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Editor's Note: Tiffany DeVries contributed to this article as an assistant researcher and writer.

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.¹

Discipleship commonly highlights scriptural knowledge, creedal familiarity, and rational agreement—key features of a rich theological tradition. The call of Matthew challenges this: Matthew follows without referencing these components. There is command and obedience, without theological justification. This passage reveals discipleship without reference to cognition. 

I have a 30-year-old son, Rafi, who has Down syndrome. He is cognitively limited. He worships, reads, and takes communion. He ccannot express complex ideas. Can Rafi be a disciple? Can he follow Jesus' call? This essay is a call to radical discipleship through hospitality and belonging.

My research introduces hypo-cognitive discipleship—following Christ in ways that arise outside theological comprehension. While conversion, conviction, and biblical knowledge have richly shaped tradition, they are not ideal for all. Matthew's call challenges assumptions about qualification, merit, and able-bodied norms. It extends to the bewildered, excluded, and vulnerable, offering belonging beyond token inclusion.

We lack details of Matthew's "inner decision." But discipleship is a single imperative: "Follow me!" This implies a life marked not by cognitive content but by exclusive attachment to Christ. This is hypo-cognitive discipleship. The central initiative is Christ's, decentering discipleship from human cognitive assent and reasoning. This challenges traditions that prioritize intellectual study, apologetics, and creeds: all gifts, but not foundational for Rafi and people like him. Discipleship does not primarily begin or reside in the mind; it begins with a hypo-cognitive encounter with Jesus.

The Problem: Able-Bodied Assumptions

Discipleship models that only build on able-bodied assumptions exclude people like Rafi. They perpetuate misconceptions about the spiritual potential of those with intellectual disabilities by elevating reflection, rational faith, and reasoning as prerequisites for obedience and growth. This reflects able-bodied prejudice and marginalizes a vital part of Christ's body.

The church's hyper-cognitive focus leaves people like Rafi excluded. Separate ministries with adapted materials, though well-meaning, risk tokenizing inclusion rather than fostering belonging. Belonging is central to Paul's radical notion of weakness in 1 Corinthians 12.² Rafi's belonging challenges the church to put him at the center, rather than provide nominal symbolic inclusion. Inclusion without belonging is hollow. Belonging is true inclusion.

Rafi prays, expresses remorse, and is willing to make amends. He shows kindness and consistent politeness to strangers. His spiritual growth is not linear or measured by milestones; it is a mosaic of daily acts: easy forgiveness, frequent gratitude, and resilience to try again after failure. God's work continues in him. Yet, although he has been welcomed and included for 30 years, he has never belonged.

Reconceiving Obedience

People like Rafi must not be disqualified from the life of the church due to cognitive or linguistic limitations or lack of conceptual vocabulary. Discipleship begins with obedience, not understanding.³ Faith arises from the authority of the call. Conversion is not just mental assent but an embodied reorientation of will and body in response to divine initiative. Discipleship depends not on ability but on Christ's call and grace, decentering cognition as a prerequisite.

We are not called to assimilate disabled persons into able-bodied norms but to be converted by their presence—to be reminded that everyone comes to the table not as the righteous but as those Christ calls, heals, and gathers. In a world obsessed with utility, performance, and perfection, discipleship begins when Jesus says, "Follow me," and we rise not by strength but by grace.

Matthew's call draws a tax collector—a symbol of moral compromise—without an accessible vocabulary for his response. The Pharisees' objection reveals their own hypo-cognition; unable to conceive of expansive mercy that redefines belonging, they see only the righteous and sinners. Discipleship rooted strictly in doctrinal systems will fail people like Rafi and others like him.

Divine Initiative and Weakness

Far from undermining evangelical commitment, this theology of disability rests on grace, divine initiative, and embodied belonging. Matthew's call challenges assumptions of moral qualification and able-bodied norms, inviting the unworthy and excluded into a community centered on Jesus. Faith arises not because the call makes sense but because the caller is trustworthy. Conversion doesn't depend on a perfect mind-body connection. Discipleship transcends cognition.

An ethical framework valuing strength, clarity, and efficiency is foreign to this theology. Bonhoeffer wrote, "God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way. . . he is with us and helps us."⁴ This rebukes historical and current ableism. Divine presence is mediated through suffering and solidarity, not competence or independence. The disabled body, misread as lacking, is a site of divine revelation.

Jesus declares, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick,"⁵ locating mission among the vulnerable. Disability is not a deficit but a condition where Christ's image is often most visible. For disabled disciples, participation in their weakness, dependence, and non-conformity to autonomy resonates with the cross. Agency is relational and interdependent, not solely individual.

The Myth of the Able-Bodied Disciple

At the heart of Christian practice lies a myth: that physical, intellectual, or emotional strength is a prerequisite for discipleship. This manifests in barriers where spiritual formation privileges cognitive mastery or verbal expression. Stanley Hauerwas criticizes this "cult of normalcy," urging churches to see gifts and needs of disabled people not as obstacles but as revelations of the body of Christ.⁶ Ability or disability is secondary to the deeper truth all Christians share: dependence on God's grace. "As creatures, we have nothing to offer; it is all gift and promise."⁷

Discipleship is not about striving for imagined wholeness or independence but toward a community of mutual care, vulnerability, and dependence on Christ. Hauerwas argues the body of Christ is incomplete if it only seeks to include those fitting an able-bodied mold; such a body fails to bear witness to the One who "made himself vulnerable to us," embracing weakness, suffering, and need.

Taking care of Rafi is a sacred vocation, but the church often treats it as my private problem. Proximity to his disability compels me to confront my own frailties and embrace life's ambiguities. Our abilities are temporary—it is part of what it means to be human. We must accept our frailty and mortality. Receiving care is not undignified or diminishing but sacred. Receiving care is a subversive vocation that the church has largely lost.

I oppose ableist assumptions where receiving help is seen as spiritual failure. Giving and receiving care is discipleship, fostering humility, gratitude, and solidarity. The disabled are not ministry "objects" but co-disciples modelling grace-filled trust rather than triumph. People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are not only to be welcomed but recognized as teachers, revealing intimate paths to Christ often hidden from the "strong."

Belonging Through Weakness

Belonging to a faith community as a non-able-bodied person is essential to mental health. Yet faith communities hold assumptions that belonging requires hyper-cognitive inner reflection, individual response, and rationalized faith. But sacred texts suggest faith that is hypo-cognitive. God is revealed multi-somatically.⁸ Those who encounter Jesus do so in diverse ways: approaching, sitting, begging, hearing, calling, bringing, shouting, following, and walking—embodied actions demonstrating faith.

Paul's theology of weakness, articulated most vividly in 1 Corinthians 12, states that the seemingly weaker parts of the body are indispensable and specially honoured.⁹ The New Testament "weak" often correlates with physical disability or illness. Responsibility for the weak reveals God's presence. We encounter Christ in the disabled. Life with the disabled is life together—this is belonging and discipleship.

For 30 years, Rafi has been welcomed and included but has never truly belonged. If he is included but does not belong, inclusion becomes toxic tokenism. If he belongs, he is included. True discipleship of the disabled begins with encountering limits—our own and theirs—where Christ lives in community. This messy commitment is life together in difference.

The church must stand for the disabled as Christ stands for us, sharing suffering and limitation. No simple formulas exist, only commitment to proximity to difference. Involving and caring for intellectually disabled persons in discipleship is not a lesser content but a countercultural lens, making discipleship real and human. Discipleship with Rafi sharpens human realities: all face mortality, all need care, all are vulnerable.

Toward a Liberated Vision

Rethinking disability and discipleship begin with a confession: all bodies and minds are limited, contingent, and dependent. The "able-bodied disciple" myth is a lie and an affront to the gospel proclaiming good news to the weak, different, outcast, and mourning. Discipleship is mutual vulnerability, not heroic independence. Disabled and neurodiverse gifts are essential and formative gifts without which the church is incomplete.

The true disciple is not "able-bodied" but one who follows Christ in surrender, interdependence, and hope—trusting grace in weakness. Rafi has a distinct way of being in the world. He approaches God without doctrine, creed, or verbalized thoughts. He is utterly dependent on God and may live discipleship even more deeply than the able-bodied.

The myth of the able-bodied disciple hinders our witness and diminishes God's work. Only by honouring difference, welcoming fragility, and proclaiming every human story's dignity can the church offer a liberating vision of discipleship. The relationship between the strong and the weak is this: the strong must look up to the weak. Weakness is holy; therefore, we devote ourselves to the weak.