The remit of the Membership and People with a Disability Task Group was, as the Report states, ‘…to address the issue of accepting young people and adults with an intellectual disability into communicant membership, and the implications for such membership for them and their families.’
Several of the Task Groups members were parents of children and young people with an intellectual disability, and as the Report says, ‘the Task group was made aware from its first meeting of the stories which capture the combination of family pain and gospel challenge before the Church, brought to us in the lives of people with varieties of intellectual disability.’
The annual meeting of the all-Ireland denomination’s principal decision-making body meeting brings together ministers, elders and others from the church’s 500-plus congregations, alongside a number of partner churches and organisations from home and overseas.
The Chair of the Task Group, the former Moderator, Very Rev Dr David Bruce, explained that having brought an interim report to the Assembly last year, the Task Group made specific recommendations for the Assembly to consider this year.
“This is a discussion with theological, pastoral and practical dimensions. The report begins with stories – three of them – because the group did not want the discussion and debate to take place in the abstract. It is important to be objective, but it is also important to root our pastoral theology in the lived experiences of the people we encounter at church,” Dr Bruce said.
He explained that the stories in the report described a very broad spectrum of family life and experience, which immediately uncovered one of the principal challenges that the Task Group faced. The needs of all three people differed greatly from each other. Conversations about church membership in each of these families, was, therefore different.
Dr Bruce said that the Task Group explored “the covenantal understanding of membership which lies at the heart of the reformed tradition…[W]here a family member has been baptised and therefore welcomed into the covenant community, they ought not to be excluded from it on the grounds of their disability, even if that disability means they are unable to articulate their personal faith verbally, nor ever can.
“We argue that within the covenantal embrace of the Church, the faith of their parents in bringing up their intellectually disabled child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, ought to be operative in their subsequent acceptance as members. This appears to be in continuity and conformity with our subordinate standards,” he said.
The Report states that some essential points of theological reflection emerged from PCI’s
confessional heritage, which were explored in support of the basic premise that people with Intellectual Disabilities ought not to be implicitly or explicitly excluded from meaningful involvement in, or membership of, the Church.
Moving forward the Task Group had listed some principles, which the General Assembly adopted this morning. During his speech, the former Moderator summarised them in the following way. Firstly, for a person who may well be able to speak of, and understand their own faith, for them to take vows would be pastorally sensitive to express these in ways that would be accessible. Secondly, a person who has multiple and complex needs, who is non-verbal, and cannot therefore take vows, may be welcomed into membership on the basis that they already part of the covenant community, which references the baptismal vows taken by the parents on their child’s behalf, as all parents do.
In conclusion, Dr Bruce said, “The report concludes with probably the most challenging aspect of its message – which is that while we can debate the place of vows and the processes by which we welcome new members, whether full membership is the same as communicant membership, and how this relates to the physical taking of communion, we as a people have a blind spot when we think of those with an intellectual disability.
“We may not in our attitudes and practice, fully accept them as part of the body of Christ. The Task Group believes that we need to repent of this attitude, and that this Report will be an important first step in including within the family a group of people who have for too long, been invisible to us.”
Having accepted the recommendations, a further phase of work will begin, which will be overseen by the Council for Congregational Life and Witness. This will focus on the production of resources for Kirk Sessions, including the drafting of vows for membership in language accessible for people with an intellectual disability. Resources produced will come back to the General Assembly in 2024 for approval.
The General Assembly is livestreamed on here on this website. All public sessions will be livestreamed until the Assembly’s close on Saturday, 24 June. You will find the business before the Assembly here and the Reports that will be discussed here. You can follow proceedings live via Twitter @pciassembly using the hashtag #PCIGA23.