Disability History Month runs every year from mid-November to mid-December and aims to promote the rights of people with disabilities and their struggle for equality both now and in the past. The month is also a call to action, urging all of us to reflect on how we can dismantle ableism in our own spaces.
As Disability History Month gets underway, we’re thrilled to announce the launch of the Disability History Month x Honest Church Pop-Up! As well as some specific disability themed toolkits and resources to help churches and communities consider and improve their welcome for disabled people, we’ll be sharing stories from our disabled members, resources to help you explore disability theology, and raising awareness at some of the ableism still faced by disabled people in university and the church.
Many of our members and staff are disabled, and we’re dedicated to creating a safe, inclusive space for them to be able to access and enjoy the full spectrum of SCM’s work. We also want to help church spaces and communities recognise ways in which they could be more honest about their welcome for disabled people, and think about the ways they can make their spaces even more welcoming and accessible. The Church has often struggled with disability inclusion, thinking only of access needs as an afterthought, only for specific disabilities or, sometimes, not at all. Because of this, many disabled people have faced exclusion or felt invisible within faith communities. Through the Disability History Month x Honest Church Pop-Up, we aim to change that narrative, creating a space where everyone belongs and is valued, and disabled people know what to expect when approaching a new community.
Why a Pop-Up?
We've decided that, for now, the disability focused section of the Honest Church campaign will be a temporary addition, as opposed to an ongoing new focus of the campaign. This is for a few reasons, including:
- Disability theology and ableism in the church is often of a slightly different nature to LGBTQ+ exclusion, and the exclusion of women. Whilst there are no doubt churches in which harmful disability theologies exist, these are not concealed in the same way as policies limiting women's roles or LGBTQ+ exclusion, and the exclusion is usually borne of ignorance rather than a thought-through theology.
- Our friends at Inclusive Church already do a brilliant job of helping churches recognise and improve their inclusion for disabled people, so rather than reinvent what they are doing, we want to amplify their work.
- We don't want to overwhelm the campaign work we are already doing with Honest Church around LGBTQ+ welcome and women's roles. While we recognise that disability and inclusion are intersectional, we want to make sure we have the capacity to continue the original Honest Church campaign well.
Nevertheless, there are important things to say about disability and honesty in church, and we are really excited to share these new resources with you!
Whether you’re new to these conversations or have been working toward disability justice for years, we hope you’ll find something useful, informative, and encouraging in this campaign. Together we can create spaces where faith and justice meet, and where every person’s story is celebrated as part of God’s vision for a more inclusive world.