The correlation between people who have been diagnosed with a disability and the amount of training a clergy person receives in navigating topics of disability is an indictment against the church as to how seriously it takes those with disabilities into consideration when educating its clergy. “According to the national census, more that 56 million US Americans and 4 million Canadians-almost one in five North American citizens-identify as having a disability.”(Annandale, Naomi H and Carter, Erik W 2014) That means roughly 1 in 5 people in North America will be associated with a disability in some way, yet according to a study conducted in 2014 of institutions that are a part of The Association of Theological Schools, only 25.9% of the 118 schools who participated in the study felt that their students were more than “only a little” prepared “to respond to spiritual and theological questions resulting from disability-related human experiences.”(Annandale, Naomi H and Carter, Erik W 2014, 10)
Part of the difficulty in addressing education and training for clergy in the area of disability is that the manifestation of a disability can be medically, lawfully, and socially defined.
- Medically: The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) defines a disability as “any condition of the body or mind (impairment) that makes it more difficult for the person with the condition to do certain activities (activity limitation) and interact with the world around them (participation restrictions).”(CDC 2024)
- Lawfully: The American Disability Act defines disability as “as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity. This includes people who have a record of such an impairment, even if they do not currently have a disability. It also includes individuals who do not have a disability but are regarded as having a disability.”(“What Is the Definition of Disability under the ADA? | ADA National Network” n.d.)
- Socially: In his book Vulnerable Communion, Tim Reynolds writes that “a person who uses a wheelchair becomes disabled when there access barriers (i.e., when there is no ramp to enter a building or an elevator to travel to the fourth floor). Thus it is that, as a loss of bodily function, impairment is socially transformed into a disability, a restriction of activity that excludes social participation.”(Reynolds 2008, 26)
As disability theology is a vast and varied subject, knowing how and what to teach can be a challenge to those institutions that wish to incorporate disability theology into it’s curriculum. Annandale and Carter “identified several potential challenges associated with addressing disability in foe theological curriculum. Limited time, faculty expertise, and available resources were all cited by school leaders as being among the most prominent barriers.”(Annandale, Naomi H and Carter, Erik W 2014, 11) If there is a desire to implement disability theology into the curriculum, then there must be an appropriate course to provide students.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) the most prevalent diagnosed mental disorder. In the United States alone, approximately 8.8 million adults@scheinEconomicBurdenAttentiondeficit2022, 4 and 6 million children @cdcDataStatisticsADHD2022 have been diagnosed with ADHD. By developing a higher level course that uses ADHD as a case study, it is hopeful that there will be a relatively low barrier of entry into the field of disability theology, which a much needed area of education amongst clergy, both present and future.