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GA06027
Committee on Health Issues
Commissioners want to encourage people with disabilities to seek positions within the church
by Mike Ferguson
BIRMINGHAM, June 16 * The effort to include people with disabilities into the body of Christ and testimony on abortion overtures dominated the work of the Committee on Health Issues on Friday.
Commissioners approved the report "Living into the Body of Christ: Towards Full Inclusion of People with Disabilities" for consideration by the General Assembly. The Rev. Sue Montgomery, who spoke on behalf of the overture, said it goes beyond matters of accessibility for people with disabilities.
"The time is now to trust people with disabilities to lead," she said. "It's a move beyond simple accessibility to a call for empowerment. Welcoming is for guests, but the people of God are far more than guests. Churches are now being built with accessibility in mind, and yet ministry needs of many people with disabilities are not being met."
She said that 97 percent of the deaf community and 90 percent of those with disabilities are unchurched.
Change can be simple, she said. At the church she serves, a mentally retarded woman leads the congregation in saying the Lord's Prayer each Sunday. "We no longer recite the prayer like it's the Indianapolis 500," she said. "She's taught us to slow down and follow her lead. We think about the words now and we hear what we're saying."
The overture calls for strategies to invite and encourage people living with disabilities to seek leadership and employment positions within the church. Churches, despite being exempt from the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, are encouraged to seek to satisfy the requirements of the law.
If approved by the General Assembly, the percentage of qualified people living with disabilities serving on General Assembly-level committees would rise 1 percent per year through 2016.
The committee also approved a request to extend by two years a churchwide dialogue on end-of-life issues. In addition, it approved an overture designed to raise awareness among church leaders of the issues, causes and prevalence of suicide and self-injury among youth.
The committee also took testimony on four overtures dealing with abortion and problem pregnancy. One proposal calls for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to stop supporting groups that advocate on either side of the issue. Speaking for the proposal, elder Jean Robbins of Stockton Presbytery said Americans vote both with their feet and their dollars. Funding groups that advocate abortion rights "equals taking sides," she said.
Speaking against the proposal, Elizabeth O'Neill noted most Presbyterians "represent positions of privilege and power. Let's not abuse our places of privilege and power by imposing our sense of right and wrong on those who don't share our position of power."
Another overture, offered by the Presbytery of Mississippi, asks the church to "stand clearly against the practice of abortion while extending the love of Christ to those who have suffered its practice."
Lowell Avery, a pastor in western New York, said like the prophet Nehemiah, he had to confess not only his own sins, but those of his people.
"Change is hard, but essential if we are to have renewal and health," he said. "There's a Turkish saying that no matter how many times you've gone down the wrong road, turn back."
But Judy Michaels, with Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options, said her group's call "is to tell you we're pro-choice. There's room for everybody in the church to make their own choice."
The committee was scheduled to take up most of the abortion overtures Saturday.
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