Main content

Pick up your stretcher and walk!

Disabled Christians are carving out an empowering new ‘theology of disability’. Damon Rose finds out how it’s reshaping their faith and lives.

Like many disabled people, Damon Rose is regularly approached by Christians who want to pray for him to be healed. Would-be healers claim they’re simply doing what Jesus himself did and what he instructed his followers to do. They may mean well, but the experience can leave disabled people feeling judged as ‘faulty’ and in need of repair. Is this really what Christianity teaches about disability? In this programme, Damon (a blind journalist and open-minded non-believer) investigates different Christian approaches to disability, combining cutting-edge theology with personal stories of faith, hope and human frailty. He joins a group of Christians as they offer healing on the street, attends a healing service and meets the disabled Christians carving out a new ‘theology of disability’.

Interviewees include:
Lyndall Bywater, a Christian writer and prayer leader in the United Kingdom
Jonathan Conrathe, founder of Mission 24 – a Christian ministry that works with churches all over the world
Becky Tyler, who preached at the Greenbelt Christian festival
Candida Moss, the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham
Rev Zoe Hemming, vicar of St Andrews Church in the village of Aston in Shropshire, England.

If you would like to contact ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Ouch please email damon.rose@bbc.co.uk

(Image: Damon on the tube, Credit: Sarah Dousse)

Available now

27 minutes

Last on

Sun 28 Apr 2019 22:32GMT

Clip

Broadcasts

  • Fri 26 Apr 2019 12:32GMT
  • Sun 28 Apr 2019 08:32GMT
  • Sun 28 Apr 2019 16:32GMT
  • Sun 28 Apr 2019 19:32GMT
  • Sun 28 Apr 2019 22:32GMT

Podcast