Deaf People: Community and World View
Abstract
Communities of Deaf people consider themselves a minority with its own language, Sign Language, and culture. Two basic characteristics of Deaf Culture, its orientation on community and the awareness of an own Deaf worldview different from hearing people's worldview, are often not recognized by Christian Churches. This article tries to find a theological answer on this dramatic situation, formulating a theological foundation of the legitimacy of Deaf people's experience of God's presence in the Deaf community, and the thesis that God's presence can take place even in a very secular environment. The legitimacy of the experience of God's presence in the community is supported by statements of exegetes, Fathers of the Church, spiritual theologians, and Church historians about Jesus' presence amongst two or three. This presence needs of a new Pneumatic religious culture, which is based on the quality of relationship