This article questions the notion of a disembodied theology which can provide ultimate answers about an absolute God. It places this questioning within the truly challenging arena of mental health. While issuing challenge to theology the author calls for a pastoral theology that is willing to cross boundaries, those that were perhaps not even previously imagined. This is a daring, moving and embodied challenge to the more constraining and controlling areas of theology and pastoral care.
Abrams, Judith Z.1998Judaism and Disability: Portrayals in Ancient Texts from the Tanach through the Bavli (Washington, DC: Gallaudet Press), p. 23.
2.
Beresford, Peter2000 `What has Madness and Psychiatric System Survivors got to do with the Disability and Disability Studies?', Disability and Society15.1, pp. 167-72.
3.
Block, Jennie Willis2002Copious Hosting: A Theology of Access for People with Disabilities (London: Continuum), p. 31.
4.
Countryman, L.W. `For the Clean and the Unclean?', in Robert Iles (ed.), The Gospel Imperative in the Midst of Aids (Wilton, CN: Morehouse, 1989), p. 38.
5.
Cunningham, David1998These Three are One (Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell), p. 203.
6.
Deeks, David1987Pastoral Theology: An Inquiry (London : Epworth), p. 119.
7.
Eiesland, Nancy L.1994The Disabled God: Towards a Liberatory Theology of Disability (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press ), p. 25.
8.
Foskett, John2001 `Soul Space: the Pastoral Care of People with Mental Health Problems', TheInternational Review of Psychiatry13: 101-109.
9.
Freeman, Doreen2002 `A Feminist Theology of Disability', in Feminist Theology29 (January), pp. 71-85.
10.
Grey, Mary 1993The Wisdom of Fools?: Seeking Revelation for Today (London : SPCK), p. 94.
11.
Harrison, Beverly Wildung1986 `The Power of Anger in the Work of Love', in Carol Robb (ed.), Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics (Boston: Beacon Press), p. 15.
12.
Hauerwas, Stanley1998Suffering Presence: Theological Reflections on Medicine, the Mentally Handicapped and the Church (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark), p. 182.
13.
Hull, John M.2001In the Beginning There was Darkness ( London: SCM Press), p. 38.
14.
McCloughry, Roy, and Wayne Morris2002Making a World of Difference: Christian reflections on Disability (London: SPCK), p. 9.
15.
Moltmann-Wendel, Elisabeth1994I am my Body (London: SCM Press), p. 104.
16.
Ramshaw, Elaine1987Ritual and Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: Fortress Press), p. 79.
17.
Rich, Adrienne1999 `Diving into the Wreck', in Michael Schmidt, The Harvill Book of Twentieth Century Poetry in English (London: The Harvill Press), p. 483.
18.
Smith, Pamela1995 `Chronic Pain and Creative Possibility: A Psychological Phenomenon Confronts Theologies of Suffering', in M.A. Tilley and Susan A. Ross (ed.), Broken and Whole, Essays on Religion and the Body (Lanham, MA: University Press of America), p. 174.
19.
Stuart, Elizabeth2000 `Disruptive Bodies: `Disability, Embodiment and Sexuality` ', in Lisa Isherwood (ed.), The Good News of the Body; Sexual Theology and Feminism (Sheffield : Sheffield Academic Press), p. 171.
20.
Ussher, Jane 1991Women's Madness: Misogyny or Mental Illness (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf), pp. 103-104.
21.
Weir, Mary1996 `Made Deaf in God's Image', in The Place of Deaf People in the Church (Northampton: Visible Communications), p. 8.
22.
Wendell, Susan1996The Rejected Body (London: Routledge), p. 30.
23.
Wills, Kimberly Anne2002 `Claiming the `Fearsome Possibility`: Towards a Contextual Christology of Disability', in Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gender, Ethnicity and Religion (Philadelphia, Fortress Press), p. 221.
24.
Young, Frances1990Face to Face: A Narrative Essay on the Theology of Suffering (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark), p. 62.
