Reimagining the Healing Service

Abstract

Services of healing and wholeness need to be reimagined so that they better represent various experiences of disability. This article begins with a brief historical survey of the ways in which healing services and anointings have been understood in the Christian tradition. While far from exhaustive, this history reveals the Christian notion of healing to be contentious and evolving. Next, I analyze how these historical understandings have come to shape the ways Christians understand disabilities in our modern culture as well as the mechanism by which healing is carried out. Finally, I provide tips for constructing non-ableist services of healing and wholeness.