The Beauty of Belonging: It Ain't Easy.

If you have an hour, I highly recommend you take that time to listen to John Swinton’s presentation “From Inclusion to Belonging: A Practical Theology of Disability and Humanness” for Seattle Pacific University Palmer Lectures in Wesleyan Studies.

John Swinton is a Scottish theologian and ethicist. He is the Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies at King’s College at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. As a professor in Practical Theology and Pastoral Care, he is deeply concerned about parish life and our experience as people of God. He is the author of books such as Raging with Compassion: Pastoral Responses to the Problem of Evil, Resurrecting the Person: Friendship and the Care of People with Mental Health Problems, and From Bedlam to Shalom. (If the titles of those books don’t get you excited about what he has to say, nothing I write will.)

He began the lecture by challenging the very nature of the term disability. As a word, disability is not neutral. “It's deeply value laden. It's a deeply theological, sociological, anthropological designator. It tells something about who we think God is and who human beings are. It tells us something about what it means to be human.”

Further, he challenges the notion that the disability has to do with physical impairments at all. In a bit of Hegelian subterfuge, it is the so-called healthy, those without so-called “disabilities”, who make another person “disabled.” For example, a deaf person is not disabled if everyone knew sign language. A person in a wheelchair is not disabled if every building was designed with his or her mobility in mind. A person is not disabled if businesses were more willing to hire men and women with physical impediments.

Swinton proposes a different model. One based of the notion of personhood—a theological anthropology if you will. At our core, a person is a person who is loved and a person who is cared for. Consequently, the basic form of humanity is one of radical love and care for another. (i.e. it could be taken from any Biblical book with the word “John” in the title.) This means moving from a system that prizes inclusion to one that is of belonging.

Inclusion is simply letting someone tag along. She can be there, but she might as well not. Churches are good at inclusion. “Sure he can come to Sunday morning services! Everyone is welcome here!”

Using Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jean Vanier as guides, Swinton proposes we move beyond inclusion and into belonging. Contra inclusion, belonging is the radical notion that

“Human beings are not simply included in creation, they belong to God.  God couldn’t imagine creation without people.  Humanity belongs to God.  To belong you need to be missed.  People need to be concerned when you’re not there.  The world needs to be perceived as radically different when you are not there.  When you belong, people long for your presence, like the Father longed for the prodigal son, and like God longs for us.  Belonging means coming to know each other through Jesus.  Authentic Christian community is not about us gathering with those who are exactly like us, but as Christians, we’re not left to ourselves – it’s not about looking at each other, it’s about looking at Jesus.  Community in and through Jesus – we belong to one another in and through Jesus Christ.”

Good stuff, eh?

Being human, living as humans, and mostly living as the church means more than including people. It’s missing them when they are not there. It’s missing a person precisely because he is a person. She is not a project. He is not a work of service. She belongs. All people, regardless of physical or mental state, give and receive. They belong.

But what really got me thinking is this notion belonging is a two way street. Swinton did not go in this direction but it worries me that we are unwilling or incapable to put in the effort to experience belonging.

Belonging is a mutual experience. It’s a give and take between two or more people. It pains me to hear people leave a church (or the Church) because they felt like they did not “belong”. Now to be sure, it could very well be the case that this church in particular didn’t even do the base level care of including you. But I think there is something deeper, something more sinister in effect.

Sadly, I think the church is filled with people wanting desperately to belong. We’re paralyzed by this desire. And we immobilized by the fear of rejection. We project feelings on others that they don’t care. We demand to belong. When it doesn’t happen, it’s their fault.

I imagine the church as a 6th grade dance. The sanctuary is filled with people milling about petrified of making the first move and miserable as a result.

What I’m saying is this: belonging is a two way street. The first step to belonging is a scary one: it’s opening yourself to other people.