Disabilities, Part 5

March 17, 2025

Happy Monday, my friends! Today, we return to our series on disability, and I want to focus on the built environment, the human-made infrastructure that defines the ways in which humans use different spaces. Particularly, I want to discuss the ways in which humans design inclusion and exclusion into what they build. There are obvious examples of design being used to exclude people such as the labeling of water fountains and bathrooms based on racial identity during the days of Jim Crow laws. The same continues today—as we saw recently at the University of Cincinnati—in labeling certain bathrooms for “biological women” or “biological men.” However, designed exclusion is often more covert. Think about the built environment of your community. What can you think of that promotes inclusion or obviously excludes people of certain identities?

Under guises ancient and legion, cities, towns, campuses, and places of worship, among others, continue to exclude people based on their design. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), updated building codes, and increasing general understanding and knowledge have helped create solutions in current buildings and in the structure of outdoor spaces; too many spaces remain limited structurally due to the abilities and (lack of) needs of temporarily abled body (TAB) people. In a particularly sad, though expected, twist, churches have been allowed exemptions from the ADA and other building regulations based on their status as religious institutions.

Cities, towns, campuses, parks, churches, and other spaces of any size now have relatively simple choices they can implement to change how people living with certain disabilities experience those spaces. Sidewalks and roads can be repaired to reduce tripping. Dips can be carved into curbs—or even better, designed that way in the first place—to allow people using wheelchairs to access streets, and those dips can be fitted with contrasting surfaces to indicate the edge of the sidewalk and the beginning of the street. Crossing signals can be installed with audible alerts for people who are blind or have limited vision.

Despite the best intentions that go into certain changes, pernicious lack of attention and exclusion of disabled people in the design process remains a major limitation to the full affirmation of people living with disabilities, particularly in the church and in education. For instance, the church that designs its bathrooms to accommodate people using wheelchairs but fails to adjust the width of the aisles and the pews in its sanctuary to accommodate the same people.

We have to remember that disability is another intersecting identity with all the other identities a person holds. A close friend who uses a wheelchair has reminded me that churches and other spaces can be the epitome of affirming and inclusive for most of his identities, but if he can’t access the space physically, then everything else the church offers is lost for him.

Have you ever needed accommodations in the built environment of your community, campus, or church? How can you act to make your environment more accessible for others?

Let us pray: God, you created each one of us in your perfect image, and you called us good. Unfortunately, we failed to recognize your image in the lives of our siblings living with disabilities. We have intentionally designed structures and environments that further exclude them from full participation in our communities. Help us, gracious God, to acknowledge our impact regardless of our intentions and to create environments that promote everyone’s flourishing. We ask this in the name of your Son, who experienced our limitations and chose to be our liberator. Amen.

Blessings on your weeks, my friends. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

Faithfully,

Ben