LibGuides: Disability and Christianity: Home

-- Painting by Unknown Netherlandish Artist, ca. 1500. Saint Giles and the Deer. National Gallery, London. Saint Giles is the Patron Saint for the Disabled, commemorated on September 1st in the Anglican Communion.

Overview

Welcome to BPL's Disability and Christianity Research Guide!

This research guide provides library materials and research pathways to Christian perspectives on disability throughout the centuries and in the modern era. Additionally, this guide provides research pathways to biblical commentaries on the topic of disability and to inclusive ministry methods. Each page is designed as a starting point for further exploration.

How to Use this Guide

Where possible, this guide includes "starting point" resources on each topic. Often, each page contains a short list of overview resources to help researchers get started learning about that field of inquiry. Additionally, sections include “key works” which are representative of major scholarly perspectives in that field. These works are frequently the most influential in their area, and so have sparked a continued scholarly conversation.

There are also finding aids in each section. These aids list subject headings relevant to that topic. Students and researchers should use those subject headings as search terms within the library catalog to retrieve only the most relevant results. Additionally, there is a list of call numbers that can aid in browsing the stacks, which is another great way to discover resources on a topic.

Meet with a Librarian

Librarians are here to partner with you at any stage of your project.

The BPL Library Staff is always eager to aid students and researchers in this area. Librarians can help you identify resources for your topic or develop a search strategy to find the best materials. To contact a librarian, email paynelib@vts.edu. The library staff is here to serve and resource your studies.

Introductory Works

Disability in the Christian Tradition: A Reader by Brian Brock (Editor); John Swinton (Editor)
Call Number: BT 732.7 .D611 2012
Fourteen contemporary experts in theology and disability studies guide readers through various eras or groups of Christian thinkers on the topic of disability, offering clear commentary and highlighting important themes.
The Disability Studies Reader by Lennard J. Davis
The Fourth Edition of the Disability Studies Reader breaks new ground by emphasizing the global, transgender, homonational, and posthuman conceptions of disability. Including physical disabilities, but exploring issues around pain, mental disability, and invisible disabilities, this edition explores more varieties of bodily and mental experience.
The Disabled God by Nancy L. Eiesland
Call Number: BV4460.E34 1994
Proclaiming the emancipatory presence of the disabled God, Nancy Eiesland maintains the vital importance of the relationship between Christology and social change.
Disability and Christian Theology Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities by Deborah Beth Creamer
Call Number: BT 741.3 .C912 2009
This book explores possibilities for theological engagement with disability, focusing on three primary alternatives: challenging existing theological models to engage with the disabled body, considering possibilities for a disability liberation theology, and exploring new theological options based on an understanding of the unsurprisingness of human limits.