Becoming Friends of Time

…its invitation to ‘timefullness’ has profound meaning for everyone, able-minded or otherwise. Page by page, the reader is challenged to evaluate and hone his or her relationship with God, time and others, particularly those with intellectual disabilities. ‘In God’s time, we do not compare ourselves to the strongest, the fittest, the fastest, the cleverest or the most competitive among us. The only comparison we make is with a God who walks at three miles an hour, a God who waits for us if we cannot keep up and sits with us if we cannot walk. A God who has time for us’ (p. 82). This is a message that can only bless and enrich our lives, personally and professionally. Dr. Swinton is to be commended for offering it to us in this profoundly moving book!

…Swinton’s Becoming Friends of Time offers an incredibly profound and refreshing take on not just disability but theology, powerfully reorienting us to a God whose redeeming time graciously offers the gifts of discipleship and vocation to all.

In Becoming Friends of Time, John Swinton offers a profound reflection on how our understanding of time shapes our engagement with disability.

In this excellent book, John Swinton offers a fresh and compelling perspective on theological discussion of disability by reflecting on its intimate relationship with the concept of time.

“Swinton’s book encourages all of us to be attentive, subversive, and faithful in our engagement with time.”

[Swinton’s] theological and experiential reflections offer real ways to reimagine discipleship alongside those within life’s range of varying differing abilities. Swinton acts as an important and necessary conversation partner for academics and pastors who rely heavily on ‘normal’ cognitive and neurological development, freeing those with rigid conceptions of practical theology to active, contextual care.

Creative, thoughtful, and convicting.

Swinton invites the reader into dialogue with the openness of a pastor, the sensitivity of a nurse, and the diligence of one who has personally witnessed the crises of disability. His writing style reflects his theological approach–practical and accessible.

Theologically rich and pastorally astute.

There is much to appreciate and enjoy in reading this rich book, particularly in the way the author goes back and forth between stories of disability experience, biblical narrative, and theological reflection.

This wonderfully thought-provoking book by John Swinton takes its cue from such profoundly disabled people to argue that many of the challenges they face would be overcome if time were on their side.

John Swinton is Professor in Practical Theology and Pastoral Care at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He was given the Oskar Pfister Award by the American Psychiatric Association for making an outstanding contribution to religion and psychiatry in 2018.