Perfect in Weakness: Disability and Human Flourishing in the New Creation

by Maja I. Whitaker

One of the central and novel convictions of the early Christian movement compared to the existing Greco-Roman beliefs was the dogma of bodily resurrection. The Stoics esteemed temperance, disciplining the body to curb the flesh; the Epicureans embraced pleasure, indulging their worldly desires. However, Paul’s letters to the Corinthians convey a countercultural what you do with your body matters because it will still be with you in the resurrection. But when many contemporary Christians consider the new creation, they imagine the new Jerusalem filled with unblemished people living with normalized and idealized resurrected "healing" is assumed as a fundamental reality of the resurrection. In Perfect in Weakness , Maja I. Whitaker develops the proposition that people with disabilities might retain their diverse embodiment in the new creation―that the resurrected body might still be "disabled." This theological claim is based in the accounts of the resurrected Christ appearing with the stigmata, and it is supported by the intuitions of those persons with disabilities who consider that their unique embodiment is identity-forming and entirely unproblematic in itself. If the human person is an essentially embodied metaphysical unity, then there may be features of our particular bodies that must be continuous through the transformation of resurrection for personal identity to be secured. However, this "retention view" has faced conceptual objections on the grounds of theological anthropology, continuity of identity, and biblical conceptions of flourishing human life. Whitaker confronts these objections, integrating philosophical, biblical, and theological methodologies in order to present a reasonable and coherent defense of the retention view. The possibility of persons with diverse embodiment enjoying fullness of life in the new creation can expose negative attitudes towards disability and unlock a critique of ableist bias in Christian thought and practice in the modern church. Moreover, it can function as an eschatological parable to subvert the powers of this age that idolize success, mastery, and autonomy to the neglect of theologies of weakness, limitation, and dependency. In this way, Perfect in Weakness is important not only in the realm of disability studies but also in the wider Christian community that is mired within the cultural ideologies of our time.

Genres: Theology, Disability

224 pages, Hardcover

Published September 1, 2023

Reviews

[Carmen Imes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whitaker's thesis is provocative, but thoughtful and well-articulated. She considers the possibility that in the new creation we will experience diverse embodiment. That is to say, not all disabilities will necessarily be healed in the eschaton. She offers a careful reading of biblical texts that point to this possibility and asks us to consider the reasons why we assume that all humans will be able-bodied. She does not insist that disabilities will remain, but suggests that those that are central to someone's identity may persist because they help to establish continuity of personhood or identity. Well worth reading and pondering!

[Daniel Rempel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most in-depth argument in favour of the “retention” view (i.e., that people with disabilities may keep some impairments in the eschaton). What marks Whitaker’s view is a particular appeal to identity-forming impairments, rather than a catch-all or ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ approach.

Full review forthcoming in Studies in Christian Ethics.

[Dave Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

The resurrection, like many doctrines and beliefs, can feel like a straightforward idea to believers who have been confessing it for years. However, when the question of whether believers with disabilities will retain their "abnormal" bodies in the new creation is posed, just how complicated the doctrine of resurrection is becomes readily apparent. How do we truly account for a continuity of identity between people who live (or die) in the present world and the reconstituted versions of them who may appear in the next? Whitaker tackles all these questions (and more) with care and depth of thought.

Along the way, she demonstrates how what we imagine the new creation to be is not just indulgent speculation. These thoughts and expectations shape our understandings of what it means to be human, what a flourishing life looks like, and how we should live in the here and now. What she ultimately ends up doing is rooting out the ableist assumptions and values that too often permeate Christian theology and biblical interpretation. As a result, she frees the reader up to more faithful belief and morality which, by no coincidence, are also more widely affirming of the variety of ways in which human bodies look and function.

My only real complaint about the book is that it still reads too much like a dissertation (which Whitaker says it started as). I think her arguments sometimes lose clarity and elegance as a result. But the sheer impressiveness of her work here remains. If I could give this book 4.5 stars, I would. I recommend it to anyone who may be interested in the subject matter, even if they've never read disability theology before.