Böcker av Benjamin T. Conner

How would it look if we "disabled" Christian theology, discipleship, and theological education? Benjamin Conner initiates a new conversation between disability studies and Christian theology and missiology, imagining a church that fully incorporates persons with disabilities into its mission. In this vision, the people with disabilities are part of the church's pluriform witness, and the congregation embodies a robust hermeneutic of the gospel.

How might a church infused with missional theology change the way it approaches Christian practices? Interacting both with the missional theology of George Hunsberger and Darrell Guder and with the theology of Christian practices laid out by Craig Dykstra and Dorothy Bass, Benjamin T. Conner argues that allowing these two disciplines to inform one another can enhance the nature of the church's witness, its congregational discipleship, and its theological education. Framing his work with real-world narratives and applications inspired by his work as a minister to adolescents with special needs, Conner shows how a practical missional mindset can redefine and reinvigorate the spirit and purpose of a congregation.

Nearly twenty percent of adolescents have developmental disabilities, yet far too often they are marginalized within churches. Amplifying Our Witness challenges congregations to adopt a new, practice-centered approach to congregational ministry -- one that includes and amplifies the witness of adolescents with developmental disabilities. Replete with stories taken from Benjamin Conner's own extensive experience with befriending and discipling adolescents with developmental disabilities, Amplifying Our WitnessShows how churches exclude the mentally disabled in various structural and even theological waysStresses the intrinsic value of kids with developmental disabilitiesReconceptualizes evangelism to adolescents with developmental disabilities, emphasizing hospitality and friendship.