VOlUME 05 ISSUE 08 AUGUST 2022
Dr. Baby Rizwana N V
Independent Researcher
DOI : https://doi.org/10.47191/ijsshr/v5-i8-14Google Scholar Download Pdf
ABSTRACT
It was not the state but the missionaries that first gave special attention to the disabled in Colonial India. In other words, the conceptualization of awareness about special care and education for the disabled in India started with the Christian theological idea of disability and with the idea of charity. Christian missionaries established special education institutions in India with funding from overseas charitable societies. Through the preaching of Christianity in these schools, missionaries constructed the idea of ‘divinity of brokenness’ for the disabled in India. They preached about the divinity of suffering and used education as a tool to integrate the disabled into Christianity. The missionaries primarily used basic interpretations of the Bible to create an awareness of the care needs for the disabled among the local populations. They tried to spread the Christian ideology that everything under God’s patronage was a created image of God and that everyone held a high value. Most importantly, they maintained that all believers were created by God, and each has a mission to fulfil based on his/her destiny. For every evangelization, the missionaries quoted the Bible for more support and interpretation. The rooted dogma of having a life for a purpose was spread across the country to advocate the significance of the disabled in society. The missionaries indoctrinated the idea that ‘in a healthy church, everybody belongs.’ Christianity was appealed as a religion of ‘inclusion’ and this continuous mission work among the disabled population increased the popularity of Christianity in India.
KEYWORDS:Disability, Theology, Christianity, Colonial India, and Missionary
REFERENCES
1) Kerry Wynn, “Johanninne Healings and the Otherness of Disability,” Perspectives in Religious Studies, no. 32 (2003): 21–75.
2) Glenn Kreider, Disability and Theology (PhD Thesis: London University, 2001), 22.
3) Ibid., 23.
4) Ibid.
5) Charles B. Leupolt, Recollections of an Indian Missionary (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1884), 14.
6) Sharifa Stevens, “Christianity and Disability: Thinking Theologically About Brokenness,” (2013). https://voice.dts.edu/article/christianity-disability-thinking-theologically-about-brokenness/
7) Book of John 9, 1: 3.
8) Ibid.
9) Florence Swainson, Work for Christ Amongst the Deaf and Dumb Children of India (London: Church Society, 1915), 9.
10) Book of Luke, 4, 16: 21.
11) Ibid.
12) Book of Mark, 1, 40: 45.
13) Book of Matthew, 8: 5–13.
14) Book of Galatians, 4: 13–15.
15) Book of Mark, 7: 32–16.
16) K. Black, A Healing Homiletic: Preaching and Disability (Nashville: Abingdon Press,1996), 37–38.
17) Missionaries talked about a part in Luke 6: 6–11, Matthew 2: 9–14, and Mark 3: 1–6. Jesus saw a man having trouble with his daily life due to his paralyzed hands. When he was healed by Jesus, the first response from the crowd was awe, then fear. Upon witnessing the miracle of healing, the crowd wanted to kill the man accusing him of witchcraft. The New Testament mentions that it happened because the idea of Christianity was not familiar to people. Leupolt, Memories, 5.
18) Book of Corinthians, 1: 12.
19) Ibid.
20) Penny Frank, The Church in Madras: being the history of the ecclesiastical and missionary action of the East India Company in the Presidency of Madras in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (London: Smith, Elder & Co, 1904), 216, 313.
21) Ibid., 217.
22) Ibid., 216.
23) Mrs. Sherwood, Stories Explanatory of the Church Catechism (Baltimore: Published Under the Direction of the Rt. Rev. Dr. Kemp, by the Protestant Episcopal Female Tract Society of Baltimore,1823), 12.
24) Christianity holds the idea that Christ was disabled. Nancy Eiesland’s argues that after the resurrection, Jesus was disabled. She advocated that the “Imago Dei’’–the image of Christ with pierced arms and legs on the cross is an embodiment of disability. This illustration was employed as a strategy to legitimize the argument that the disabled were undeniably ‘special’ to God as his ‘son’ was himself reborn in a scarred and disabled body after his crucifixion. N. F. Eiesland, The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 12.
25) Ibid.
26) J. W. Block, Copious Hosting: A Theology of Access for People with Disabilities (New York: Continuum, 2002), 11.
27) Ibid., 80.
28) Ibid., 120.
29) E. Baumann, “Deaf and Dumb Ellen, and How She Became a Christian,” IFE, no. 8 (1886): 241–248.
30) Ibid.
31) Ibid.
32) Sarah Secunda Hewlett, They Shall See His Face: Stories of God's Grace in Work Among the Blind and Others in India (Oxford: Alden, 1898), 48.
33) Annie Sharp, “Letter, Dated October 7, 1889, to G. Martin Tait,” IW, no. 10 (1890): 221–222.
34) Sarah Secunda Hewlett, None of Self and All of Thee: A Tale of Indian Life (London: R. Carter, 1888), 2.
35) Ibid.
36) Book of Corinthians, 2: 10.
37) Shrap, “Letter,” 29.
38) R. Meldrum, Light on Dark Paths: A Handbook (Edinburgh: Menzies, 1883), 112.
39) Ibid., 113.
40) C. G. Dauble, “Our Orphans at Secundra, Agra, North India,” FMI, no. 8 (1866): 37–40.
41) James S. Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress: A Sociological Study of Foreign Missions (Edinburgh Press: Edinburgh, 1899), 225.
42) The Missions of the Church Missionary Society and the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society in the Punjab and Sindh (London: Church Missionary Society, 1904), 73–74.
43) Sarah Askwith, “Report from Sarah Tucker Institution,” IW, no. 4 (1886): 289–293.