To Be Deaf and Religious, pt. 2

On one hand, I am hesitant. 

Why would we Christians want to be informed of yet another injustice for which our tradition bears responsibility? Do we really need another reason to feel guilty, another prayer request to forget and then regret forgetting? It’s hard enough for us to accept our accountability for unjust wars, for attitudes and system of racism, for the unyielding demonization and periodic brutalization of sexual minorities. (We’re getting there, God.) 

But on the other hand, regardless of how others respond, I feel compelled to speak out for those with whom I have fallen in love this year. And this means speaking out against that which has caused their suffering.

And sadly, the Christian tradition bears part of that weight. 

Many of the stumbling blocks and offenses described in the previous post are present in the Christian tradition as well. Why is the eradication of deafness a sign of the Kingdom of God in Matthew 11:5? Does Jesus agree to “heal” the deaf man in Mark 7:33-37 because he thinks that there’s something wrong with deafness? Is Jesus’ message really for us? (“He who has ears, let him hear!”)

I don’t think that these questions indicate injustices so much potential obstacles. And actually, I think that most of the obstacles can be overcome fairly simply. 

For example, here’s how I would respond to the questions about Matthew 11:5 and Mark 7:33-37. In ancient Near Eastern cultures, the existence and activity of demons was presumed. Jews in Jesus’ time would have understood demonic activity as the work of malevolent forces that seek to rival the one true God by binding and maiming God’s creation. Consequently, Jesus’ audiences conjectured that demonic possession was the cause of deafness, blindness, and many physical maladies. So, in light of this cultural context, how would Jesus prove that he had divine authority over supernatural forces of evil? He would demonstrate that he could “undo” what people assumed supernatural forces of evil had done — regardless of whether or not such forces were actually responsible.

Alright then. If such obstacles can be overcome, where is the injustice to which I’ve referred? 

The answer is related to an assumption discussed in the previous post’s section on Judaism: learning is necessarily dependent on hearing. This dangerous assumption has emerged in many times and places. Perhaps most prominently, in his History of Animals (book 4, chapter 9), Aristotle wrote that “those who are born deaf all become speechless; they have a voice but are destitute of speech.” 

The Greek word translated as “speechless” can also mean “senseless” or “lacking reason.”

And this is the meaning that one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Christianity propagated and provided with scriptural justification.

In his Against Pelagius, St. Augustine writes, “For what great fault is innocence sometimes born blind, sometimes born deaf, which blemish indeed hinders faith, as witness the Apostle who says: ‘Faith comes by hearing?’”

Romans 10:17 states, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

According to Raymond Lee’s A Beginner’s Introduction to Deaf History, “Augustine shared Aristotle’s ideas about the nature of dumbness [the inability to produce widely intelligible speech — an inability with which deafness has been fallaciously conflated throughout history] and this Augustinian influence caused the deaf to be deprived of education and religious instruction for at least the next 1,300 years.”  

Post-Augustine, the earliest extant accounts of deaf people receiving an education in the western hemisphere date from the 16th century. And it took another couple hundred years for actual deaf schools to be developed.

We’re talking about the denial of a basic human right to an entire minority group over the course of ages. 

Thankfully, Deaf education is recovering — not just from this injustice, but from aforementioned attempts to rob the Deaf of their language. One of the most meaningful testaments to this recovery is the 150-year legacy of Gallaudet University in Washington DC, the world’s only university with programs and services specifically designed to accommodate deaf and hard-of-hearing students.  

Still, it’s a sobering thought: what if my religious tradition hadn’t imprisoned the minds of thousands upon thousands of deaf individuals for over a millennium?