In our ever-shrinking world, the tentacles of religion touch everything from governmental policy to individual morality to our basic social constructs. It affects the lives of people of great faith  or no faith at all.  This series of weekly columns  launched in 2005  seeks to illuminate the national conversation.  ORLANDO — In the Gospel of Luke, early Christians are urged to "invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind" (14:13) to their gatherings. But how far can — or should — modern religious congregations go to accommodate people with physical or intellectual disabilities?  With the Baby Boom generation about to age into infirmity, and wounded war veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan in growing numbers, the issue of worshippers with disabilities will very soon overwhelm ethical and theological abstraction.  But half the congregations in the USA have fewer than 100 members— many in small towns and rural areas — which means the financial cost of adjusting their structures, Sunday schools and weekly services for one or two hearing-impaired or autistic or wheelchair using members can be a challenge. Building a ramp out of plywood is one thing; installing an elevator is quite another.  St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church in Levittown, Pa., a congregation with about 10,000 members, raised more than $100,000 in a campaign to install an elevator to the basement social hall to accommodate parishioners who use a wheelchair, as well as for a seniors' group.  Although the faith community was at the forefront of efforts to pass the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, religious institutions of all denominations with fewer than 15 full-time employees are essentially exempt from the legislation, making the decision to become accessible a voluntary matter. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives, in 2006, 98% of U.S. congregations had fewer than 15 full-time employees. For Catholics, who tend to have larger parishes, the figure is 87%.  Here, as elsewhere, the economies of scale apply. Megachurches are a lot like big box retailers and consolidated high schools in what services they can provide: Large congregations of all faiths are more likely to have resources and facilities to provide sophisticated programs for a spectrum of disabilities.  But even megachurches require motivation.  In 2001, Linda Starnes and her family moved to central Florida and joined Northland Church. Despite having 7,000 members at the time, there were practically no facilities for people with disabilities. This was especially problematic for Starnes, who has two children, each with a different disability. So the politically savvy expert on special education prodded church leaders to get something started.  Today, the 12,000-member congregation, with 90 full-time employees, has an Access Ministries program offering 10 services and activities for children and adults with disabilities, and their families.  "It sounds crazy that many of our places of worship don't think about accessibility and inclusion," Starnes says. "So you have to use some public relations and diplomacy skills with church staff to build understanding of the importance for including those with disabilities."  The fundamental question, disability activists say, is less what is in your congregational budget than what is in your heart.  Changing attitudes, implementing programs and making modest accommodations — as opposed to costly changes in architecture and adding paid staff — can be relatively inexpensive, even for smaller congregations, and even during a recession.  Nationally, many denominations — and, more recently, non-denominational evangelical groups, who view this as a mission — now have ministries and task forces that offer advice and curricula for people with disabilities, as does the American Association of People with Disabilities' Interfaith Initiative. These are often offered free online, or at a small cost for materials, and are designed for volunteer leaders and teachers.  With the help of these resources, there is really no limit to what a worship community can do — the barriers it can surmount — when it chooses to welcome people with disabilities. Especially with the help of new, affordable, electronic technology, such as the icon-based keyboard that synthesizes speech. Which Lucas McCarty uses.  In the rural Mississippi Delta, a young white man named Lucas McCarty, born with severe cerebral palsy, has found a faith home at Trinity House of Prayer, a small, exuberant, but cash-strapped African-American congregation. The son of a teacher and the grandson of a catfish farmer, McCarty uses a wheelchair but also gets around by walking on his knees, with the help of knee pads worn over his blue jeans. He shouts and makes vocal sounds, but for the most part he communicates through an electronic language called Minspeak.  As recounted by writer T.R. Pearson and photographer Langdon Clay in their inspiring new book, Year of Our Lord: Faith, Hope, and Harmony in the Mississippi Delta, McCarty found a welcoming place at Trinity. He was immediately embraced by the congregation, and was in no way considered out of place or disruptive. Lucas even joined the choir, sitting in the first row of the loft, leaning on the railing as he joins in the worship, singing with his eyes closed and his arms raised.  "Without exception," Pearson writes, "Trinity's members treated Lucas with unstudied compassion. Instead of thinking Lucas diminished by his condition, his friends at Trinity seemed to consider him blessed by it, almost anointed."  At no financial cost to the congregation — no special programs, no architectural alterations— Trinity members demonstrated that making people with disabilities, even severe disabilities, feel a part of them is within reach of every house of worship. Sometimes it's not about building a ramp. Sometimes it really is about opening up your heart.  Demographically, the streams of increasingly creaky Boomers — with age-related vision, hearing and mobility disabilities — and injured war vets with missing limbs and traumatic brain injuries are converging with a generation of babies born with severe birth defects but now surviving to adulthood through advances in medical technology. Before too long, making congregations welcoming and accessible to people with disabilities — and their immediate and extended families — will be a selling point, if not an imperative. Those faith communities that adapt are more likely to survive and grow; the others will lose out.  Market share notwithstanding, what else do we who are not (yet) disabled gain when we are successful in including people with disabilities in our congregations?  "A sense of community," says Stanley Hauerwas, of Duke University's Divinity School and author of several books on the spiritual dimension of physical and intellectual disabilities. People with disabilities "are able in these decisive acts to share their life with other people and not feel like an exception is being made for them."  But it has to be more than self-satisfaction, or even self-righteousness, for our "tolerance" of people who are different from us. Rather, we should enjoy what Hauerwas calls "the sheer joy that we see in those who are disabled sharing what we share, just the sheer joy of it."  Mark I. Pinsky, a longtime religion writer, is at work on a book on faith communities and people with disabilities, to be published by the Alban Institute in 2011.  We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button.
Boomers are wearing down. Hobbled war veterans are coming home. Yet too many of our houses of worship don't make accommodations. What to do?...