Abstract
David McLachlan is a Baptist minister in Surrey who is temporarily-abled (language borrowed from the disability community for those persons without disabilities), was involved for years with an organization that served young people with neurological conditions, and teaches ministers in training at Spurgeon's College in London. The Spurgeon's College crest bears the motto, et teneo, et teneor (I hold and am held), the meaning of which is amplified by the image of a hand holding the cross of Christ. And, indeed, it is the theology of the event of the atonement, the central Christian doctrine in McLachlan's opinion, that he desires to see as the firm foundation for disability theologies. When we begin with the cross, he argues, disability is already included at the starting point for our theological imagination and not added later as a special case or through an adjectival theology.
The book is divided into two sections. In the first section, McLachlan explores prevalent interactions between disability theology and atonement theories explaining that disability theology has drawn upon theological sources to advocate for inclusive disability theologies but has rarely engaged the atonement in part due to the way atonement theories have inadvertently or explicitly promoted the entanglement of disability and sin, salvation and healing, and intellectual capacities and repentance and belief. Similarly, scholarship on atonement theories has rarely, if ever, engaged the theological insights emerging from the lived experience of disability. McLachlan asks, ‘how the whole field of atonement theology as currently debated and preached should be shaped by, and should shape, our theological approach to disability’ (p. 3).
McLachlan identifies four main themes in disability theology: theological anthropology, theologies of access, disability hermeneutics, and issues of soteriology. He believes that all these themes are important but wishes to anchor them in what he considers the firmest foundation for inclusion, God's reconciling to Godself of all things in Christ. McLachlan acknowledges that disability theology has matured while being nurtured by the disability rights movement with its necessary emphasis on advocacy, access and rights, while admitting that often the conception of access inherited from the disability rights movement is insufficient and frequently too dependent upon people exercising these rights to access. He concludes that disability theology has consequently been much more invested in the particularity of the atonement and its subjective connections to the lived experience of disability, contingency and human vulnerability found in Jesus than in the universal change that takes place through the atonement by which sin and death are addressed. If the disabled body is somehow altered (‘fixed’ or ‘healed’) through the atonement, does this mean that disability was a result of or somehow connected to moral sin or the fallenness of the world? Does this mean that the atonement erases the disabled?
When McLachlan looks to the prominent atonement theories, he finds little help in addressing such dilemmas. He asks how the atonement can be the foundation for Christian disability theology if sin, disability, healing and atonement are so intertwined. Engaging three prevailing models of the atonement—sacrifice, victory and justice—McLachlan outlines the benefits and challenges of each model with respect to disability, arguing that taken together these models address both the objective and subjective dimensions of the atonement. He acknowledges that theories and models of the atonement have not taken advantage of the ‘neglected source of theological insight’ (p. 55) that could be provided by disability theology and that disability theology has failed to pivot on one of the central doctrines of the faith even while drawing on some aspects or features of the cross or the resurrection. He notes specific connections in terms and concepts among the three prevailing models or metaphors of atonement and disability theology such as vulnerability, identification and embodiment (sacrifice), vindication as a way of affirming a truth either about Jesus' claims or the disabled being made in the image of God (justice), or overcoming oppressive powers like ableism (victory). Still, according to McLachlan, the objective and universal concerns addressed in the cross and resurrection are not serving disability theology as the theological resources for considering the practical implications of the subjective dimensions of the atonement or guiding reflection about how the atonement can provide a way of talking about inclusion in which all varieties of human existence are addressed at the start of the theological process.
One of the more illuminating sections of McLachlan's work in the first section is when, drawing on Frances Young's work, McLachlan attempts to uncouple sin from disability. He offers a picture of complex ‘deep gone-wrongness’ of the world (p. 65) that includes both the consequences of moral sin and the contingent nature of creation, a result of the fact that God is not the same as God's creation, a requirement for the concept of creatio ex nihilo. God deals with both aspects of the gone-wrongness of creation through the sacrificial obedience of Jesus (addressing moral sin) and by subjecting Godself to the consequences of an imperfect (in the sense that it is other than God) creation that can push against flourishing and toward nothingness (the negative effects of the contingency of creation). God's presence amid God's creation as articulated by Young—what McLachlan terms ‘atonement-as-presence’—offers the subjective confidence that God is with us. McLachlan, however, recasts Young's approach by imagining a deeper commitment by God, the ‘theological protocol’ of ‘atonement-as-participation’ (p. 74). God is not simply present in creation through the atonement but is deeply participating in its risk and contingency, experiencing and taking on its resulting alienation.
The second section of the book begins with McLachlan expounding his atonement-as-participation protocol. From this perspective, God enters the contingency of creation and takes on and overcomes that which is alienating, whether moral sin or the experiences of pain, loss, or injustice related to contingency. God also preserves that which is good in the contingent creation. Some aspects of what we experience due to the contingent nature of creation are positive. So, while living with different bodies and minds bring challenges, they also shape lives that offer fresh perspectives, richness, insight, and a ‘diversity of hopes’ (p. 64) for what the eschaton brings. McLachlan's aim is to shift the conversation from the binary sin/not sin schema, which he argues sets the conversation about disability and the atonement down the wrong path, to promoting alienation (rather than simply moral sin) as that which is overcome in the atonement.
Next, McLachlan revisits the four major themes he discerned in disability theology (theological anthropology, theologies of access, hermeneutics, and soteriology) and examines them in terms of his atonement-as-participation protocol with its focus on dealing with alienation. He highlights three themes from his approach to atonement-as-participation: that the atonement is God's participation in the contingency of creation in terms of both moral failures and the contingencies of life; what is addressed in the cross and resurrection is what alienates us from God, others and creation; and, human response to the atonement is as varied as creation and is not merely an individual intellectual process. McLachlan finds that the three models of the atonement (sacrifice, justice, and victory) provide rich resources for elucidating his atonement-as-participation approach and they have been proven historically useful for articulating the gospel. At the same time, each model is limited in its capacity to speak of the kind of event that the atonement is or how it is essentially inclusive of the disabled. He, therefore, points toward other metaphorical resources for understanding the work of the atonement through the atonement-as-participation protocol such as exile and return, brokenness and restoration, or the lost being found. He concludes, ‘Rather than finding a way to make our account of the cross and the atonement accessible or inclusive, it is a matter of discovering that the cross of Jesus Christ and God's saving work there are fundamentally, inherently so’ (p. 154).
Sure to be challenged by disability theologians is the connection between imperfection, risk and contingency, and the possibility of disability. The argument made by McLachlan is not novel, that in creatio ex nihilo God limited Godself in order to allow for the space to create something other than God, thereby introducing contingency and risk into creation. The problem might arise that the term ‘perfect’ is used to describe God and the term ‘imperfect’ to describe that which can happen in the contingent creation. The introduction of the terms ‘perfect’ and ‘imperfect’ without more definition or discussion may elicit a reaction and accusation of ableism that undermines McLachlan's otherwise strong work of uncoupling sin from disability. One other issue, that simply confirms problems with the greater theological landscape on which McLachlan is building, is that his discussion of both atonement theories and disability theology is oriented and dominated by Western conversation partners.
This monograph is part of Baylor University Press's Studies in Religion and Disability series. While the series is a bit uneven, comprised of doctoral theses, monographs, and handbooks of sorts, this offering is a very well-written, accessible, clearly organized and cogently argued book. Throughout the work, McLachlan advocates for and demonstrates the importance of listening to and engaging the perspectives of disabled people when engaging in disability theology. He is aware that his title, Accessible Atonement, could be misread to communicate that God addressed the brokenness and contingency of creation in a way that requires a special accommodation for those without typical body/minds. Yet, McLachlan's conclusion succinctly summarizes his argument and, importantly, offers an account of his own commitment to disabling atonement theology in a way in which ‘there is no intention to retrofit the atonement with a ramp, ready to be deployed when requested’ (p. 154). His conclusion also demonstrates how this book, while not always appearing so, is a work of practical theology that is driven by theological and practical questions that arose in the practice of ministry and from his commitment to better understanding the theology and practice of gospel proclamation/evangelism. This fact makes his monograph appealing to a wide readership. Finally, McLachlan points toward how his approach to the atonement might have concrete implications for issues of evangelism, liturgical practices like communion and preaching, congregational leadership, and discipleship but, in the end, most of that necessarily contextual work is left to the reader.