goes on with an academia, is it reflects that because disability theology really is.
John Swinton: how could you put a a prophetic
John Swinton: a way of looking at the world, the points to things in the world that seem to be normal. But actually i'm not normal, one of those being the idea that people who are dependent on the people are. Some have inferior to people who are not dependent other people for us. The pandemic sales is very clearly.
John Swinton: Nonsense! We are all dependent, and that's the adoption of creation tells us we're all contingent. We're all dependent on God for everything.
John Swinton: And so the way that this will be to you. Push that, and we, the academic, feel it tends to push, that is, to remain there
John Swinton: that we are maybe looking at the world in the wrong way, and help us to see the world in the right way. And when we see that and disability becomes something different.
Steph Judd: John. I think that one of the ways in which that is showcase most clearly is in the concept of personhood, and that you've done a bit of work on
Steph Judd: on the ways in which
Steph Judd: disability theology can show up
Steph Judd: flaws in the way that we understand what it is to be a human. What is to be a person? Could you please unpack that?
John Swinton: Yeah, I mean I. A a good example would be the language that people use in relation to something like dementia, right? So somebody
John Swinton: has dimensions which means you obviously lose something of your recall. Memory and and people then use a particular kind of language, so they'll say things like that. He or she is not the person they used to be, or I'd rather remember them the way that they were.
John Swinton: Now, what does that mean? How could the person not be the person that she used to be? Because if that's true, then why would you love them? Why would you care for them? And who is it you're talking about, anyway?
John Swinton: So the problem there is that the way in which, at least in Western society. The way in which we construct our understanding of persons with an understanding what a self is is through memory.
John Swinton: And so
John Swinton: as long as you're able to tell your story, to bring from the
John Swinton: passed into the present who you are and how you where you've been. Then put your word from life, and then from there to project into the future about what you might want to share. As long as you can do that you're the person that you used to be.
John Swinton: But as soon as you can do that
John Swinton: you're not the person used to be.
John Swinton: Now, of course, when you think about it, and to go back. You know the the the pandemic throws us up as well.
John Swinton: We're always persons
John Swinton: we become who we are in relationship.
John Swinton: Sometimes we think we've become who we are as individual, but become a we are in relationship. Take something very simple, like value. How can you get about you? The only way that you can get value is if somebody gets it to you.
John Swinton: How do you get friendship? The only way that you can get French is something gives it to you.
John Swinton: So most of the central things, like love, friendship, value, but make us the people what we are.
John Swinton: come from our relationships with other people. So we're always persons in relationship.
John Swinton: And so it's a bit of a fallacy to suggest that we are individuals at West relationship.
John Swinton: but You can see, then, the problem for you if it's or by anybody. If you get the menhip, because we just don't think that way. This is such an alien way of thinking about what we are as persons.
John Swinton: who does? I think if you get that relational dynamic boom, it's not only obvious, but it's actually transformative.
Steph Judd: Yeah, thank you. And I think that one of them
Steph Judd: one of the interesting things that I I've come across in in your work has been the ways in which
Steph Judd: that notion of personhood has been understood by the Church over time, and how the Christian tradition has.
Steph Judd: and made sense of the difference
Steph Judd: that you encounter in the human population
Steph Judd: and
Steph Judd: and and and what what you mentioned before about
Steph Judd: is it normal or abnormal, or just different?
Steph Judd: Could you please unpack kind of sketch for us? How questions over time have?
Steph Judd: What are some of the handholds for? How Christians have understood
Steph Judd: these differences?
John Swinton: It will that many Christians haven't been er apart from creating very cognitive frameworks which tend to isolate people. So we we don't have a fantastic track record.
John Swinton: Exactly. It's just. I've spoken like a true reform to the
John Swinton: but if you take something like the body of Christ, right, it's about your place is a good example. This is a central.
John Swinton: a central theological concept
John Swinton: that, and the the important thing being that the body crisis is not metaphor. If in full talks about it. It's it's intended to be a reality. What is it that marks out the body of price on that? The body crisis, diversity.
John Swinton: not homogeneity, and not the fact that we're all the same. It's, in fact, a little different.
John Swinton: and it's the fact that we can't all do the same things that makes the body of Christ, the body of Christ. We can all be the head. We can open the food, etc., etc., and which means that we all have responsibilities towards one another within the body of a trace. Yeah, I can't do this, but you can do that. So we need to do these things together.
John Swinton: and so I think that the image which I I think is is a is a constant
John Swinton: within the Christian tradition, even if it's not always thought through in these specific terms. It's profoundly important.
John Swinton: partly because it creates the type of community that reflects Christ's like friendship, and it reflects something of what the Gospel is.
John Swinton: and so internally it's. It's a good place for us to find our sales, but externally, at least in in fiscal. When people look at the body of Christ. This you see, Jesus.
John Swinton: So what you actually have is a manifestation of God in the boat, and then through the board of your trace so internally you have a transformative understanding of what human being is, what it means to be together as community. But externally you you're looking at something like, and should be, whether we do or not, saying, Wow!
John Swinton: That's pretty spectacular. Let's have a look at that.
John Swinton: So the body of Christ is, is, is, I think, is a very helpful way of of thinking that through, and I think that's it. As I say, it's a powerful image within Christian tradition.
Steph Judd: and
Steph Judd: it's it's the that's one of the
Steph Judd: i'll. I'd like to. I think I don't know if this is a good segue. But talking about the the whole idea of
Steph Judd: like participation in the body of Christ, when you may not have
Steph Judd: the ability
Steph Judd: to
Steph Judd: cognitively
Steph Judd: profess faith in the ways that you know is that we want to go that direction.
John Swinton: Yeah, sure.
Steph Judd: okay, i'll. I'll refresh my question.
Steph Judd: I'm, John.
Steph Judd: What what was the Friday you just use
okay.
Steph Judd: joined on the survey message. And
Steph Judd: so, John in in that in that
Steph Judd: I can't think of how to find the question. So my brain is cooled.
Steph Judd: How does that connect with
Steph Judd: the ways in which
Steph Judd: persons with disability and particularly intellectual disabilities.
Steph Judd: participate in that body of Christ when they may not be able to confess faith in the ways that
Steph Judd: certain forms of denominations would expect
Steph Judd: our prerequisite.
John Swinton: Well, I I the way I I was thinking about it, is it? It transforms an understand of what it means to participate
John Swinton: so particularly as those of us who come from the reformed tradition. Everything comes through works right. So your salvation comes through what the salmon comes through works. Your knowledge of Jesus comes to worse.
John Swinton: So, which is why it's so difficult if somebody has been damaged, is that the men sure that bang on the head, or whatever it may be.
John Swinton: that it seems to push into the very heart of of what we are as questions, and the very heart of how we come to know it go. But that becomes problematic.
John Swinton: However, when you begin to think about the experiences of people with within the body of Christ.
John Swinton: who simply don't have that as a as starting position.
John Swinton: then you have to ask the question that does God then reject them? Not very unlikely, but in the means, the nature of Jesus and nature of God.
John Swinton: But if God doesn't do that, then what does it mean for people to know about in that in this kind of situations?
John Swinton: And this is
John Swinton: 2 pieces of Scriptures that I I I' to to think about that one is Jeremiah 2216,
John Swinton: where Jeremy is talking about King Josiah, who says it's a good thing right? Why is it a good thing? Because he looks after widows of orphans?
John Swinton: And then they then the office says, is that not what it means to know me? Right? So basically you have a statement here that no one goes as a social practice. It's not simply known things about board. It's actually knowing board when you, when you do these things when you integrate these kinds of relationships.
John Swinton: That is how you come to know God. It's not like, you know. Go ahead and do nice things. It's actually part of the same process, and James says the same thing. It. He talks about the devil or the demons rather, who know more about more than you do. So go away from care for the what is in the office. So there's a difference between knowing God
John Swinton: and known things about good.
John Swinton: because it you and I know lots of people who know what lots of things about God. But Don't know God.
John Swinton: and so, knowing God has to do with engage in the social practices. But it also has to do with experience and social practices it's experienced in the practices of love within the community that the question is, do they have to be named? But I think no. They don't have to be named.
John Swinton: They seem to have to be experienced in that sense they have to be. If it's true
John Swinton: that knowing God is a social practice. In that sense, then, experience in these things as a mode of knowing God, so it's within the body of Trace, so it comes. No god through those experiences of the practices of love that make the body of trace the body of trace.
Grace Emmett: And I said to quite a sort of practical question in terms of thinking about how the church can put that to practice. Is that all right?
Grace Emmett: thank you so much. I I suspect i'm not with any person who, I feel some sort of connection to the same, and I was thinking about my grandma and my dad's side. He passed away a couple of years ago he'd suffered with dementia for a long time.
Grace Emmett: and wrestling with a lot of these questions during that time, and thinking about
Grace Emmett: you know. What does it mean for to still be her? And and how does she know God and so it's. yeah. So I, finding this, I found actually kind of just it, reflecting on some of that at the moment.
Grace Emmett: and something that really struck me sort of as she was coming towards the end of her life particularly. It was just the way that the Church cared for her, and this kind of extraordinary expression of love from that community. And I think so. Picking up on what you just said in terms of
Grace Emmett: disability, theology being a sort of prophetic voice for the Church, or it might be slightly paraphrasing that, but in terms of being able to show us the assumptions that we have and the kind of normal standards that we hold that, you know, perhaps need to be framing
Grace Emmett: and you sort of given an example there in terms of you know. What does it mean to know God? Actually? Not necessarily so, professing that out loud?
Grace Emmett: I guess. Sort of practically. What do you think the Church can be doing better to actually kind of
Grace Emmett: hold that breath of Christian experience within its ministry. rather than that kind of being something that we say. But the house people, with
John Swinton: intellectual disabilities still effectively being sort of signed sideline and marginalize them in the church. But how does that actually kind of fold into church practice and expression. Sorry, that was a very long, because I think one of the problems for both academia and for the Church. One
John Swinton: is the frame that they place disability into.
John Swinton: So you know the temptation is so. If you have somebody within lecture with disability in your congregation, for example, is to think about that in terms of pastoral care or ethics.
John Swinton: so pastoral care would be, how do we look after this individual with these particular these? But they're not. Obviously. We only passed through here. Ethics may be the kind of question we've been wrestling with. You know. How does it understand this person before we. So th the problem with ethics is, it becomes a person becomes a dilemma, and that's nobody wants to be a dilemma.
John Swinton: but I think if you accept that ethics. And they said, the pastoral here is important.
John Swinton: but realize that the T. As you as discipleship, then doesn't changes because the question of then is, how can this person, who's a disciple of Jesus Christ, who has a vocation and a calling
John Swinton: be enabled to fulfill their vocation, and that calling within this place here
John Swinton: that's a much more interesting Co. question, but so much more difficult question for for for a church to to face. But I think that's it. That's the key question. Because if you're really taken seriously what we've been talking about in relation to the body of Christ experience of Jesus, and all these things
John Swinton: they were talking about a different kind of disabled ship, but all disabled ship has vocation, and calling. The question is, what is that vocation and call for for that individual?
John Swinton: And I think that's that's that's the way to.
John Swinton: if you like, reframe the way in which we we might respond to to human difference in our in our communities.
Madison Pierce: Thank you, John. This has been a really helpful conversation for me so far, and I think I have a question along those same lines as Grace is one.
Madison Pierce: You know one of the ways that I've come into contact with a number of of differences, you know, among people is as a professor and
Madison Pierce: trying to provide structures and frameworks for my students, who have various kinds of of differences, especially learning differences. I wonder if you could?
Madison Pierce: I mean this applies well beyond academia. But I wonder if you could help us to understand what are some of the ways that we
Madison Pierce: can care for these people, and and not just in terms of of our pastoral care, though my goodness, that should be first and foremost, I think, in our mind. But how do we go beyond that, and actually facilitate them and integrate them, and and begin to do
Madison Pierce: remove some of the barriers that come about through our problematic society.
John Swinton: Does that make sense?
John Swinton: Oh, my! My immediate response to that is, it's not like complicated to do that. The key is is, I think, friendship, and but it's a particular kind of friendship, right? So.
John Swinton: One of the most startling things that Jesus says my many other startling things he says.
John Swinton: and John's Gospel is that when he talks to the same, it says, I no longer call your servants. I call your friends right. So friendship then, becomes the nature of discipleship.
John Swinton: But it's a very particular type of friendship that Jesus shows.
John Swinton: You'll think about the the principle of the Incarnation? Is it God who is radically unlike human beings, becomes a human being, and then offers friendship to human beings?
John Swinton: And when you look at the friendships of Jesus, they not like the friendships that we have very often within our our own lives over the northern societies. So if you look at the the kind of circular friends that you have, or I have from my Facebook phase.
John Swinton: they're all more or less the same in the sense that they have the same interest, the same. It's the same things that delay to do together, we. Otherwise we have a basic.
John Swinton: a basic understanding of friendship is like a tracks like right, and it's a kind of social exchange. So if you give me
John Swinton: the the appropriate social goods. Then i'll be your friend, and i'll give you the same. But if you stop giving me these appropriate social goods, and they seem like this types of relationship we have. Then we won't be friends.
John Swinton: So friendships is always fragile in that sense, and always it's. It's almost like Facebook, where you just i'm fed up with a scallow and friend you. Unfortunately, that's test to be the way that we function in real life as well.
John Swinton: which is probably why this is such a breakdown in the relationships across our society. But the friendship of Jesus has something different. So first of all, they're always with with with marginalized people, whether that be fishermen for that be
John Swinton: prostitutes, for that being task clip to whoever it is, is people who have been rejected by society through to one side and then in the mind. It's it's always, you know, task for that to prostitute instead of this, people who are pushed away so people who culturally he shouldn't really really have not have been a part of that.
John Swinton: but he offices friendship, and he touches people, and he engages with them, and he shares in their alienation in that sense.
John Swinton: So the principle of the Incarnation is is to is to do with friendships based on grace.
John Swinton: You simply are with people, because you want to be with people, and in particular people who other people don't want to be with.
John Swinton: I think that's the kind of friendship. That's the kind of discipleship that opens up real space for transformative relationships with people who who live their lives, whose lives are different, or who have different experiences of the world.
John Swinton: All of us have to do that, you know. I'm not saying that you you you just have to have work really hard, so you can be from friend with a disabled person. I mean, we all have to do it so it's not like it's. It's not a special ministry. It's just a way in which we should all be engaging in all the time in that sense.
John Swinton: and I think if we took that way of being Seriously, then, a lot of these barriers lovely difficulties would break down. So that's where I that's that's the relational space. I think that the is the point for in the engagement in place that you're talking about.
Madison Pierce: Thank you, John. If I can just follow up and maybe push a little bit, because
Madison Pierce: I think that I I love the idea that this is primarily a relational. But
Madison Pierce: I i'm a structure person. No, no one's gonna be surprised. But i'm asking this question. so you know, I I personally think that structures and policies and things like that actually protect the marginalized in the disenfranchised when they're crafted with these kinds of
Madison Pierce: loving ideals in mind. And so i'm wondering, you know, how do we actually enact things that protect when these more relational aspects of our care. Kind of break down. Does that
John Swinton: so? The way I would think of it? Well, we are. I've I've I've thought of it, and been a bit in the past is like this. So
John Swinton: there's a difference between inclusion, inclusion and belonging right. So inclusion is a legal to to some extent
John Swinton: whereby you put laws in place, and and structures and policies in place that protect people that make it illegal for somebody to be discriminated against or illegal, from something to be excluded from a community. These are absolutely necessary if we're going to have a civilized society, so I, on that point I completely agree with you.
John Swinton: The the challenges, of course, that once you get somebody into boating.
John Swinton: that's where you, I' your legal obligation ends so you can be in that building, and nobody can for you. Nobody particularly wants to relate to you, but you fulfill your obligations.
John Swinton: I think the the the big contribution that the touch communities in particular is to introduce alongside of that inclusion that that, rhetoric, the idea of belonging
John Swinton: So, in order to belong. You need to be messed so somebody somebody needs to be looking for. You need to be a part of that, so that when you're not there people come looking for you. This is like
their prodigal sons fathers sky on the horizon, looking for them like that.
John Swinton: I think that kind of belong, and sits with that with it. That kind of. And we're thinking about inclusion and belonging opens up space for religious communities to do something unique, because actually that's not the way the society function, but at the same time you have that legal safeguard to make sure that, All communities, including just communities.
John Swinton: fulfill their legal obligations.
John Swinton: so it's these 2 things, inclusion and belonging. That is the way that I would respond to to you. You're quite right to
Madison Pierce: thank you, John, that's really helpful to think of these policies as really being the bare minimum. You know there are starting Point, and so I I appreciate the the way that you frame, that the policies also are a means to love 2.
John Swinton: So it's not like. There's 2 different ways they they all necessary to, to for the process to work itself out
Steph Judd: as a lawyer, I feel vindicated by
well.
John Swinton: so that you should do a nice.
John Swinton: The good Lord can work that way.
Steph Judd: Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it.
Steph Judd: John. a lot of your work centers on the way in which.
Steph Judd: just to just to
Steph Judd: that aside. we would like to
Steph Judd: do a bit of a zoom out and talk about like
Steph Judd: methodology. And
Steph Judd: how do you? How do you go about doing
Steph Judd: this stuff, and so we might ask some questions about about that. But I I think i'm gonna
Steph Judd: sorry. I'm going to ask about
Steph Judd: the way in which I think a good. The Segue I'm going to go for is talking about
Steph Judd: the
Steph Judd: like friendship and the gift that people with disability often offer us, and the way in which the work you've done on time.
Steph Judd: in that context.
Steph Judd: no, you vanished.
Steph Judd: Sorry is my I my own
Steph Judd: for frozen.
Steph Judd: but i'm still getting you staff. I might you. You just go, Chris, because i'm my
Chris Porter: I I wonder if I can, if I can ask a question which will segue between the 2 of those
Chris Porter: So thanks, John Madison's just asked, you know. Think about Madison's framework of
Chris Porter: legal structures which bring people in, and then patterns of relationship and knowledge that enable
Chris Porter: people to be part of those communities.
Chris Porter: I'm wondering if there is a step past that again.
Chris Porter: is it more than just relationship, but also a deep knowledge of the other
Chris Porter: which go, goes past that surface level which
Chris Porter: so often is? Is it? Is it
Chris Porter: difficulty in our Western churches, anyway? you said that you've talked about the homogeneous unit principle? We like to
Chris Porter: have people who are like us.
Chris Porter: but is it even even more of a challenge with, many people who might have an intellectual disability? Or even those who are non neurotypical? people on the autism spectrum for example, for whom, having a deep relationship is
Chris Porter: quite a challenge at times, and having a deep relationship for other people with them can be a challenge.
Chris Porter: I'm wondering what what lies beyond? Simply relationship? Is there something about the knowledge that we have of one another?
Chris Porter: at that sort of reflects something of the knowledge that God has of us as well is a a step beyond that.
from
Chris Porter: legal structures to to real relationship in the church to something else.
John Swinton: I I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question in some ways, but what I would say was
John Swinton: we. We need to be careful about how who's defending what a deep relationship is.
John Swinton: And so, if we are in the listen to somebody, and constantly looking for something deeper and deeper and deeper. Then we, I, we end up looking beyond people that in in the present to, or something that we may want to aspire to.
John Swinton: and I think the key thing for me would be
John Swinton: to allow
John Swinton: whoever you are having a relationship with, to determine what a deep relationship is.
John Swinton: And so, if you're somebody will live in with autism, then you should be the person that determines what a deep relationship is, and it shouldn't really be for for you and I to speculate whether there is a third dimension.
John Swinton: and it's not to say that there's not a third dimension, but it's it's simply that we need to be careful that we're not looking for the third dimension. we've we've missed the past in front of Zoom. One of the things
John Swinton: that's always struck me about Luther's theology of the Cross is that he says
John Swinton: you need to look at the cross. You need to see Jesus up for you. You can't keep. Of course they'd be looking beyond that towards ideas of heaven and all these escape. Look at the cross. Otherwise you end up, just missing, actually where go it is.
John Swinton: And I was saying something similar here. But I don't know. The answer to your question is, whether or not there's a third dimension. But I just would say that the process to get there as well as your
John Swinton: Yeah, just being careful with it.
Chris Porter: Yeah, thanks. I I think that yeah, that's a really good caution. There. certainly.
Chris Porter: That there have been books written about. You know the place of disability in the Church as as being a prophetic guide. And so, therefore, you know these are the things which we
Chris Porter: they will do for us. the language that is being used there.
Chris Porter: Which
John Swinton: and I think I yeah. And I think that's why. Because nobody would want to be th the the the Mid Way person. They kind of mediate it for God. If you see that something, something something beyond your sales, we, I think the key thing in relation to disabilities is something to realize that we give undertake. But but with like any other relationship.
John Swinton: all of us have good things to bring all of us good, because things to to receive and you know people with disabilities
John Swinton: just have very. I think we have a different thing to bring, but it's not kind of mystical. It's just the way the human beings are from the Bring our differences together
Chris Porter: and over to you, Steve.
Steph Judd: do you? Do you want to talk about?
Steph Judd: I Don't, I don't want to talk.
Steph Judd: I ask your question.
John Anthony Dunne: No, go for it.
Cool.
Steph Judd: John. I know that at the heart of some of your work on disability, and generally how we are to make sense of it.
Steph Judd: as we, you know, go through our lives in the world. The concept of time has been at the heart of a lot of that work, and
Steph Judd: particularly, you know, connecting with your ideas that you mentioned earlier about the prophetic
Steph Judd: You know
Steph Judd: witness that.
Steph Judd: that is offered to us held out to us by people with disability. A lot of the time. Can you unpack
Steph Judd: How time.
Steph Judd: What how the concept of time and the concept of disabilities! What's the relationship between those 2?
John Swinton: Well, it it
John Swinton: it depends. I mean the first of all that there's obviously there's no such thing as disabilities as a generic category, so it depends what you're talking about. But if you're thinking about something for example, people with a dance dementia or people with
John Swinton: a
John Swinton: then one of the first things that you begin to realize is that
John Swinton: the speed of society. The time that society seems to be normal, it just
John Swinton: impossible.
John Swinton: So you know, we
John Swinton: use time like that.
John Swinton: We use time with a couple of sites, so we use time in the same way as we use our money. So you buy time. You lose time. You're waste time, but you do your money you do with times 10 becomes a commodity, which means that,
John Swinton: it becomes oppressive. So it means that we're always thinking about. If you're you're talking to somebody. You're always thinking about what you're going to do next. And so you're it's very difficult to focus on the present, because you're always looking for a into the the what might happen in in the future.
John Swinton: and that kind of we have thinking about time. It is a process for all of this, which is why this so much anxiety and depression, or because we we're always under pressure to to do something to be, comes into something more.
John Swinton: When I, when you sit down with somebody with a that's that's what it's your people, that's the advanced dementia.
John Swinton: You can't function like at a time. You have to slow down.
John Swinton: You have to move it. People's own time, and when you do that you begin to realize that actually, perhaps time has a different kind of meaning
John Swinton: it it's it's to do with presence. It's to do with
John Swinton: that
John Swinton: awareness of the other person is to do with
John Swinton: it's facilitating relationships with it works in that way. And
John Swinton: you, when you, when you, when you get into that situation, you begin to see that the in which you think of it time. Normally it is probably quite a dangerous way.
John Swinton: I I suspect that the way the god thinks about time
John Swinton: is slow time.
John Swinton: cultural labor with with fast time we go things about time and slow time.
John Swinton: You can find the space to loved
John Swinton: and fast time. It's quite difficult to find P. Space and time for one another.
John Swinton: And so I think that idea of rethinking a reimagine in time, and in the light of our experiences with people for whom time means something different.
John Swinton: opens up a whole new way of thinking about how we can be with one another. What does it mean for me to spend time with you. Step, for example. What does that mean?
John Swinton: is it just me that we talk together, or does it mean that we actually engage in a way that that helps me to know you, you to me.
John Swinton: and so that that kind of basic way of thinking about time, I think, is, is helpful
John Swinton: for
John Swinton: well, obviously for challenges, our understanding of what time is, but also for re rethinking the way that we need to be with one another
John Swinton: and situation of disability, but probably in every situation that we we are in.
Steph Judd: and it seems that in a lot of your work as a practical theologian that kind of phenomenological approach
Steph Judd: he's at the heart of a lot of like the method, and I know I know I've heard you speak before on
Steph Judd: I can't remember the name of the author of the stream. Our God.
Steph Judd: Oh, yes.
Steph Judd: which it
Steph Judd: Oh, and I I love that. I love the way in which, you know we we take.
Steph Judd: we pay attention to our lived experience, and what's been revealed to us in the Scriptures and in the person of Jesus, and that illuminates so much about how we understand our sales, and also how we understand God? Can you explain to us like as a practical theologian, how do you? What's your craft like? How do? How do you approach that
John Swinton: from a phenomenological perspective?
John Swinton: Well, perhaps they perhaps give you an example. Maybe the the easiest way to I mean it's a practical. My My
John Swinton: part of my task is to to think about what
John Swinton: Theology does as well as what the old you mean. So you have a doctrine of Trinity. So what
John Swinton: right? Because if it only sits in a month because it's like that some some, I mean. I often see some, but forms of field. You like making clocks.
John Swinton: You'd build this fantastic, intricate model of the clock, and you put it on your Michael piece, and it just looks fantastic, but it doesn't tell time
John Swinton: and and so i'm cannot always what it oh, that's a clock! How did you tell it same.
John Swinton: So I I see practical theology as as constructive. I we are doing the OS, you but it's also a way of listening to different ways of thinking about things.
John Swinton: So
John Swinton: I spoke about the my my background in so what my background to nurse and did was give me a set of questions, but I then brought into the Academy, and then asked of the tradition
John Swinton: questions that we wouldn't normally have been asked to, but because of what I've been, I have some of the position I'm. There, for it stretches our understanding of what the tradition looks like, for you know, especially the understanding of what it means to know good. When you think about people can't. Covid, if we know, go.
John Swinton: So the practical theologian, one of the primary mythological things is to
John Swinton: enable, the questions that emerge from the life of the Church
John Swinton: to be put to the tradition and to listen to the way in which the tradition response to that. And it's changed by these questions I don't mean we'd be. We have to become
John Swinton: unorthodox or heretics. I just mean that if you ask a different question about something, you'll see a different angle. It's like like a diamond. If you look at the diamond first a different angle. You'll see it differently. So it is the same. But you see it definitely.
John Swinton: So that's why I that's the way I I think about the the, the the key task for a practical to take these questions and and listen to disabilities, to take these questions that are raised by people living with disabilities in place, and towards addition.
John Swinton: the the phenomenological dimension, I think, is is actually important.
John Swinton: and the last book I wrote
John Swinton: well.
John Swinton: more or less.
John Swinton: It was looking at the spiritual lives of Christians who live with severe mental health, challenges so
John Swinton: depression by pool and so on, and schizophrenia.
John Swinton: and the approach. There was a phenomenological approach in the sense that
John Swinton: it meant. Put into one side everything that you assume that you know about the phenomenon that you're looking at.
John Swinton: So everything you think you know a bit schizophrenia, or by pulling this sort of depression, put it to one side and listen to people's stories.
John Swinton: And when you do that you begin to see
John Swinton: really interesting thing is so. For example.
John Swinton: that which is a symptom in the eyes of the medical profession is a deeply important experience for somebody going through that.
John Swinton: So that's something like here. Invoices.
John Swinton: It's not just a matter of it's a symptom that needs to be cured. It's actually somebody who's engaged with a whole
John Swinton: speed of social relationships voices because sometimes taking away these voices isn't necessarily the the thing that they necessarily want in that sense.
John Swinton: And so you, you, you begin to reframe the idea of voices as as something's meaningful, and then not to not it no position to the clinical just to suggest that there's there's more here than you may assume under normal circumstances.
John Swinton: And I think again, that's what practical feel you should do. It should be put into one side your assumptions about what you think you should see, and looking at the thing in the itself.
John Swinton: and that very often means lessons to people's experiences, and listen to people with narratives rather than listen to the assumptions about what you think they should be going through, or or feeling or experiencing.
Steph Judd: And I think that one of the one of the key kind of
Steph Judd: issues in which that comes to the for in in this spaces around healing and resurrection heart, and I still remember that the first time I had that conversation with you at my it was at my Parents' house and identified by the same case, and it was the first time in which
Steph Judd: I i'd been operating under this as an unquestioned assumption that the Resurrection hope would mean.
Steph Judd: you know, no disability. And I just remember you, you asking asking the question.
Steph Judd: and I just wanted, if if you could unpack some of the terrain around the what? What are the kinds of issues that are at play in that conversation? Because I think that's one of the
Steph Judd: when people think about this question
Steph Judd: about
Steph Judd: disability, what you framed at the beginning as a problem to be fixed?
Steph Judd: What are some of the other issues at play in that conversation.
John Swinton: Well, if I can, if it but things go with the the I do healing, and the idea resurrection is probably
John Swinton: that's a good way to get into that.
John Swinton: So
John Swinton: the medical model
John Swinton: assumes that that healing is getting rid of something right.
John Swinton: But when you actually look at the Gospels. There's something else very often good on. So it takes, for example, the the room with a discharge of blood. Right? So she makes a way through the the the it touches Jesus rule.
John Swinton: and immediately she no longer has this discharge of blood.
John Swinton: But then Jesus looks at him.
John Swinton: looks for, they have this conversation, and then the end of that
John Swinton: Jesus says, go your face to shield you. You're thinking Well, how could that be? It's already been cute. But then you realize she's been cured right
John Swinton: that she's this this, this affliction had been taken from her. It's a fiction for him, because it meant that she was alienated from community, from family, from friends, from the Temple. So she was really very much a known person.
John Swinton: because you couldn't function in a way that that that that
John Swinton: person as could should do by touching Jesus's role that was fixed. But what was interesting that is Jesus becomes a non-person Jesus, who is God, becomes unclean and unable to contact Gordon and the so you can get like a strange prefiguration of the of the crucifixion in that that story.
John Swinton: But the point is
John Swinton: that,
John Swinton: healing in that situation meant that she worked to who Jesus was.
John Swinton: and she was reconnected with a family we connected with with a community a lot of it, and it's it's it's good. Everybody wants to be cured with something different.
John Swinton: so that distinction between healing and curing is something that within a highly medicalized culture, like everyone is very difficult to work out, because you're automatic. Assume he's just getting rid of something like this much more complicated, and you can read that, I mean I. You can read a lot of Jesus, but it goes in similar way that the theologically tell you something about Jesus you can forget.
John Swinton: and
John Swinton: and then that does have some implications for the in which we may be thinking about, and
John Swinton: heaven
John Swinton: and the resurrection body.
John Swinton: because we know all of our talk about heaven and resident is speculative.
John Swinton: The only thing I I guess we, you know for for certain is both says we will have a red direction body, so we'll have something, but he says it will be
John Swinton: transform. It says all bodies will be transformed it Doesn't Say that you know those bodies have one or 2 broken bits, so we're buddies. That's what we transform to all. But we transform.
John Swinton: So we have no idea what the resurrection body will look like.
John Swinton: what it looks like.
John Swinton: Me you, whatever it is. But
John Swinton: but very often we speculate that that that speculation is kind of.
John Swinton: They often tied up in in the healing administr, where we went to get close to the that perfection that we'll have eventually, in all this perfection we're on
John Swinton: but Scripture doesn't really this really pushes it in that direction.
John Swinton: And so the question that disability theologians ask both for toilet rhetorically and
John Swinton: and in real this is will there be disabilities?
John Swinton: And Heaven
John Swinton: and the answer to that question is.
John Swinton: nobody knows.
John Swinton: But when you look at the
John Swinton: Wait a minute. You talked a bit message with a little bit later on. So, rather than trying to answer that question, this is how it works within disability, if you notice. So people who have a congenital disability.
John Swinton: but so people who were born with with a particular thing, that they have a very strong sense of their identity. Their identity is tied up in their disability
John Swinton: will make a case very often for cutting that disability over into heaven, because they can't imagine the sales without it.
John Swinton: Those with an acquired disability to action, or whatever it is, have a different vision. So the idea that they can. That's ability into heaven is not the way that they they want to to frame or understand the particular situation to be rid of. That is what they what their vision of heaven is.
John Swinton: No, it could be that everybody's right.
John Swinton: we don't really know. But the important thing is that
John Swinton: to some extent your vision of heaven determines how you you respond to people in the prison.
John Swinton: And so if you're with somebody, for example, with disability, and you're constantly trying to fix them to it's it's. Put them into this heavenly vision of the way you think they are they not? Just me as a recipe for disaster and disrespect.
John Swinton: but if you have a more open understanding of heaven pretty quick, it's allows you just to love people and be with people as they are, and for people to be able to formulate their own to some extent vision of what heaven looks like, because none of us really do know, then, that that, I think is a much more healthy and life given way to to think about the issue.
Grace Emmett: I really like the
Grace Emmett: Oh, sorry. I really like that you so picked up on the example of the hemorrhaging women. Actually, because Louise goes by who we've got an episode with not quite sure what it's gonna appear in the schedule, but we've already spoken to her. It's all kind of in my mind. She was talking about that example as well
Grace Emmett: in high recording. So it's yeah, that'll be quite a nice theme that gets picked up in a couple of episodes. and I guess partly sort of i'm thinking about where this series is going. I wonder if I can kind of step back, and maybe finish with a slightly more. Macro view.
Grace Emmett: Would you give us a I don't if it's a really main question. Would you give us a bit of a sort of sketch of what you what your perception is of the trajectory within disability, theology sort of since it's evolved, and maybe where you think it's going next, of what the next iteration of it might be, which I think was says that really nicely for the we've got to follow.
John Swinton: Yeah. Well, I mean question, I made that caveat. Exactly. Well, disability is change, and then has to change. So it's root certain disability studies, which is a a board of kind of social science approach
John Swinton: that really pushes into this, and has developed this idea of what the social model, and is is more of a to do with that at liberation liberates in people from oppressive structures.
John Swinton: I and a lot of the
John Swinton: pushed into that and took that liberation, that liberation of the minute dynamic into liberation theology. So we're pushing for the right to people with disability. Great right?
John Swinton: but a lot of that works been done. You can't keep doing that again over and over again. Otherwise, if you just end up seeing the same thing, but maybe an important thing to see over and over again.
John Swinton: So what I see now is a movement within Biblical studies and theology
John Swinton: to incorporate disability into the standard ways in which we think about theology, particularly in relation to something like theological anthropology what it means to be a human being.
John Swinton: So instead of this, supposed to be a kind of
John Swinton: simply a a motor prophetic collaboration, theology
John Swinton: people that are beginning to say, Well, maybe this got something to do with understanding what churches, what human beings are, what it means to be a disabled. So, in other words.
John Swinton: some of the more recent stuff
John Swinton: I I' to
John Swinton: incorporate systematic theology.
John Swinton: incorporate Biblical studies incorporate, if you like mainstream the theological dispute, which means it's to some extent. It's beginning to stop being simply a specialist way of thinking about things.
John Swinton: and it's been more integrated into the mainstream way of which people are thinking about it. But it's a long way to go, but I think that's that's the right way to go. So we've established that there there's a great injustice to our people with disabilities, and that church is implicit within that we've established a Se. Of practices that need to be engaged in to overcome that
John Swinton: the next stage is probably how do we persuade the Academy
John Swinton: and those who are going to be teaching and preaching in the future, to take this as not something that you do, because it's a a on the on the occasion when it's Disability Sunday, but it's actually something you do as central to the way that you think about your your work
John Swinton: and ministry.
John Anthony Dunne: Well, Professor Swinton, thank you so much for joining us. We've really appreciated this conversation, and we're excited to chat with you again further in a couple of weeks about dementia, and hear more of your thoughts on that. So thanks so much for for your time and for being a part of this series
John Swinton: nice to meet you.