Critically important and advancing disability research with concrete examples of the ethnographic turn, Barton’s participatory research methods and conclusions witness persons with intellectual disability as ‘people inextricably caught up in one another’ in the communion of the faithful, as the image of God, and by a baptismal hermeneutic of inclusion as members of the Body of Christ/the Church. Practical, insightful, and liberating, Barton’s work is welcome to the corpus of Baylor’s commitment to disability studies. Barton here confirms the value and power of this commitment.
~Mary Jo Iozzio, Professor of Moral Theology, School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College
What is baptism? What is it for? To read this book is to receive, with its author, the baptismal witness of Christians with intellectual disabilities. That witness illumines, inter alia, the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ baptism, the Book of Common Prayer’s baptismal choreography, and the practice of pastoral care. Sarah Barton’s inquiries traverse ecclesiology, pneumatology, and hamartiology. Finally, with her co-researchers, Barton is after nothing less than what baptism shows us about being human.
~Lauren F. Winner, Associate Professor of Christian Spirituality, Duke Divinity School
Sarah Barton has provided disability theology and the church a consequential vision for and instantiation of collaborative theology alongside people with intellectual disabilities. Barton and her conversation partners demonstrate how the lived experience of intellectual disability can serve as a hermeneutical lens through which congregations can be challenged to rethink disablement, identity, and community. The baptismal font is presented as the orienting site for developing an inclusive theology of personhood in a way that contests dominant theological evaluations and articulations of personhood. In its method and its message, this book is profound.
~Benjamin T. Conner, Professor of Practical Theology and Director of the Center for Disability and Ministry, Western Theological Seminary
Dr. Barton’s scholarly yet accessible book about our baptismal theology and the reality of disabilities is a timely work that needs to be read and discussed by clergy and lay leaders, and indeed all who take seriously Jesus’ Way of Love.
~Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and author of Love Is the Way and The Power of Love
…the insights into baptismal practices and embodied theology are well worth the read. This research helps expand the field of disability theology into more specific questions on baptism, but given the centrality of this within the life of the Christian this book will offer broader insight to clergy, congregational leaders, and theologians alike.
~Topher Endress, Earth & Altar
Academic and erudite yet compulsively readable, Becoming the Baptized Body is an engaging qualitative study that practices inclusion and provides a megaphone to the voices and witness of Christians with intellectual disabilities.
~Josh Olds, Life is Story
Barton’s exploration of scripture, liturgy, and practice makes this study of baptism truly well rounded. She explores various traditions while managing to be specific and detailed. The nuances of individual traditions are attended to well, which ultimately shows that the argument for participatory baptism carries through no matter the tradition.
~Jaime Konerman-Sease, Reflective Practice
Barton has written a though-provoking book at the intersection of liturgical and disability theology, looking at a core practice of the church and taking seriously the perspectives of people with intellectual disabilities. This is breaking new ground. Anyone working in disability and liturgical theology, whether academically or practically, would do well by letting Barton and her research partners speak into their thinking and praxis.
~Armand Léon van Ommen, Worship
Barton’s book models for Christian ethicists an interdisciplinary approach to theological reflection centered in qualitative research and concrete social practices. For Christian ethicists interested in disability, Barton’s work issues an important challenge: to resist the abstraction that results when the voices of those experiencing disability are not centered. Barton’s book would not only aid anyone studying disability or practical theology, but it would also be a welcome addition to any syllabus on ethical and theological methods.
~Luke Zerra, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics
... A welcome addition to a growing literature seeking to close the gap between systematic and practical theology, on one hand, and to center the lives and experiences of Christians with disabilities in the theological and ecclesial enterprise, on the other hand.
~Scott MacDougall, Anglican Theological Review
Barton provides a theologically rich account of baptism for the intellectually disabled and also envisions ways in which the practice of baptism can enliven the church body as a whole. Including intellectually disabled Christians in baptism expands our community of witness and helps all Christians understand the ongoing, communal nature of baptism in which we are all made into a new creation.
~Devan Stahl, Baylor University, Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology
Barton’s volume is a strong contribution to disability theology, and it offers valuable insights to multiple audiences, including religious practitioners, theologians, and Bible scholars. That the church so often excludes people with intellectual disabilities from baptism was surprising to me.Overall, Becoming the Baptized Body is an important study that deserves a close reading, both for its academic contributions and for its potentially liberative impact for church participants with intellectual disabilities.
~Frederick David Carr, Northeastern Seminary at Roberts Wesleyan University, Reading Religion
