“The Spirit of God Hovered” was written by Steven M. Fettke. In this essay he tackles some very sensitive areas that he has been exposed to in his life. He has a mentally disabled son, Phillip Fettke, who lives with a severe form of Autism. Steven wants to understand his son’s life force of life substance that God breathed into Phillip when he was born. This is life force is apparent in Ezekiel 37:6 “I will put breath in you and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” “What does that make him and how should he be viewed by other humans, by believers in the local church.” These are some questions that Dr. Fettke addresses in this essay because having Phillip as his child has altered his understanding of God’s intentions in creation.
It seems that the Pentecostal church has formed a hierarchy of those with the best gifts most spiritual gifts all the way down to the insignificant people who have been so marginalized to the point where their life force means nothing to the church at all. Fettke states that “if our pneumatology can begin with conception at birth, then those who are not high on the hierarchy of giftedness or significance in the way normally understood can be appreciated for the way God has created them and given them their unique life force.” He opposes the common doctrine that says the Spirit begins to work in someone at “an age of accountability,” because Luke records the angel Gabriel’s claim that John will be “filled with the spirit from birth.” This implies that God did not make a mistake when he created people with disabilities. Their disablements are not a product of human sin or demonic activity and are a part of God’s good creation. Our concept of good and God’s concept of good is different because we marginalize those whose existence seems contrary to contemporary understandings of who is a part of God’s good creation.
Fettke concludes from Eichrodt’s statement that the image of God is the gift of personhood. This means that we have characteristics of God in us because we received the gift of god making us in his own image. In the church we have formulated ideas of what it means to be human, those who are considered to be able bodied. A reformation of the lens in which things are understood needs to be changed. For the church to say that the disabled need to be divinely healed of their illness is to condemn them for their embodiment. No one chooses how they are marked (embodied), according to Anderson the mark of Jewish circumcision “exemplifies how cultural meanings convey social values.”
Nancy Eisland says, “My disability had taught me who I am and who God is. What would it mean to be without this knowledge? Would I be absolutely unknown to myself in heaven, and perhaps even unknown to God?” Fettke puts this quote in here because if he and his wife were to wish healing over Phillip then he would not be the one whom God created as a person who happens to have autism. And I am sure he and his wife would not be the people they are today if healing took place.
This leads me to the part of the essay that needs special interpretation. “That God should be understood to be in the lives of any person, disabled or not, can only be explained by God’s love.” This ties in with the statement, further on in this essay, about the Pentecostals definition of ministry “success.” Now I am not going to try to explain God’s love because it is impossible and will only lead to more questions that we do not know the answers to. This needs to be interpreted because there are many people with disabilities and this essay shows us the flaws the church has concerning the disabled. At first this statement can seem to be pretty clear, but it is not. Sure, God loves us because he made us in his image and he gave us the Holy Spirit and gave Jesus to die on the cross for those who believe. Some might say that God loves the disabled to, but not in the sense that we know to be his love. This statement is not clear to us because we think that they cannot contribute any ministry to the church and can only be burdensomely ministered to. This statement eludes to something way more than God’s love explaining everything. Sure, it does. But honestly, if we really understand that God is in the lives of any person, then success in ministry would look a lot different. According to Matthew 25: 31-46, the “least of these” are the ones that Jesus represents. They are the ones that Jesus abides in. Philippians 2: 7-8 states that “rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Although Jesus did not seem to have any physical or mental disability he was not a “perfectly” made human being, he had some “disabilities”. He was not wealthy, there’s no record of him being stunningly handsome, and he died a sinners death (crucifixion was a method of execution used by Rome on runaway slaves). Helen Betenbaugh a permanent disabled human being says this about her condition, “it’s a symbol (she) would present (to the church) of an Easter life, an Easter faith being lived in a Good Friday body.” This sheds light on the fact that part of God’s nature involves suffering. Now weather that is a mental disability of an emotional one, the Spirit started his work in us before birth and the disabled were made into who they are today. Who they are today, disability and all, are perfect.
This matters to me and to you because if we deem the physically and mentally persons a burden or how Hauerwas puts it, “we are stuck with them” and, “all things considered, it would be better if they did not exist,” then we will be separated from the sheep. Matthew 25: 31-46 tells us of the importance of the disabled. To the sheep (ones on the right) God will say, “whatever you did for ones of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
