McColl Mary Ann, Ascough Richard S
Center for Health Services & Policy Research, School of Rehabilitation Therapy, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
J Pastoral Care Counsel. 2009 Fall-Winter;63(3-4):12-1-11.
According to some authors, the healing narratives in the New Testament have fuelled destructive attitudes toward disability among Christians. The purpose of this paper is to explore a subset of Jesus' miracle healings for more constructive messages, and for guidance about pastoral care for people with disabilities. Of twenty-nine miracle accounts found in the four gospels, five were selected for this study that deal with physical disability in individual persons. Using the socio-rhetorical interpretive method, the stories are mined for themes regarding spiritual aspects of healing, identity, faith, sin and touch.
