The Quality of Our Words: Inclusive Language in Churches

When I first wrote for Do Justice, I asserted that – in order to achieve true justice in churches for believers with diverse disabilities – Christians need to “write sermons to which people with intellectual and learning disabilities can relate,” amongst other strategies. More broadly, we need to create intellectual access to our words and actions in churches. That is, we need to use our imaginations to offer people dignity in our services and gatherings. Below, I’ll name three ways in which we can accomplish that goal.

First, in order to create intellectual access in sermon and service, Christians of all abilities need to discern etiquette in terms of speech from God’s Word.

First, in order to create intellectual access in sermon and service, Christians of all abilities need to discern etiquette in terms of speech from God’s Word. Throughout Scripture, there are examples and exhortations concerning how to speak kindly to other people. For instance, Proverbs 15:23 tells us that “everyone enjoys a fitting reply; it is wonderful to say the right thing at the right time!” So, we can infer that the words we say to each other ought to be both fitting and timely. Similarly, the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians to “encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (5:11). The words that we use should be encouraging words, phrases, and concepts that seek the good of the community – including people with disabilities. Significantly, Jesus makes clear that people speak out of the “abundance of [their hearts]” (Luke 6:45). Thus, these passages illustrate that believers ought to speak to each other at the right times, in fitting ways, and in ways that build up Christ’s Body.

Christians with varied abilities can, and should, think about the words we use to address people with disabilities, and name their gifts with our words.

Furthermore, after we equip ourselves with the perspective of the text, Christians with varied abilities can, and should, think about the words we use to address people with disabilities, and name their gifts with our words. In our churches, do we call people with mobility issues – people like me – “spaz” or “cripple”? Ought we to say that people with disabilities are “blind to God’s grace” and “deaf to God’s Word,” or do those assertions stigmatize people with specific functional limitations? Are people with intellectual disabilities, like me, “retarded”? I don’t believe that any of those words or phrases apply to people with disabilities. Rather, I believe that people with disabilities are people first, irrespective of their conditions; thus, in order to welcome, include, and support believers with disabilities, churches need to name the gifts that those people bring to the gathering, whether those gifts are patient endurance, faithfulness, or the procurement of abundant snacks. Because all people are made in God’s loving and compassionate Image, all of their loving activities need to be named, and lifted up, within the Christian community. If we name our skills, we create the space for what the Canadian Disability Participation Project calls “quality participation.” That is, we allow people to feel like they belong in our communities, and to believe that their actions make a difference.

Worshippers with diverse abilities need to create intellectual access by speaking plainly.

Finally, once we’ve edified ourselves with fitting words in Scripture and addressed people with disabilities correctly by foregrounding their gifts, worshippers with diverse abilities need to create intellectual access by speaking plainly. This one’s a real struggle for me because I’m highly-educated, and love forty-dollar words like ontology and eschaton. I feel like this is an act of translation: how would you explain theology to someone who hasn’t studied it? To write sermons and liturgies that really include people with disabilities, we can say personhood instead of ontology, and describe the wonderful contours of the Last Days – Jesus’ Kin-dom, to quote the late great Latina theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz – instead of talking about the liberative content of the eschaton. Once we strip away the ostentation of our vocabulary, worshippers with varied abilities will be able to create meaningful services to which many people can relate.

So, in order to create intellectual access to our words and our worship, Christians with diverse abilities ought to discover kind ways to talk to each other in Scripture, address people with disabilities properly by naming our gifts rather than stigmatizing our conditions, and speak and write plainly about our experiences of God’s grace. Speaking kindly, compassionately, and plainly with each other will certainly help us as we journey along the Way of Jesus.