What No Longer Serves Us: Resisting Ableism and Anti-Judaism in New Testament Healing Narratives

When feminists preach on the Gospel healing narratives, they often encounter a double bind. Efforts to resist the oppression of people with disabilities by deemphasizing literal acts of healing tend to highlight Jesus's structural critique against unjust institutions, often represented in the Gospels by the Jewish leaders. Yet that message of structural critique and social transformation can easily lead to anti-Jewish readings of the Gospel narratives. The authors model a method of interrogating a previously published sermon, alongside the practice of situating people with disabilities at “the speaking center” of Gospel narratives and exegesis. The article concludes with five homiletic tools that Christian feminist preachers might employ to better undermine both ableism and anti-Judaism.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jfemistudreli.27.2.153

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