I look forward to seeing my friend in the pool these days. He's gotten less shy and more willing to talk about things that really matter to him. But today I think I blew him away. He made a small comment about developmentally disabled adults having "a free ticket to heaven" and I let him have it with both barrels. Now I didn't want to blow him away ... I just have a raw nerve when one is talking about the salvation of people with cognitive or mental disabilities.
I am a Christian today partly because I was brought to church by people with developmental disabilities. I was even baptized in a pool WITH a disabled woman because I had to stay in the water to hold her helmet. And I've known d.d. adults long enough and well enough to know they are sinners in need of salvation just like the rest of us. Someone saying that someone is "child-like" is simply wrong ... and doesn't know the mind of children very well either.
So I've challenged my fellow swimmer to come up with the Biblical reference. He currently insists that there's a verse about God protecting the feeble minded. Using BibleGateway, I haven't found it.
I guess this mindset angers me so much because it allows folks to forget the cognitively challenged. It also perpetuates the primary importance of being intellectually and theologically correct in one's religious point of view. I take great comfort in knowing that I am saved by Christ even though I'm theologically muddle headed.
BTW we got on the topic because I was saying that I judged a person's character on whether or not the developmentally disabled or the mentally ill in the congregation felt comfortable speaking with them. If I saw B... or T... avoid someone, no matter how sweet the person seemed to be, I figured B or T knew who was genuinely approachable.
