Includes bibliographical references and index.

Thesis : Ashley not as object but (God's) friend -- Book outline -- Situating the text : methodological assumptions -- Situating the author : a project grounded in l'Arche -- A new approach to an old dilemma : the "Ashley treatment" and its respondents -- Ashley x -- Ashley's embodiment -- The Ashley treatment -- The parent's motivations -- Other perspectives -- Responses in support : serving everyone's best interests -- Those opposed : a medical fix for a social ill -- Conclusion : Ashley under the medical gaze -- Exposing the power of medicine through a Christian body politics -- A caveat : cracks in the Baconian edifice -- To relieve the human condition : the triumph of the Baconian project and technological biomedicine -- The medical model of disability -- Baconian biomedicine as one of the powers : a Christian view of the body -- Excursus : on suffering (from) disability -- Conclusion -- Disability, society, and theology : the benefits and limitations of the social model of disability -- The promises and perils of the social model of disability -- The social model : from spoiled identity to disability pride -- The social model : a critique -- Theology and the social model -- The disabled god -- Spirit and the politics of disablement -- Conclusion : from self-representation to friendship -- No longer slaves but friends : the recognizing power of friendship -- A theology of friendship -- The nature of philia -- Theological foundations : God's gift of friendship -- Christian friendship : beyond sameness and "equality" -- No longer slaves but friends : philia and the gospel of John -- Asymmetry and friendship -- Reciprocity and mutuality -- The power of mutuality : receptivity and the body -- Friendship as recognition -- Conclusion -- The church as community of friends : embodying the strange politics of the kingdom -- The politics of dependence of the community of friends -- The truthful narrative of the ecclesial self -- The strange polis of the kingdom of God -- Practicing an alternative politics -- Practices : bodily political rituals -- Footwashing : the theologic of the kingdom -- Conclusion -- Beholding the politics of the impossible: l'Arche as an embodiment of the church as a community of friends -- The story of l'Arche : founded on pain and providence -- L'Arche as a habitus of friendship and recognition -- Vanier's theology and spirituality of friendship -- A community of recognition : core members as teachers and exemplars -- L'Arche as counter-culture -- Footwashing : practicing the politics of the impossible -- Footwashing in l'Arche -- Receiving and undergoing the gift of God's friendship -- Conclusion -- Implications and contributions of this project.

In 2004, the parents of Ashley, a young girl with profound intellectual disabilities, chose to stop her growth, perform a hysterectomy, and remove her breast buds. This "Ashley Treatment" (AT) was performed in consultation with pediatric specialists and the hospital ethics committee, who reasoned that these changes would improve Ashley's quality of life and ease the burden on her primary caregivers: her mother and father. But Jason Reimer Greig proposes that the AT represents the most pernicious elements of modern medicine in which those with intellectual disabilities are seen as objects and perpetual children in need of technological manipulations. Drawing on--and criticizing--contemporary disability theory, Greig contends that L'Arche, a federation of Christian communities serving the intellectually disabled, provides an alternative response to the predominant bioethical worldview that sees disability as a problem to be solved. Rather, L'Arche draws inspiration from Jesus' service to the "least of these" and a commitment to Christian friendship between the able-bodied and the intellectually disabled, in which the latter are understood not as objects to be fixed but as teachers whose lives can transform others into a new way of being human.

Description based on print version record.