Theology, Disability, and Spiritual Transformation: Learning from ...

In light of a formal, functional, and phenomenological understanding of spirituality as a life-integrating phenomenon as well as the academic discipline that studies this phenomenon, the second challenge is to define more clearly the meaning of the term spiritual transformation. Transformation has become a catchphrase that seeks to describe the dynamics of personal and social change in a variety of different contexts. Amid the plethora of meanings now being associated with this term, another preliminary question needs to be addressed: What actually constitutes transformation as a result of spiritual experience?

Finally, there remains the methodological question of which elements Christian spirituality as a discipline must integrate in its approach to transformation and how it goes about integrating them. Drawing on the practical theology of James Fowler, I want to look closely at two substantive elements that are essential to understanding spiritual transformation as a lived response to God in the person of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. These elements are a theological characterization of God's love as the power of the Holy Spirit active in nature, history, and personality and a psychological perspective on the development or “growth” of the person toward emotional maturity. Fowler's categories situate the psychological and theological levels of analysis of this study within a larger framework and context and help us understand the multidimensional nature of spiritual transformation.

Christian Spirituality as an Academic Discipline

In this study, I explore the spirituality of L’Arche, a Christian community whose mission is to serve persons with an intellectual disability. My focus on spirituality and transformation is informed broadly by the field of Christian spirituality. Amid the history of debate² that has accompanied the emergence of Christian spirituality as a distinct discipline in academic discourse, there have been two focal and interrelated questions that have shaped methodological inquiry and that bear directly on the focus of this book. The first question concerns the material object of study and can be framed simply in terms of the “what” of spirituality studies. The second