Joni Eareckson Tada on Wilberforce Award, 'Better Off Dead Than Disabled' Mentality

A disturbing belief is spreading within the hearts of many around the world and within America: that a person is better off dead than disabled.

But a leading advocate for people with disabilities is fighting that notion and looking to educate the world and the church about the precious lives and rights of "those who seem to be weaker."

The Christian Post spoke to Joni Eareckson Tada on Thursday, the founder and CEO of Joni and Friends International Disability Center, about her countless achievements for the disabled community, unwavering faith in God, battle with breast cancer, and her latest recognition by Breakpoint and The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

The 62-year-old evangelical author, who became a quadriplegic at the age of 17 due to a diving accident, just recently learned that she would be honored with the prestigious Wilberforce Award – named after the British parliamentarian who fought for 26 years to abolish slavery in Great Britain – during the annual Wilberforce Weekend held at the end of March.

CP: First of all, how do you feel to have gotten this award? Were you surprised, shocked? How did your husband react?

Tada: I was completely stunned by the news that I would be receiving this year's Wilberforce Award. I had actually nominated someone else, and when I received the first notification, I thought the committee had accepted my nominee. Imagine my surprise when I read it and discovered I was the recipient. My husband? He was just plain proud!

Tada: For many years I have worked hard to promote a biblical worldview on disability, whether in churches or in the community. I served on the National Council of Disability and helped spearhead the effort to draft the original Americans with Disabilities Act. Most of all, it's been my heart's desire to see the church carry out the mandate from the Gospel of Luke, the 14th chapter where Jesus says to go out and find the disabled and bring them in. My life goal is to see the world's one billion people with disabilities embraced and encouraged by the church.

CP: What do you believe is the greatest achievement you and your organization have accomplished for the disabled?

Tada: I believe we have brought the plight of the world's special needs families before the church, reminding them that "those who seem to be weaker" are actually indispensable. Whether through the 25 U.S. family retreats we sponsor, or the thousands of wheelchairs and Bibles we've distributed in developing nations, our passion is to make certain these disabled people and their families find a place in the fellowship of the church.

CP: What do you believe is the foremost important problem right now facing the disabled and how is your foundation working to fight and overcome this?

Tada: There is a growing premise in this country and around the world that a person really is "better off dead than disabled." This premise reflects a fundamental fear that people have about disability and, unfortunately, it has influenced social policy, such as the legalization of physician-assisted suicide and the destruction of human embryos for stem cell research. Just this week a couple in Oregon were awarded $2.9 million because doctors did not diagnose their unborn child with Down syndrome. When we disregard the rights of the weakest and most vulnerable among us, then the rights of all of us are in jeopardy.

CP: How is your health right now? I know you were battling breast cancer. Have the treatments finished? Are you now in remission?

Tada: My health is great! It's been nearly 20 months since my battle against Stage 3 breast cancer and I have a little under four more years to go before I can be declared cancer free. As long as I take my daily medication, I feel I'm on the right and best track!

CP: With another obstacle to overcome, how do you continue to look to God for strength and reason that everything that He has planned for your life is for His glory and for your good?

Tada: My weakness, that is, my quadriplegia, is my greatest asset because it forces me into the arms of Christ every single morning when I get up. As long as I come to God with my need, I am promised more than enough grace to help me smile, not in spite of my disability but because of it. And that's good!

CP: Is there any words of advice you would like to give those who continue to fight injustice throughout the world?

Tada: The Bible is replete with commands to persevere, especially in the face of injustice. The God of the Bible also heartily commends those who strive for mercy and justice in this world. God is truly on the side of those who work for social justice, especially when we accompany that work with the giving of the Gospel!

Joni Eareckson Tada is the senior associate for Disability Concerns for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization and has authored nearly 50 books on disability and Christianity including her best-selling autobiography Joni.

For more than 30 years, she has worked to accelerate Christian ministry in the disability community through her wide array of life-affirming ministries begun by her organization including Wheels for the World, Christian Institute on Disability, the International Disability Center, Family Retreats, and her television and radio programs geared toward encouraging people with biblical insights.

She and her husband Ken Tada are currently traveling around the Bay area, speaking at different venues to energize and inform people about their disability ministry.

To learn more about Joni and Friends International Disability Center and keep updated on their status, click here.

There's a false sense of security many who follow these teachers have,

And that's the danger of looking at signs instead of Christ. I guess it's the mentality that if they have the sign that's supposed to come with salvation (true believers), then they can know that they have the salvation.

But that immediately puts it in the category of not walking in faith.

I've been reading and rereading Hebrews 11 and 12 this week.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

It's the assurance that we have what we don't see. We have Christ. We have eternal life. We are seated with Him in the heavenly places. That is our possession now.

Again, the paradox of Christianity. My salvation is complete in Christ, I AM saved, justified, sanctified, dead, buried, and risen IN Christ, and yet it is not yet completed.

I am not in heaven yet, I am being sanctified, I am dead in Him and find the old nature still kicking. I am righteousness in Him and still see sin in my flesh.

I will only realize the fullness and completeness of my salvation when I die. Then it will be all mine and no longer by faith but by sight.

And you know what? This physical body is not the most important part of me. I've been healed emotionally and spiritually, which is of far more lasting value to me. I'd rather have been sick and be sick and where I am now in my walk with the Lord, than to be healed physically and still be a mess inside.

Why didn’t people like Joni get healed when they went with faith that they would?

But she is healed :>} It is her body which has the disability.

Why are not all Christians without illness or disabilities?

All the Disciples & all the Prophets left this world either by being killed or their natural death no matter what age it came at. We are not promised fine health in this world. This world is under the curse of sin as are our physical bodies. GOD did not rescind that.

I have a question. Would Joni have become who she become and reached the lives she reached had the accident not happened? Probably not. GOD uses adversity as His Tempering flame to form and strengthen those He loves to His purpose.

I know the harm the "not enough faith" sayers bring. I spent several years undoing it by a guy that told my wife because she lacked faith she remained in a wheelchair. Well the believer that told her that next thing I know is cheating on his wife.

Twenty seven years ago this fall my wife walked her last steps and collapsed. It was while we were dating actually. First night the doctors gave about 50/50 she'd make it. No cause, no answers, it just happened. The medical cause would not be determined for over another year. Her arms went up to her chest and locked. The nurse pulled them down they went back too her chest.

In ICU a few nights later two preachers she knew came in and laid hands on her for healing. What happened next would change our lives. A calm came over me and my wife says herself as well a peace like I have not known since. I alone though heard a voice from that peace telling me "It's going to be OK". I don't question where it came from I know where it came from.

It took a long time to discern the answers or meaning as to what it meant and what it would mean. Did it mean physical healing? Well naturally at first we thought so. Reality is the first six months pretty much determines spinal cord recovery. She got her fingers back, then hands, then arms and shoulders. That was it. Her spine at C-5 C-6 had narrowed, they also thought she possibly has Polio Relapse Syndrome at the same time. The Myelin had left her nerves.

Our first year of marriage was rough and a lot of adjusting. Actually we married in the hospital three months into a six month stay for her. As time passed we both grew closer too each other and too GOD. It did not stop more bad things from happening to her. She's had numerous close calls over the years. In 94 I became disabled but left with my physical strength. I had to quit work. So what did the word "It's going to be OK" mean? It meant this is too be and I am with you. Strengthen yourself in me.

Without GOD's Grace and His being with us we would not have made it. GOD's plan for us is life long. When I heard what I heard my life had been radically changed just months before that as I got a horror of calls as I got to work one morning from my dad saying my wife was dead. She died about an hour after I kissed her goodbye and left for work. She was almost 24.

A few months later and by taking a job transfer I would meet my current wife and that begin a friendship. My first wife died in the spring and I married late fall that year my second wife. For reasons some of which I can't go into our marriage plans were pushed up considerably. One had to do with two kids and her future. We knew mariage was going to happen. Plans got moved up fast due to behavior of some others involved.

We both had to do a lot of prayer and soul searching together and alone to make it through it all. "It's going to be OK" gave me the answer I needed as well as some healing within myself.

Do I believe a person can be healed through prayer? Yes if it is GOD's will that it be so. But we forget so easy the words of our Savior the hour before he was to be arrested.

Matt ch 26 39He went on a little farther and fell face down on the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine.”

What was GOD's answer? Did he spare Him? Christ asked three times. Now let's look at Paul.

2 Corinthians 12 I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from getting proud. 8Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9Each time he said, “My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me. 10Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

That is the answer right there. If Christ were asked too suffer, if Paul was to suffer, if other believers throughout the ages were also too suffer as recorded to The Glory of GOD for His purposes what would we think we would be spared? We are healed in spirit as our spirit being is healed through Christ.

I do not believe in the prosperity doctrine as some teach in relation too earthly matters. The Bible shows quite different.

God’s Word WORKS. IT IS TRUTH. And He is most definitely NOT a liar. Your debate should be with Him, not me. My faith rests on God’s Word, which is His power, not men’s wisdom.

You have stated this several times now that those who do not believe Scripture the way you do are calling God a liar. No one here believes God is a liar and we all agree that the Bible IS God's divinely inspired word. What appears to be happening is that you have an interpretation of the doctrine of "healing" but not everyone reads those verses you post and "gets" the same interpretation as you. This does NOT mean we are calling God a liar, just disagreeing with how you and a few others interpret those verses.

For example, if someone claims that all those who are filled with the Holy Spirit WILL speak in "tongues" and that anyone who does not speak in tongues is not saved because they do not have the proof of the Holy Spirit in them. They will ALSO say that if you don't believe all saved people speak in tongues, then you are calling God a liar. But it is instead their false "interpretation" of Scripture that we reject and it is not the same thing as calling God a liar.

There are several places in your comment where you have taken "liberties" with what is written and built an argument based upon your own viewpoint. For example, you say Job "foolishly" stated, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust (hope) in Him." You say, "Why would you have hope in someone that would so casually take life? How could that type of a relationship ever blossom and bear any good fruit without any trust?", yet that was NOT the way Job saw his situation. He said that in the midst of defending God to his friends who were speaking wrongly about God. In Job 13, he says:

Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it. What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you. Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God. But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value. O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom. Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips. Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him? Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God? Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him? He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons. Shall not his excellency make you afraid? and his dread fall upon you? Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay. Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will.

So here Job was telling off his so-called friends for their false beliefs about God. Job then continues:

Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand? Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him. He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him. Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears. Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.

Job knew that God was righteous and that he had been faithful to him. Though he did not understand why God had allowed such calamity, he STILL trusted in his goodness and mercy, so that was why he could say that even if he died, he would not stop trusting God. When you said that "Job brought down the hedge and allowed satan to run roughshod over him and that it was because of Job's "Fear, worry and unbelief", you falsely stated it was Job's fault that satan could have at him. But it was God who let down the hedge of protection around Job and it was God that permitted Satan to do anything he wanted to do to Job - with the exception of killing him. Job was "upright", "blameless" and "righteous" before God and his troubles were NOT because of his own fear, worry OR unbelief. Though he despaired the longer and more grievous his suffering, he did not "curse God and die" like his wife advised. He did not understand the "why" but he knew the "Who".

This, then, is another example of someone taking parts of Scripture, formulating a doctrine and then accusing people who disagreed with that doctrine of calling God a liar. It just doesn't cut it. No matter how many examples you give of Jesus healing people while he was here on earth you cannot conclude that he continues in that manner when he is no longer physically present here. Too many other Scripture passages would have to be eliminated for your idea to be true. By claiming that "If you continually talk unbelief, fear, doubt etc, you will harvest that in abundance.", you are essentially stating what all the other "name it/claim it" preachers do that God MUST do as you believe him to do. And no matter how many times you insist that is always the case, it is unavoidable that deeply faithful and believing Christians STILL are not always healed, and your only explanation for that is "they didn't receive it by faith". You said:

If God is willing to heal EVEN ONE person, He is willing to heal all, because he does not play favorites (Acts 10:34). God has been healing folks since Creation. That is His nature. That continues today to those that reach out in faith.

That is another example of a false interpretation of Scripture because there are other Scripture passages that dispute it. One case in point was the Apostle Paul who prayed three times for God to remove his "thorn in the flesh". Whatever this ailment was, God did not remove it. Did Paul lack enough faith? The right kind of faith? Did he fail to believe God? Did he fail to "claim it" from God?

There are other examples as well but the greatest one, the simplest and most easily missed one is: they ALL died. At some point in time, God stopped healing their bodies and their mortality (subject to death) took over. So why then do people not always receive physical healing? Your answer points to the person's unbelief, or their fear, or their worry, but God's answer for people like Joni and Paul is "trust me". We may not ever understand the purposes for our suffering this side of Heaven, but we KNOW whom we have believed and he is ever faithful. He is able to do all things and so we are able to bear all things according to the grace God gives us. Saying, "though he kills me, I will still trust in Him", is NOT foolish talk, it is a heart that truly trusts in God's plan and surrenders to whatever his will is - even if it may mean death. It is believing that not one thing can happen that God did not permit for HIS plan, HIS purpose, HIS will.

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