Maja I. Whitaker joins a fierce and growing debate about the status of disability in the resurrection in Perfect in Weakness: Disability and Human Flourishing in the New Creation, a sophisticated book that joins Nancy Eiesland in arguing that the resurrection will not heal disabilities, and explores what that fact might mean for ethics in the world here and now. Eiesland’s The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability (Abingdon, 1994) is considered a founding text of disability theology that offers an important examination of Jesus’ marks. When appearing to the disciples in the Upper Room, Jesus’ body bears the marks of crucifixion. During his second appearance, he invites Thomas to “place his hand” in the wounds. Eiesland’s claim that the persistence of Jesus’ marks indicates that bodies were not perfected in the resurrection, meaning that there was no reason to believe that the resurrection would heal physical disabilities.
For Whitaker, continuity of identity in the resurrection requires both self-recognition and recognition by others. She begins her work with a detailed treatment of the continuity of identity and what it might mean for the status of people with disabilities. She then goes on to discuss the personal sense of recognition (PSR), giving one of the most comprehensive accounts of what continuity of identity entails. She argues that one can recognize oneself after a profound transformation. Still, science has shown that trauma, abuse, and shame can cause us to misrecognize ourselves and perhaps misrecognize our identity before God.
Whitaker uses philosophy to argue for the importance of self-recognition in notions of continuity of identity. However, she makes a sudden turn to the theological claim that what is actually essential to my identity is known only to God. If that is the case, why does self-recognition matter? Even more curious is her assertion that identity creation is an act of will, not a divine gift, and one that places our identity in “God’s narrative [that] frees us from the obligation to ‘make up’ our lives. The modern Western person is burdened with the responsibility to tell a narrative of her own that will make sense of her life” (53). However, it is not clear that being a Christian makes one devoid of a voice. We have to conform our lives to the story amid embodiment’s complexities in the world. The notion that disabilities are essential to the identities of some persons but not others, and that only God knows which is which, seems to take away freedom from individuals who seek to live within God’s story with physical disability. Who decides what gets healed? God or the disabled individual? Does this occur after a dialogue between God and an individual? Why would healing even be an option, given Whitaker’s assertion that “We can affirm . . . that the post-resurrection body will be perfectly fitted for life in the environment of the new creation” (59). If that is the case, what determines the status of my body in the new creation? God, my self-understanding, the physical environment or something else? Whitaker leaves me scratching my head because her criterion for identity seems difficult to pin down.
The elusiveness and diversity of Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrected body make it difficult to know how to systematize them into a constructive account. Whitaker treats a necessarily selective portion of the accounts, which conceals the implications of that diversity. For instance, some individuals recognize the risen Jesus as soon as they see him. But some do not recognize him: Mary thinks Jesus is the gardener until he calls her name; the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who do not recognize Jesus until he breaks bread with them. . Jesus’ resurrected body is clearly different; it can pass through locked doors and vanish at will. Nor does Scripture show that the wounds impair Jesus: he walks, teaches, and cooks without accommodations in unwelcoming environments. One of the book’s major contributions is its exploration of how to include Pauline teaching in debates about disability and the resurrection. Whitaker notes the ambiguity of the Pauline texts and also notes at times (with refreshing humility lacking in other work) that notions of the resurrected body are necessarily speculative. This is a particularly important contribution since many prior discussions of disability after the resurrection fail to grapple with the Pauline material.
As the result of a premature birth, I have cerebral palsy, which causes my hands to shake when I use them. My hands shape my daily life, vocation, and theology they are not the only recognizable thing about me. My laugh or my passion for cooking might allow others to identify me in the resurrection, even if my hands are healed. “While the social experiences of disability and the physical experiences of impairment are often negative within the old creation,” Whitaker argues, “diverse embodiment itself is neutral and there is no reason to suggest that it must be normalized for a person to experience the fullness of human flourishing in the new creation” (43). Experiences of physical disability are diverse, but that does make them physically or spiritually neutral. I don’t want an accommodating environment; I want my hands to work. Not all individuals with disabilities want to be healed, but it should be an option for those of us who do. To deny that possibility is to deny our hope and our frustration. Whitaker’s argument that diverse embodiment is neutral will not ring true to all individuals with disabilities. Many disability rights advocates and some people with disabilities argue that a post-resurrection healing of what others consider a disability would so fundamentally alter their identity that they would lack the self-understanding that a personal sense of identity continuity requires. Whitaker takes those arguments seriously. I am left wondering if there can be some choice by the individual about their own healing.
This book is a significant contribution to debates about disability and resurrection, but leaves many questions unanswered. The book’s treatment of Pauline texts, its willingness to offer an account of continuity of identity amid change, and its refutation of Candida Moss’ exegesis of Jesus’ wounds are important. While attempting to ground identity in God, Whitaker fails to admit the logical corollary of her account of identity: that some disabled individuals desire healing. We do not only desire this because we have fallen prey to social conceptions of normalcy, but because we have spent lives hindered by pain, frustration and a sense that our bodies betray us. In the new creation, we hope to find, not normalcy, but bodily freedom and spiritual peace.
Aaron Klink is chaplain at Pruitt Hospice, Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
Aaron Klink
Date Of Review:
October 31, 2024
