This latest issue of Cultural Encounters—A Journal for the Theology of Culture invites the church to reframe our thinking and imagination so that we move beyond exclusion, and even inclusion, to a cruciform sense of belonging. Cruciform belonging involves dying to privileging societal notions of normalcy known as “ableism.” Rather, we must amplify and highlight the vital contributions of those we often marginalize because of “real” or “perceived” disabilities.
This issue includes:
Essays
Brian Brock – Autism and the Image of God: On Becoming a Mobile and Reproductive Church
Erik W. Carter – Incomplete Without You: Research on Disability, Inclusion, and the Church
Jimi Calhoun – Disability in a Space-Time Continuum of Love
Ruben Alvarado – Shalom on Earth as It Is in Heaven
Interview
Paul Louis Metzger – Beyond Ableism and Its Cult of “Normalcy”: An Interview with Andrew Picard
Book Reviews
Michael Gurney – Jesus the Great Philosopher: Rediscovering the Wisdom Needed for the Good Life by Jonathan T. Pennington
Domani Hintze-Pothen – Beguiled by Beauty: Cultivating a Life of Contemplation and Compassion by Wendy Farley
Clifford B. Anderson – Mijn Kuyper: Gesprekken over Geloof, Politiek, en Cultuur [My Kuyper: Conversations on Faith, Politics, and Culture] by Agnes Amelink
John W. Morehead – The QAnon Deception: Everything You Need to Know About the World’s Most Dangerous Conspiracy Theory by James A. Beverley
Lynsey Stepan – Portraying Violence in the Hebrew Bible: A Literary and Cultural Study by Matthew J. Lynch