From Universal Design for Learning to Universal Design for Communion with the Living God

Abstract

In this article, Jay Dolmage and John Calvin are brought into conversation with one another to develop a theological framework for pastoral and practical reflection on the intersection of disability and Christian worship. Dolmage has pressed his imagination into accessible education, accommodation, and Universal Design for Learning. His discussion of especially accommodation prompts imaginative consideration of Calvin’s appropriation of the Christian tradition’s theology of divine accommodation. This in turn yields an understanding of worship and its multiple practices as God’s Universal Design for Communion with the Living God, an understanding that is then given practical illustration.