The Claggett Statement

The Claggett Statement was first published along with this introduction by Charlotte Baker-Shenk.

I

WE BELIEVE: God created the world and saw that it was good. God created women and men to live with dignity and self-respect as children of God. God wants people to live together with justice, equality, freedom, and mutual love.

Instead of trusting God’s plan, people made themselves into false gods, oppressing each other and creating injustice, wars, suffering, and death.

But God did not give up on them (us). God sent Jesus as a visible sign of God’s liberating love.

Jesus grew up poor. He loved and intimately associated with poor and oppressed people. He knew their suffering and their needs. In relationship with these poor and oppressed ones, Jesus showed us God’s compassionate love and God’s desire for us all to live with justice and freedom.

Instead of accepting Jesus’ way, people rejected the Truth. And Jesus suffered the depths of human pain, degradation, and death.

But praise be to God who enabled Jesus to break through the shackles of deceit and death, and raised Jesus to new life. The resurrection of Jesus gives us great hope that we, empowered by the Holy Spirit, too can break through the shackles of arrogance and oppression.

II

WE RECOGNIZE a variety of experiences of hearing loss. Some people are deafened as adults; some as children; and some are deaf from birth. All have suffered.

Many deaf people share a common culture, a common language (American Sign Language or “ASL” in the United States and many parts of Canada) and a common heritage of oppression. These deaf people, collectively, are often called the “Deaf community.”