Christianity Today

Receiving the Gift of Friendship: Profound Disability, Theological Anthropology, and Ethics Hans S. Reinders (Eerdmans)

Reinders uses a Trinitarian lens to push readers to consider whether friendship—a voluntary and mutually self-giving relationship—is possible with individuals with profound disabilities.

The Bible, Disability, and the Church: A New Vision of the People of God Amos Yong (Eerdmans)

Using specific scriptural texts, Yong exhorts the church to re-imagine the body of Christ as a body that not only includes people with disabilities but also understands these people as central to the church's mission.

The Violent Bear It Away: A Novel Flannery O'Connor (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

In this haunting novel, O'Connor considers the spiritual implications of a child with a mental disability. The child's presence forces individuals around him to believe in or reject God.

Living Gently in a Violent World: The Prophetic Witness of Weakness Stanley Hauerwas and Jean Vanier (InterVarsity)

Everything Hauerwas and Vanier have written about disability deserves inclusion in this list, but this slim volume of the two in conversation introduces readers to theology and ethics surrounding disability in the context of the L'Arche communities.

Dancing with Max: A Mother and Son Who Broke Free Emily Colson (Zondervan)

This memoir, about Colson's son Max, who has autism, offers a mother's insight into family, the church, and disability. Through it, we come to understand what Colson means when she says that Max, autism and all, is a gift.