Hans Reinders: Reckoning with Jean Vanier’s Legacy (Tuesday June 27th, 2023)

L’Arche founder Jean Vanier was an important, and for some people crucial, inspiration for the Institute of Theology and Disability as it launched in 2010. Bringing self-advocates, faith leaders, and scholars together annually, the Institute reflects a vision for religious communities that not only welcome people with disabilities to participate but center their experiences. Vanier’s ideas, influence, and stories have been present (implicitly or explicitly) in its reflections over the past years. Many in the community mourned his passing together in 2019.

Jean Vanier’s disreputation, due to his history of sexual abuse coming (officially) to light in 2020, raises significant questions regarding his influential legacy and its relevance not only the Institute but for theology and disability more widely. Without any attempt to whitewash, or downplay the seriousness of his transgressions, the question cannot be avoided to sort out the good and the bad in his life and work. It requires soul-searching on the part of Vanier’s theological heirs and those who have been influenced by his life and work. Finally, his work with and influence upon L’Arche raises the question of sustainability and how its communities might – or might not – be shaped by his now-tarnished legacy.

Hans S. Reinders is professor emeritus of Ethics at VU University in Amsterdam, and co-founder of the (Summer) Institute of Theology and Disability. In his publications he is particularly concerned with reflecting on the lives and experiences of persons with intellectual disabilities and their families, with a special attention to persons with profound disabilities. His best known work in this connection is Receiving The Gift of Friendship – Profound Disability, Theological Anthropology, and Ethics (Eerdmans 2008). He retired from his Chair in ethics in 2016.