#362 Disability Justice? The Hidden Branch of Critical Theory Infiltrating the Church | Ela “The Disapologist”
The Alisa Childers Podcast
Alisa Childers
4.9 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 15 March 2026
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens when critical theory gets applied to disability? In this fascinating conversation, Alisa sits down with Christian apologist Ela, known online as The DisApologist, who herself lives with a physical disability, to talk about the rise of disability theology and disability justice, and why so many of its claims are incompatible with a biblical worldview.
Drawing parallels to critical race theory and gender theory, Ela explains how disability is increasingly being framed through the lens of oppressed vs. oppressor, with “able-bodied” people cast as the privileged class. Together, we discuss how these ideas are showing up in the church, how books like My Body Is Not a Prayer Request are influencing Christians, and why it matters so much to think biblically about suffering, healing, justice, identity, and human dignity.
This conversation is both eye-opening and deeply practical. How can churches be truly welcoming and accessible to people with disabilities without importing unbiblical theology? What does Scripture actually say? And how can Christians respond with both compassion and truth?
This is an important episode for anyone who wants to think clearly, love well, and stay grounded in a biblical worldview.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think it was Voddy Bakum that had said that critical social theory kind of functions like a train, right? |
| 0:06.0 | Where you've got the oppressed versus oppressor, that Marxism is the driving engine, |
| 0:13.0 | and then the boxcars are all the different identities. |
| 0:17.0 | And so of course, disability is one of those box cars. It's almost a copy paste of what you see in critical race theory, gender theory, except now it's disability. |
| 0:29.6 | It's able-bodied versus disabled. I've got a fascinating conversation for you today with my friend Ella who goes by the |
| 0:48.2 | Disapologist on social media. |
| 0:50.2 | She goes by that name because she is a Christian. |
| 0:53.3 | She's an apologist and she has a disability. |
| 0:56.0 | And she is pushing back against some of the unbiblical theology that surrounds the conversation of disability. |
| 1:03.6 | Today's episode is brought to you by Brave Books, a Christian Children's Entertainment Company. |
| 1:08.2 | You can go to Bravebooks.com slash Childers for 20% off your order. |
| 1:13.0 | Okay, I am excited to bring you this conversation I had with Ella, but let me just kind of give |
| 1:17.8 | us some context here. So maybe you've heard of critical race theory. Maybe you've heard |
| 1:21.9 | of critical gender theory or critical queer theory. But maybe you haven't heard of a subset of the critical |
| 1:29.6 | theories called disability theory, or it sometimes is referred to as disability justice, or disability |
| 1:36.9 | rights, or disability inclusion. If you've heard some of these terms, we're going to put some |
| 1:42.2 | flesh on this for you today and help you understand where this is coming from and where some of these unb we're going to put some flesh on this for you today and help you understand |
| 1:44.2 | where this is coming from and where some of these unbiblical ideas come from. One of the highlights of |
| 1:49.2 | today's conversation was when Ella gave her review of a book that's called My Body is Not a Prayer |
| 1:55.3 | Request. Now this is a book that sold very well. A lot of progressive Christians supported and |
| 2:00.7 | endorsed this book. There were even |
| 2:02.2 | a lot of conservative churches that were doing studies based on this book because in the eyes of many |
... |
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