In the past, pastoral care with the deaf generally took place from the
care perspective of hearing pastors: deafness as a disability that
deserved charity and a missionary effort towards integration of deaf
people into a hearing society. This book proposes a liberatory pastoral
model that starts from deaf people's self-experience, Deaf Cultures, and
Sign Language as deaf people's most natural language: deafness as a way
of life. In a deaf way of life, deafness is not an impairment or
disability, but a world in its own worth. In this Deaf World deaf people
are not passive receivers of pastoral ministry, but its primary agents.
Topics treated in this book are: the history of deafness in Western
culture, deaf people's self-experience, a non-dichotomizing view on
"impairment," a theological view on language, the deaf community as
locus theologicus, and Bible translation into Sign Language.