Are you an 'audist'?

In Mark 7:31-37, a man unable to hear or speak was brought to Jesus in hopes that he could be cured. Taking him aside, Jesus “sighed” (one of those telling details that Mark is known for), placed His fingers into the man’s ears and said “Ephaphtha,” meaning, “Be opened.” Immediately the neural canals and intricate connections designed to pick up sound waves and transmit them to the brain were reconstructed, and the first thing the man heard was the voice of his Savior. Wouldn’t you love to be him, for that moment?

Well, that depends. If you are an advocate for Deaf culture, possibly not. There’s a big difference between big-D Deaf and the lower-case word that means deprived (fully or partially) of hearing. The latter is viewed as an impairment. The former is a matter of identity and pride, a cause and a way of life.

Earlier this month, Audism Free America (AFA) staged a march on Washington in support of Deaf culture, American Sign Language, and the right to remain Deaf. Not that they put it that way, but there has been a long-running low-profile controversy between AFA and cutting-edge technology like the cochlear implant, especially for children born deaf. AFA and other Deaf culture organizations have taken on the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (AG Bell for short), because AG Bell, like its namesake, is an advocate for “oracular” education for the deaf. This is a method of instruction that emphasizes lip-reading and auditory training over sign language, which the Deaf regard as a more expressive and natural means of communication. The overarching theme of AFA is that the inability to hear should not be seen as a disability—Deaf culture is rather a celebration of being, for lack of a better term, “differently abled.” Audism is the opposite: an assumption of superiority by the hearing.

To those of us who love music, who enjoy the ripple of spoken language and the infectious hilarity of a baby’s laugh, “celebrating deafness” is an oxymoron. Granted, the celebrants are mostly those who have never heard and don’t grasp the full range of audio richness—better to enjoy their condition than bathe in self-pity. But Deaf culture is not about making the best of an unfortunate situation; it’s about fortifying an aberration, and possibly even seeding resentment against those who don’t feel the same way.

It’s another example of identity becoming an article of faith. How one “identifies” is sacrosanct, and no one can say a word against it. When President Obama made a statement against “conversion therapies” for gay and transgender youth, he was expressing the first commandment of the unwritten catechism: Thou shalt not interfere with how a sovereign individual identifies himself or herself (or themself or zirself)—especially if the identity used to be a considered abnormal. We know better now.

Except we don’t. For Christians, “Who I am” is not the founding principle; it’s the problem. Whether male or female, gay or straight, whole or infirm, identity is not a one-word designation—it’s as layered and complex as the symphony of sounds in the auditory world. We don’t fully know who we are, but God knows. To locate all or most of one’s identity in a physical state is not empowerment but limitation, as Paul, a “Pharisee of Pharisees,” came to understand. True freedom is to find ourselves in Christ.