The Many Faces of Ableism and Institutional Harm

My relationship with church began long before becoming a Christian in 2008, tangled in family history, generational hurt, mixed denominational arguments, and unspoken wounds. Growing up, “church” was a bad word—faith and religion divided families, caused problems, and left scars. Yet, as a child with emerging health issues and a shortened life expectancy, I prayed quietly, hid my faith, read the little school‑supplied New Testament, and felt God’s presence long before I voiced it.

However, every time I stepped into a church, I was pushed out. 

Alpha courses became a revolving door—several times I was asked to leave for asking “difficult questions.” Healing weeks were uncomfortable spectacles. My disability became a spiritual test I kept failing. Only later did I learn that healing narratives have historically reinforced hierarchies, framing disability as spiritually deficient, causing repeated harm.

When a church finally welcomed me, I was so happy. I was confirmed. Seen. Accepted. Until the healing came—being called to stand, hands pressed on me, and declared healed. The priest pushed his prophetic vision of it happening and suggested I jump out of bed the next morning. Caught in peer pressure, excitement, the power of belief and my desire to belong to a story bigger than my body’s limits, I naively did it—falling between the wall and the bed, bruised and humiliated. I blamed myself. Typical rhetoric pushed onto disabled people for not having enough faith. Now I look at that moment and think, “Why was I so gullible?” and “How did anyone think that was safe?” Imagine the harm caused to those more vulnerable than I.

Then in 2011, everything collapsed. My marriage was strained, my mental health undiagnosed, a friendship changed and my disability worsened. I sought help. Instead, I was labelled an “emotional adulterer,” told to confess publicly, removed from ministry, separated, and sent to worship alone every other week. No marriage counselling, pastoral care, or safeguarding. Just shame—presented as institutional practice.

I lost everything—community, friendships, stability, and my marriage. My mental health spiralled. When I finally wanted to end my life, a “friend,” now a priest, told me, “You’re in God’s hands now.” Thankfully I was saved, sectioned, and diagnosed, but that sentence was abandonment dressed as spirituality.

Afterwards, I slowly rebuilt my identity, documented my journey on this blog, stabilised, despite harm continuing. At a Christian conference, simply switching between my wheelchair, walking stick and walking unaided became a miracle story and healing testimony. Within minutes the narrative spread. None of it was true. I was just adjusting my aids, like I could back then. When I tried correcting it, I was “denying God’s work.”

Ableist theology followed me everywhere. Sermons claiming sin, demons, or bad spirits caused disability, or mocking those with disabilities. One preacher used 1 Corinthians 12, a uniting passage, to say God “doesn’t want disabled body parts.” Then heard it again a year later. It didn’t matter that disability stigma is socially constructed, not divinely mandated. It became divine truth—practices and teachings that continue across the Church of England and Christendom.

For eight years I was denied communion, watching others receive and connect, all because I was sober and needed a non‑alcoholic option. “No one is special enough to change tradition,” I was told. When a new priest changed it later, it happened without hesitation. That spiritual loneliness was hard.

I tried adapting the traditional vows at our wedding to “in sickness and in ALL health” to avoid the ableist implication of my “sickness” and Hannah’s “health.” I followed the process, slowly and appropriately, but was reminded that unless a movement is behind you, your voice is dismissed.

Through the last fifteen years of being called into ordination I’ve also repeatedly heard:

“Maybe lay ministry is more appropriate for you.”  

Not because God wasn’t calling me, but because being a disabled priest with a degenerative condition appeared too difficult. Reducing my vocation to a tick‑box, not a calling, and shrinking what God’s doing in my life.

I’ve learned I’m not alone. Disabled theologians and writers like Amy Kenny, Julia Watts Belser, Nancy Eiesland, and Tim Goode have named these same patterns—how disabled bodies are problems to fix, lessons to teach, or symbols to interpret rather than love. Their work helped me see that my experiences weren’t “misunderstandings” or “bad luck,” but part of a culture the Church is only now confronting. The fact that society, including the Church, has only started shifting focus in the last decade compared to other social justice issues in the 19th Century speaks volumes.

Everything above has names: spiritual abuse, purity logic, coerced confession, theological gaslighting, weaponised healing, sacramental exclusion, vocational gatekeeping, and institutional ableism rooted in the legacy of Leviticus 21 and over a millennia of religious rhetoric and tradition where priests had to be pure, with no physical defects. Many able‑bodied Christians don’t recognise these patterns, and many disabled people are resigned to it, but this harm happens. Naming them is the first step toward dismantling them.

Somehow, I’m still here—faithful, called, and believing in God, while seeing and naming these patterns clearly without fear. These actions shaped my journey and vocation, equipping me for my calling. It’s wrong to stay silent. Silence protects the wrong things. I won’t do that. And this story—my story—will continue.