Churches are not required to be ADA compliant.[1] This may surprise you. It should shock and anger you.
It was determined that it posed to great a burden on religious institutions to provide accessible spaces. It was a “needless injury to religious exercise.” Amy Kenny, a disability advocate, says that this sends a clear message to the disabled community: you are not worth the cost to include and welcome into our churches.[2]
You might say, “But our church does follow ADA regulations!” This is the case at my church. We have a ramp. We have handicap stalls in the bathrooms. We have handicap parking. We even have a wheelchair lift to get onto the stage. We probably check the boxes to be technically ADA compliant.
But I’m aware that this compliance did not come without some grumbling. I am aware that these things (particularly the long ramp to get to our parking lot from the street) were seen as a burden when those requirements were put on us. Yes, you could argue that it would have been nice for the church to know that these federal requirements didn’t apply when the city came and told us we had to install the ramp. But that argument just proves Amy Kenny’s point, doesn’t it? The disabled community is viewed as “not worth the effort” to make the church building accessible.
Besides this, do these technically ADA-compliant ramps, bathrooms, and parking spaces actually solve the accessibility problems for the disabled community? Do they actually create a welcoming, inclusive environment for the disabled? I have read and heard too many stories now of people with disabilities who have expressed concern that ramps, bathrooms, and parking spaces at church don’t actually help them to be involved. When they express these concerns, they are shut down with “well, it’s ADA compliant.”
Who gets to decide what is helpful and truly accessible to someone in a wheelchair? For that matter, who created the ADA laws? I actually don’t know the answer to this. Were disabled people involved in created ADA accessibility standards?
Whether or not they were involved in creating the federal standards, the disabled in our midst ought to be involved in creating the standards for our churches. They ought not to be an “afterthought,” as I have seen many express.
There is more theology to unpack behind this next statement that I simply don’t have the space for here (perhaps another time). Our churches ought to be a reflection of the wedding banquet that will be in the New Creation (see Luke 14). This means that the lame, the blind, the disabled need to have truly helpful ways of accessing our churches. And the able-bodied should not be the ones to decide what is truly accessible. The disabled need to be part of the conversation. The disabled should, probably, lead the conversation. Are we willing to listen to them?
[1] Elizabeth Jackson, “Churches and the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Church Law and Tax, Christianity Today, July 5, 2016, https://www.churchlawandtax.com/human-resources/employment/churches-and-the-americans-with-disabilities-act/.
[2] Amy Kenny, My Body is Not a Prayer Request (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2022), 28-29.