WALKING WITH THE EXCLUDED
Australian Catholic University and The Loyola Institute (a Jesuit research institute) recently hosted a conference on disability theology: ‘Idol Talk? In the Image of the Disabled God’. In this first podcast of the Idolly Talking series, Fr Justin Glyn SJ, who was one of the conference organisers and has been legally blind since birth, talks to Dr Adam Henry from the Disability Projects Office of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference in Canberra.
The title was a homage to both French philosopher, Jean-Luc Marion (who distinguished the “idol” (an image which blocks or reduces God) from the icon (which opens the viewer to God) as well as to Nancy Eiesland, whose book, The Disabled God, marked the beginning of disability theology as a serious field of study in the 1990s. They discuss Justin’s background, the conference, the nature and development of Catholic disability theology and its implications for broader human rights discourse in the modern world.
Listen to the full podcast here
Banner image: Cristian Rojas, Pexels.