Continuing our series on Disability & Theology we are joined by Dr. Meghan Henning to talk about Hell & Disability in Early Christian Literature. Dr. Henning is Associate Professor of Christian Origins and the Director of Undergraduate Programs at the University of Dayton (in Ohio), and the author of Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability, and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christian Literature (published by Yale University Press). At the outset of our conversation, Dr. Henning shares her personal and familial experience with disability and how that led her into disability studies, and from there the bulk of our conversation is focused on the representation of damned bodies in Hell within early Christian literature, particularly apocalyptic texts from the first few centuries of Christianity. Notably, Dr. Henning highlights the way that bodies in Hell are generally depicted as effeminate and disabled, which is a distinct development within Christian texts relative to broader culture, and she explains how/why this link would have been made in the ancient world. This conversation covers a difficult topic, but it highlights the way that ableism and misogyny, among other things, affects early Christian reflection on the afterlife, which ought to challenge our contemporary perspectives on disability, gender, and eschatology. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Stephanie Kate Judd.

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