The Intersection of Ableism and Christian Nationalism

How Christian Nationalism Has Impacted Me

In my first post to this blog, I quoted Martin Niemoller’s poem of regret at not speaking out when he was not effected by, and in fact even agreed with the persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazis. I argued that we must speak out against injustice, even when it does not directly impact us because those who thirst for power will eventually come for us. And actually, even if persecution will never effect us, Christians should speak out because it is the right thing to do. Whether Christian or not, any decent person would rush to the defense of a biological brother or sister being treated unjustly, but as Christians, we are taught that all followers of Christ whether they are Black, white, Asian or Hispanic, attend our church or live in the global south, are our brothers and sisters.

The official definition of Christian Nationalism I quote on the about page of this blog focuses on the overlap of Christian Nationalism with white supremacy and racial subjugation, and therefore all who want to follow the true teachings of Christ should find Christian Nationalism abhorrent because it flagrantly violates Christ’s teaching that all followers of Christ are our brothers and sisters. Ableism is not addressed in this definition, though I don’t think this is intentional. Racial subjugation, is and should be in the spotlight right now as systemic racial injustice continues to make the news headlines, and people in positions of power are working tirelessly to sugarcoat our country’s history of racial oppression. When I first became passionate about confronting Christian Nationalism, I overlooked the overlap of Christian Nationalism and ableism too, perhaps as a coping mechanism.

I am totally blind, the result of a brain tumor that destroyed my optic nerve when I was a baby. I was blessed to be born in 1990, the year the Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted, so although I still experienced some adversity, my adversity pales in comparison to the adversity previous generations had to overcome. I would also be dishonest if I didn’t acknowledge that being white and growing up in an affluent suburb also made my path easier. And yet last summer when I read the book My Body is not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church, written by disability scholar Dr. Amy Kenny, it occurred to me that I have been wounded by Christian Nationalism.

I have three older siblings, all of whom attended Catholic school through eighth grade, but because of my disability, I was told that Catholic school was out of the question for me. They simply did not have the resources to accommodate my special needs. I always accepted this reality without giving it any thought, until I read Dr. Amy Kenny’s book, where she details how religious leaders actively fought for and won exemption from having to comply with most aspects of the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to a 1992 article in Christianity Today, religious leaders were uncomfortable with the idea of government entanglement with religious institutions, and Amy Kenny also sites documents where religious leaders complained that the cost of renovating buildings to comply with accessibility requirements would be a burden for religious institutions. Dr. Amy Kenny’s disability came about when she was a teenager, and the teachers at her public high school refused to comply with the education provisions in the Americans with Disabilities Act. And yet as much as she was wounded by these public school teachers, wounds she experienced from ableism in the church were deeper. She could almost understand the unfair way she was treated by public school teachers because in secular society, “people have been taught to value product over personhood, profit over people, and cash as king above all else. Disabled people do not produce anything the capitalist market deems valuable, and therefore we are cast aside as drains on the system. It’s eugenicist, but that’s capitalism…But churches are meant to usher in new creation, where all people have dignity and value simply because we are image bearers of the Alpha and the Omega” (Page 50).

I was blessed to receive an excellent public school education from a school district that was willing and able to provide all of the accommodations I needed. Sometimes, I experienced the adversity of not having class handouts in time, and my classroom aid would have to constantly remind these teachers that they needed to give her these handouts ahead of time so she could transcribe them into braille for me. But the overwhelming majority of these teachers were kindhearted people who were just disorganized sometimes and couldn’t plan ahead. With the possible exception of just one math teacher in middle school, I never got the impression they resented having to accommodate me. But I should have been at the Catholic school with my siblings.

To be fair, my siblings envied me because my elementary school was more dynamic, offering more extracurricular opportunities, and their principle was a kind but serious nun. It was just not in her nature to sit on the roof for a day and throw candy down to us on the playground as a reward for meeting our school’s food drive donation goal, or participate in the holiday concert as the delivery man bringing another everlasting fruitcake. My parents also said if they could do life over, they would send all of us to public school. In previous places they had lived, the Catholic schools were better than the public schools, so when they moved to this area, they didn’t even look at the public schools until my older siblings were already established in a Catholic school. But I envied my siblings because I grew up in completely different social circles from them, and thus always felt alone and left out when I would go to their school events, and they would hang out with their friends while my parents chatted with other parents. I remember wondering what it would have been like to ride the school bus with them and see them in the hallway, to have religion class integrated into the regular school day rather than have to attend the weekly evening Catholic Formation class offered for public school kids when I was tired from a long school day, or to be able to talk about the same teachers.

I am glad disability rights activists fought for legislation that is far from perfect, but does provide some recourse so that people with disabilities can have a fighting chance at realizing our nation’s ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, removing many barriers that used to prevent people with disabilities from accessing public transportation, going to a restaurant or movie theater, even getting an education or finding employment. But it should have been the other way around. If the American church were really serious about living according to Christ’s teaching, they should not even need the Americans with Disabilities Act to compel them to welcome those with disabilities. The recognition that these people are image bearers of God should have been written on their hearts, and they should have been ahead of their time, prioritizing access for people with disabilities, and resources to educate children with disabilities above all else when making financial decisions, with the secular world lagging behind.

When it suits their agenda—when it comes to culture war issues—Christian Nationalism welcomes the power of the state to impose their beliefs on people who may disagree with them. But I believe when religious leaders resisted the involvement of the state at the time that the Americans with Disabilities Act was being drafted, Christian Nationalism was also at work, as some religious leaders disregarded Christ’s teachings about people with disabilities, implying that people with disabilities weren’t worth the financial costs, ultimately corrupting the gospel with eugenicist, capitalistic views.

To be fair, the leader of the Catholic Formation program I attended was a wonderful person who adored me and even went out of her way to make sure I was included, which I will talk about more in future posts. The staff at this school had no part in, and most likely weren’t even fully aware of the history behind the exemption of religious institutions from the Americans with Disabilities Act. But the fact remains that the school my siblings attended was wittingly or not, complicit with a precedent that religious institutions did not have to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. I should have attended Catholic school with my siblings, and I suspect Christian Nationalism is the ideology behind why I couldn’t.