The Order of Disturbance: Theological Reflections on Strangeness and Strangers, and the Inclusion of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities in Faith Communities

In churches and faith communities, the presence of persons with intellectual disabilities is frequently experienced as a disturbance of familiar patterns of behavior and interaction. This disturbance is not only rooted in historical and cultural informed mechanisms of exclusion. From a philosophical perspective, it can be characterized as a destabilizing of certainties regarding the place, the group, and the identity in which we live. In Christian theology, this destabilization of group and personal identity is the central theme in commands, stories, and reflections about the position of strangers. Both philosophical and theological reflections point to views of accessibility and hospitality that are based on a symbolic remembering of 'being a stranger'. This remembrance aims at a learning process in which disturbance of the familiar is not only a consequence of the presence of the stranger but at the same time precondition for true hospitality. Therefore, churches and faith communities should recognize that disturbance by the presence of persons with intellectual disabilities brings its own order. In this sense these views transcend prevailing views of inclusion. © 2008 by The Haworth Press