A General Synod speech I was unable to give. The debate was very powerful as people shared stories of their own struggles with disability, their experience of disability in the family and ways in which their churches have worked to include people with a disability.
Thank you for calling me, chair, thank you Liverpool Diocese and thank you to those who’ve shared their precious stories of disability and difference. The ancient paganisms against which the earliest Christians of the Mediterranean world contended, celebrated and valued what they saw as physical strength. They rejoiced in the triumph of those they regarded as the strong over the weak. In contrast, the early Church proclaimed a God who made himself weak – who gave his life as a ransom for many – and who lifts up the lowly. Pagans were shocked by the way in which the those they thought of as the weakest members of society were welcomed and placed on an equal footing with the strong. Slave and master alike shared the same true master in the letters of Paul and Peter.
The way in which those regarded as weak were despised by Greco-Roman paganisms was embodied in the practice of exposing children deemed of low value. From the earliest years of the Church, Christians drew a clear distinction – an ethical boundary – on this practice. Christians do not do this, they said.
The anonymous author of the early second century apologetic text, the Epistle to Diognetus wrote of Christian distinctiveness: ‘They live in their own countries, but only as non-residents; they participate in everything as citizens, but endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their homeland and every homeland is foreign. They marry like everyone else, and have children, but they do not expose their offspring. This is said too in the Didache, probably from the first century.
Valuing those society regards as weak has always been in our DNA as Christians. I commend this motion. It will help many and has the love of Christ at its heart.
Benjamin Sargent 