Misconception5: All Disabilities Are Basically the Same
This article is part of a series that addresses common misconceptions about disability within the church. Each week, we examine one misconception and reflect on it through Scripture, theology, and pastoral practice, with the goal of seeking faithful ways for believers with disabilities and without disabilities to build a healthy church together. In earlier articles, I addressed these misconceptions: disability is a punishment for sin, people with disabilities deserve pity rather than partnership, people with disabilities cannot communicate with others, and people with disabilities only want healing.
In many churches, the word disability is treated as if it refers to one uniform category. When someone uses a wheelchair, people tend to recognize disability immediately. Yet many disabilities are not visible, and those members often receive less understanding and fewer accommodations. Chronic pain, chronic illness, neurodevelopmental differences, and mental health conditions can be dismissed as exaggeration or weakness. Congenital disability and acquired disability often involve profoundly different life experiences.
A person who has lived with disability since birth often develops identity, relationships, and daily rhythms with disability woven into the fabric of life. A person who becomes disabled through illness or accident often experiences a major transition marked by loss, grief, and reorientation. Some conditions are managed with treatment and ongoing hope for improvement. Other conditions require long-term adaptation and support. When the church overlooks these differences, genuine fellowship becomes difficult. Fellowship grows when we honor each person’s particular story and needs, rather than assuming we already understand.
This article uses a medical model of disability and several examples to show how the misconception operates. Disability can also be approached through social, cultural, and religious models. I am using the medical model because it is widely understood and provides clear categories for explanation. This does not mean it is the only faithful or appropriate perspective.
1. Intellectual disability
Intellectual disability often involves limitations in intellectual functioning and adaptive functioning. Adaptive functioning is not simply an IQ issue. It includes the capacity to manage daily life responsibilities, communicate in social contexts, handle time, money, and safety, and adapt to new environments. For that reason, a church member with intellectual disability may need more time to learn worship routines and community expectations. Participation can become significantly easier when instructions are simplified, repeated, and offered in consistent patterns. The church’s calling is to offer understandable language and patient accompaniment rather than quick judgments.
2. Developmental disability and neurodevelopmental differences
The term developmental disability can be confusing because its scope shifts by context. In Korea, legal definitions commonly focus on intellectual disability and autism. In many ministry settings, people may use developmental disability more broadly to refer to a range of neurodevelopmental differences. One crucial point is that these differences may not be obvious. Someone may speak fluently and perform well academically, while carrying heavy burdens related to sensory overload, challenges with executive functioning, difficulty interpreting social cues, and intense anxiety in unpredictable situations. The church should resist evaluating a person’s needs based solely on outward performance.
3. Psychiatric disability and serious mental health conditions
Psychiatric disability may include major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorders, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder. These conditions can bring sustained and clinically significant impairment in emotions, thought patterns, sleep, energy, and relational functioning. Unlike intellectual disability, intellectual capacity itself may remain intact. Many people appear highly functional outwardly while privately living with exhaustion, fear, shame, self-blame, and trauma responses. For that reason, invisible disability is often misunderstood in church. When a community assumes that cheerful greetings and faithful service mean there is no suffering, it may only recognize distress when a crisis has already become severe. The church needs to cultivate a posture that asks about the weight of life, not simply the expression on a face.
4. Autism spectrum
Autism spectrum is a developmental profile often characterized by differences in social communication and social interaction, along with restricted interests and repetitive patterns of behavior. Because autism is a spectrum, language use, intellectual ability, sensory sensitivity, and daily functioning can vary widely from person to person. The causes of autism are not reduced to a single factor and are commonly discussed in relation to complex developmental influences. Blaming autism on parenting lacks credible grounding and wounds individuals and families. A related misconception is that autistic people lack emotion. In reality, many autistic people experience deep emotion. Differences often appear in expression, timing, and communication style.
Another common misconception is that all autistic people have exceptional genius level abilities. Popular media can reinforce a narrow image of autism, especially through savant style portrayals. For example, the Korean drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo has been discussed in American media as part of a wider pattern of portrayals that can drift toward stereotypes, including savant framing. Some individuals on the spectrum do have remarkable abilities. Many do not. Some autistic people have very limited spoken language and need robust communication support. A faithful church welcomes the whole spectrum rather than expecting one familiar storyline.
5. Down syndrome
Down syndrome is a genetic condition in which a person typically has three copies of chromosome 21. It may involve intellectual disability, distinctive physical features, and sometimes significant health concerns such as congenital heart conditions. Yet individual differences are substantial. Even so, churches and society often fall into the habit of saying that people with Down syndrome are all similar. In reality, personality, interests, learning pace, social style, and humor vary widely. The phrase “they are always happy” may sound well intentioned, but it often reduces a person to a fixed stereotype rather than honoring the full range of their human experience. People with Down syndrome also experience sadness, disappointment, and grief, and they deserve full dignity, respect, and comfort.
In Denmark, there is no confirmed policy of state forced abortion for fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome. At the same time, Denmark has long had very high uptake of prenatal screening, and multiple reports and studies describe a major decline in Down syndrome live births, alongside very high termination rates following prenatal diagnosis. This reality raises a serious ethical question: who decides which lives are worth welcoming. The church is called to confess the dignity of life grounded in the image of God and to embody that confession through concrete hospitality and care.
6. Cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy is a group of conditions affecting movement and posture due to early brain injury or atypical brain development around the time of birth. Presentations vary widely and may include muscle stiffness, coordination challenges, and balance difficulties. Some individuals also have intellectual disability, while many do not. A frequent misconception is to equate cerebral palsy with intellectual disability. Physical impairment and intellectual capacity belong to different domains. A person may speak slowly or have unclear articulation while maintaining full comprehension. Cerebral palsy is not contagious, and while it is generally not considered a progressive neurological disorder, fatigue and secondary pain can increase over time. Churches often need to offer more time for communication and learn not to interpret difficulty with expression as lack of understanding.
7. Spinal cord injury
Spinal cord injury occurs when the spinal cord is damaged through trauma or illness, resulting in paralysis that may affect the lower body or all four limbs depending on the level of injury. Many people experience spinal cord injury as an acquired disability involving a dramatic life transition. Some assume that wheelchair users feel little or nothing. Sensory loss varies widely, and many people live with severe neuropathic pain and chronic pain. In addition, when people offer confident promises of recovery without understanding the medical realities, those words can become burdensome rather than comforting.
Neural regeneration after spinal cord injury is often limited, so rehabilitation, assistive technology, and ongoing research are all important. Even when full recovery is not possible, rehabilitation can increase function and quality of life. A wheelchair can also be a tool of mobility and freedom rather than a symbol of defeat.
Why this matters for the church
Disability is not a single experience. Causes differ. Features differ. Needs differ. Visible disability and invisible disability, congenital experience and acquired transition, and physical and intellectual dimensions all require careful attention. The claim that all disabilities are the same may feel efficient, yet it often becomes a barrier to meeting a member as a whole person. Love becomes practical when it becomes specific, and that specificity begins with listening.
First Corinthians 12 teaches that the body has many members, that difference is part of God’s design, and that mutual care is essential. When one member suffers, all suffer together, and when one is honored, all rejoice together (1 Cor. 12:26). Scripture also teaches that members who appear weaker are often indispensable to the community (1 Cor. 12:22). Learning the diversity of disability is one way the church practices honoring each person as a bearer of God’s image.
Three practical steps
First, release the habit of applying one form of care to every disability. Support for worship participation and community life often needs to be tailored to the person and the context. Second, recover the practice of asking and listening directly. You can ask questions such as: Which part of worship is most difficult for you? What kind of participation feels most accessible for you? Then honor the answers without rushing to correct them. Third, evaluate the church environment and communication patterns. Consider providing worship information in advance, identifying a quiet space for rest, reducing unnecessary sensory overload when possible, and shaping a culture that slows down communication. These steps often serve many people beyond those who identify as disabled.
As a new year begins, churches often make plans and set goals while praying for what God will do. I pray that the power of the gospel will reach those who are easily overlooked, including people with disabilities and their families. Through concrete practices of welcome, the church can grow into a community where believers with disabilities and without disabilities serve together more fully for the glory of God.