Crip Religion

In times of trouble, we often look to religion as a source of calm. Whether it be asking for prayers, attending services, or simply being in the presence of others who share our worldview, it can be a huge relief for anxiety about the future. When I developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome after a COVID infection, I looked to my own church community for comfort. What I found there was anything but comforting.

While I was away studying and avoiding the pandemic, the people I grew up with one by one fell prey to COVID-19 conspiracy theories. I went on Facebook to post about my experience with long COVID and warn people about what I had been through. What I found there felt like a stab in the heart. The adults who raised me denying the existence of my condition, one who I was particularly close with and considered a father figure denied it in the comments of my own post and told me not to "live in fear" of the virus that took everything from me. In that moment I was entirely alone in the world. Two people from my church who had avoided the conspiracy spiral rushed in to defend me and apologize for his behavior, but it was too late. It was clear I was no longer welcome in my church. My existence had shifted from neutral to a threat to their beliefs. Even finding out I was gay hadn't formed this much of a rift between me and my church family, I held on to the hope that we could sort out our differences peacefully. But there was no peace to be found with people who denied my lived experience and suffering and put others at risk for their own convience.

With my last support pulled out from under me, suicide came back onto the table for the first time since I was in high school. My family life wasn't good, I had very few friends, and I had no familiar church to attend. I was desperately lonely, and into that void stepped the only social media site I'll tolerate, Tumblr. Specifically, the cripplepunk community on Tumblr. Here were my people. Unapologetically disabled, radically inclusive of all physical disabilities from asthma to quadriplegia, and done with able-bodied people's nonsense. My guilt and distress at what had happened in my home church faded as I realized it was part of a larger issue of able-bodied people failing to care about physically disabled people's needs. I made the choice to not go back to church with the understanding that this plague of conspiracy had reached almost all corners of the Christian community. The cripplepunk community quickly became my support system in times of emotional need.

I still hold onto my Christian belief that everyone deserves love. In fact, my newfound community has only served to enhance that belief. One of the core structures of cripplepunk is the belief that even if someone's disability is a consequence of something they did, like smoking, they still deserve to be a part of the community and be treated equally. This philosophy has expanded into other areas of my politics, like care for the homeless and imprisoned. Even if I don't like someone, even if I feel like they earned punishment, they still deserve to be given assistance and respect the same way a more "innocent" person does.

Being religious did not make me a good person, nor did it make any of the people I grew up around good people. Loving others, extending grace and patience where it's needed, those are things you have to learn. If your religion doesn't motivate you to learn them, it's important to find people who do. For me, my religion and politics will be forever intertwined with the cripplepunk community. They are is everything I wanted from a church and more, they are more family to me than my church has ever been. I owe my fellow cripples my life and I'm motivated to do everything in my power to extend the same radical support I received to others.