Event: Sunday 12 November 2023
On 12 November we were privileged to have Dr Shane Clifton share with us.
He then guided us through various ways of reading Mark 2:1-12, beginning with an approach that views disability as a deficit to be healed, through to more recent approaches that sees disability as more of an issue that we can all work together to address. In this approach, it is the world that needs to change to accommodate a wider variety of bodies and abilities. People with disabilities can be empowered to work alongside us in bringing about such a world.
Background to the event
Congregation member Dr John McKinnon is a former colleague of Shane’s from their days teaching theology and ethics, and interviewed Shane to introduce him, the story of his accident in 2010, and how this had caused considerable reflection on his faith.
An economics degree, a career in chartered accountancy, and a PhD in theology were some of the steps along the path that led Shane Clifton to becoming Professor in theology and ethics for 20 years at a major Christian university college until resigning in 2018 after a lengthy and traumatic fight over academic freedom and his support for LGBTQI+ inclusion in the church.
Eight years before that, Shane had an accident that left him with quadriplegia, and found the process of adjusting to the injury was helped by reading virtue ethics and disability studies. After 2018, he became an Associate Professor at Sydney University’s Centre for Research Development and Policy, working with the leadership group of the Centre for Disability Research and Practice. He is also President of the Board of Directors, Spinal Cord Injuries Australia.
Shane has just returned to Sydney University after four years absence to sit on the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, where he also authored the report “Hierarchies of power: Disability theories and models and their implications for violence against, and abuse, neglect, and exploitation of, people with disability.” The Royal Commission handed down its findings a couple of weeks ago, and you can read the executive summary, a guide to the report, and the full report here.
Shane has written two books: “Crippled Grace: Disability, Virtue Ethics and the Good Life”, and “Husbands Should Not Break”, co-authored with Elly Clifton, as well as co-authoring many scholarly publications (you can read a list here).
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