Interesting Perspective

From the blog, "Deb Fixes America," on Adam Race. I've copied out two paragraphs, I admit, but I felt ok about it because the original article is much longer. Hopefully it's enough (but not too much!) for you to want to go check out her blog and see what she has to say for yourself.

QUOTE:

Yet, this is just a symptom of a greater problem. Something like only 5% of the disabled population attends church on a regular basis. Why is this? Christians' misunderstanding of disabilities (God made you special!) and desire to see every person with a disability healed whether they want to or not, would probably play one of the biggest roles. Lack of respect for the abilities of the disabled also plays a part. However, discrimination like we're seeing here is certainly a key component of the problem. People will say that banning him from mass doesn't mean that you're not loving him, but all I can say to that is: bull-loney!!!!! Being excluded from something for reasons beyond your control is NOT love. If you think it is, I'd prefer you'd never love me or my family!

Here, after years of believing that everyone was valuable to God -- everyone: the prostitute, the demon-possessed, the poor, the cheater, the rapist, the pornographer, the drug dealer, the doctor, the pastor, the missionary, the engineer, the teacher, the nurse, etc. we're seeing a situation where one finds that you truly can be bad enough to get kicked out of church. For the sake of many parents out there, I hope that bored little boys who attend that parish don't find out about this -- they just might have found their ticket to a more interesting Sunday morning! Be really bad in Mass and then the priest will kick you out!

http://debfixesamerica.blogspot.com/2008/05/that-child-know-to-christ-as-adam-race.html

She does talk about that balance between the needs of the congregation and the needs of the disabled parishoner. She's not advocating an anything-goes attitude, but she IS wondering what accomodations the church is trying to make for this family.

Personally, I'd have told the church to go jump in the lake and then told allll my friends how bad it was. That's the nice kind of person I am, deep down inside. I know you're impressed with my attitude. I know that the Bible says not to go to courts to hash things out between Christians, but to my mind, if you behave a certain way you're proclaiming that you are NOT A CHRISTIAN. You know a tree by its fruit. Stinky fruit means "not a Christian," to my mind. I probably wouldn't have bothered with the courts, though. If I had lots of money to tithe, I'd be planning to spend it somewhere else.