“What If Disability Qualifies You?”: Reimagining Disability and Faith at University

by Annabelle, DSA Co-President

Let’s start with this uncomfortable truth: many disabled people have been hurt by the Church. Not always intentionally, but deeply, nonetheless. We’ve heard well-meaning but misguided prayers for healing that imply our bodies are broken. We’ve sat through sermons that quietly erased our experiences. We’ve been pitied, patronised, or excluded — sometimes all at once. 

As a disabled Christian, I’ve had to wrestle with questions that are both theological and painfully personal. Does God see me as incomplete? Why wasn’t I made “whole”? And why do so many people assume that if I just had more faith, I’d be cured?  

These are everyday realities. And yet, over time, I’ve come to believe this: disability is not something wrong with me. It’s not a mistake. It’s not a punishment. It’s not a spiritual deficiency. 

What is wrong, what is broken, is the world we’ve built. The systems, spaces, and cultures that tell disabled people they are “less than.” That’s not God’s doing. That’s ours.

God’s World vs. Our World

There’s a powerful framework called the social model of disability that helps us make sense of this. It says that disability doesn’t come from a person’s body or mind, but from the way society is set up. It’s not the wheelchair, it’s the building with no ramp. It’s not the neurodivergence, it’s the lecture theatre that demands one rigid way of thinking and learning.

If we apply this model theologically, we can see that disability isn’t something that disqualifies us from participating in God’s kingdom. In fact, time and time again, the Bible shows how God chooses the unlikely - the overlooked - to lead.

Take Moses, for example. In Exodus 4, Moses pleads with God not to send him to Pharaoh because he’s “slow of speech and tongue.” What this exactly was, we don’t know. But God’s response is clear: “Who gave human beings their mouths?... Is it not I, the Lord?” And then, God provides support — Moses’s brother Aaron — not to fix Moses, but to accompany him. God’s calling does not hinge on normative ability. It hinges on faithfulness.

The Jesus Who Still Bears Scars

In John 20, after Jesus rises from the dead, He appears to His disciples with the visible wounds of His crucifixion still on His body. He doesn’t erase them. They become proof of who He is. That tells us something powerful: perfection isn’t the absence of brokenness. Even the resurrected Christ bears scars. So why do we assume that God would erase disability to make us “whole”?

To say “there are no disabilities in heaven” might feel comforting to some. But to many others, it can sound like: “Thank goodness we won’t have to deal with people like you anymore.” That’s not the gospel. The gospel is radical inclusion. Jesus did not avoid disabled people, He welcomed them. Touched them. Uplifted them. And yes, sometimes He healed them, but not always. And never as a prerequisite for love.

“It’s Not That God Discards Disability — We Do.”

When people quote passages like Leviticus 22 — the ones that seem to exclude people with disabilities from temple service - it’s crucial to read them in context. These laws were about sacrificial offerings, not about human worth. I once read a work in which the writer said, “God doesn’t want your leftovers.” In other words, God challenges our habit of devaluing what seems “imperfect.” That’s not an indictment of disabled bodies - it’s an indictment of our attitudes.

The Church’s Problem Isn’t Disability — It’s Ableism

Ableism (the idea that certain bodies or minds are better than others) is not just a cultural issue. It’s a theological one. And the Church has a long way to go in reckoning with it. Too often, sermons frame disability as something to overcome, rather than a valid and meaningful way of being in the world. Too often, access and inclusion are afterthoughts.

But the Bible tells a different story. In Romans 12, Paul writes:

“Just as each of us has one body with many members… So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts.”

This isn’t a message of hierarchy, it’s a vision of interdependence. A Church that only values certain kinds of bodies is not the body of Christ.

The Environment Is the Problem — Not Me

Disability is often framed as something to be fixed. But what if, instead, we saw it as part of the diversity of God’s creation? What if the problem isn’t our disabled bodies, but a world designed without us in mind?

We see this again in John 9, when the disciples ask Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus replies, “Neither... but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Jesus isn’t interested in blame. He’s interested in transformation - not of the person, but of the assumptions around them.

If disability qualifies you, not disqualifies you, then part of the work of the Church is not to “fix” people, but to rebuild the world so everyone belongs. That’s not charity. That’s justice.

Faith in Tension

I don’t say any of this lightly. Disability can be painful, isolating, and exhausting. And yes, I pray for strength, comfort, and healing. But I no longer believe that God sees my body as a problem to be solved.

Instead, I believe this: I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am disabled. And I am a child of God.

To my disabled peers at VUW: you are not less spiritual, less valuable, or less worthy. You don’t need to be fixed to be used by God.

And to my abled peers: listen to disabled voices in your churches, your classrooms, your lives. Don’t assume. Don’t pity. Don’t pray at us. Pray with us. We’re already part of the story. 

Disability does not disqualify us. In the hands of God, it qualifies us.

The world may disable me — but God never does.