Hypocrisy of Religious Organizations Regarding Their Treatment of People With Disabilities.

“God is not partial and is no respecter of persons. He has made provision for all. The harvest comes forth for everyone. The rain showers upon everybody and the heat of the sun is destined to warm everyone. The verdure of the earth is for everyone. Therefore, there should be for all humanity the utmost happiness, the utmost comfort, the utmost well-being.” -‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace

“All are Welcome” appears on signs, websites, and invitations in many religious communities. It is a good promise, and it can be tested. Can a member reach the door? Can a member read the invitation? Can a member take part once inside? When the answer is no, the words and the practice disagree. That disagreement has a name: hypocrisy.

This article looks at where the gap opens, what the evidence shows, why it keeps reproducing itself, and what a community can do on purpose to close it. Caring people can inherit barriers without choosing them. Caring people also hold the power and the responsibility to remove them.

What Hypocrisy Is, and What the Teachings Say

Hypocrisy is, in the words of Merriam-Webster, “behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel,” and in particular “the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion.” In practice, it is the gap between what a community says it believes and what its everyday systems do.

Religious traditions across the world name this failure and warn against it:

• “O you who have believed, why do you say what you do not do? Great is hatred in the sight of Allah that you say what you do not do.” (Qur’an 61:2 and 61:3, Sahih International)
• “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Jesus, Luke 6:46, NIV)
• “Those who restrain the external organs of action, while continuing to dwell on sense objects in the mind, certainly delude themselves and are to be called hypocrites.” (Bhagavad Gita 3.6, translated by Swami Mukundananda)
• “Much though he recites the sacred texts, but acts not accordingly, that heedless man is like a cowherd who only counts the cows of others…” (Dhammapada, Verse 19, translated by Acharya Buddharakkhita)
• “O hypocrite, renounce and abandon your hypocrisy; do not practice deception.” (Bhagat Namdev, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Ang 973)
• “Let your acts be a guide unto all mankind, for the professions of most men, be they high or low, differ from their conduct.” (Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, CXXXIX)

A Welcome Is Real Only When Participation Is Possible

A disability does not stop a member from taking part in community events. Barriers do: barriers in the building, in the materials, and in the way a gathering is planned and run. The Social Model of Disability starts from this point. So does the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which recognizes in its Preamble that disability results from the interaction between people and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.

Three examples show how this works in a religious community:

• A building reached only by stairs, with no ramp or elevator, excludes members who use wheelchairs. The wheelchair is not the barrier. The stairs are.
• Paper invitations and other print only materials exclude Blind members and members with low vision from information everyone else receives. Blindness is not the barrier. The inaccessible material is.
• Videos without captions exclude Deaf and hard of hearing members from the spoken content. Videos without Audio Description leave out the visual information that Blind and low vision members cannot see on screen.

Leviticus names this kind of barrier plainly:

“Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God.” -Leviticus 19:14 (NIV)

In community life, the stumbling blocks are rarely objects on the floor. They are choices about environment, materials, and process.

Where the Barriers Hide

Format control. It happens when we choose materials that keep the creator’s layout instead of the reader’s access. When text is turned into an image, or a PDF lacks reliable structure and reading order, Blind members who use screen readers can be shut out of the content entirely. The article on the design failures of print and online PDFs explains why. The international accessibility standards address these failures. For digital content, the main standard is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendation published in December 2024, and the guide to training in the international accessibility standards points to free courses.

How we run our gatherings. When key information appears only on a screen or a wall, or when participation depends on cues that can be followed only by sight, the routine itself becomes the gatekeeper. Real access means planning the information and the path to participation so that each works in more than one way. The guide to planning welcoming, accessible gatherings takes invitations, venues, programs, and activities one decision at a time. The guide to making materials accessible to Blind readers covers braille, large print, audio, and electronic files, and the page on accessible forms lists what a registration form requires, including labeled controls, clear instructions, and error notifications.

Deciding without the people most affected. When People with Disabilities are left out of planning, the barriers stay invisible to the planners, however caring they are. The people who meet a barrier are the most qualified to find it. Ableism, the bias that treats being nondisabled as the ideal, includes ignoring People with Disabilities completely as community activities and event planning take place. The United Nations Convention applies the principle of consultation to governments: in decisions concerning persons with disabilities, States Parties “shall closely consult with and actively involve persons with disabilities” (Article 4, paragraph 3).

What the Evidence Shows

Disability is common. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that more than 1 in 4 adults (28.7%) in the United States have some type of disability. Barriers affect a large share of the members of any community.

The promise is the standard. The Americans with Disabilities Act exempts religious organizations and entities controlled by religious organizations, including places of worship, from Title III, the part of the law that covers businesses and other places open to the public. Whatever other laws apply to a particular building, that exemption means Title III does not set the standard for a place of worship. The standard is the welcome the community announces.

Practice varies widely. A 2024 study in Review of Religious Research randomly surveyed Christian churches in the United States and analyzed responses from 127 churches. Most offered multiple accessibility features, but offerings varied widely, and few congregations offered features that reflected broader efforts to address accessibility.

Why the Gap Keeps Reproducing Itself

Access Is Treated as Charity Instead of Belonging

Many communities default to a giving mindset: we serve them, we do something kind for them. That framing makes access optional and conditional, a gift that can be withdrawn, instead of a basic expectation of community life. The flaw is not kindness. The flaw is a framework that keeps People with Disabilities in the role of recipients instead of equal participants and partners. The article on charity versus service separates the two. The Social Model adds the practical point: the barrier is in the environment and the system, not in the person, and that tells builders exactly what to change.

“We Don’t Have Anyone Like That Here” Becomes a Story That Proves Itself

When People with Disabilities are absent, a community sometimes concludes that access is not required. Often the absence is the result. Barriers keep people away in the first place, and the community then reads the empty seats as proof. Access has to be designed in advance, because location, communication, transportation, and participation details decide who can attend. The article on eight ways ableism shows up in religious spaces shows how this appears in prayers, programs, seating, and expectations.

Convenience and Appearance Come Before Equity

Inaccessible publishing choices are often defended with “this is how we have always done it” or “this is what our tools produce.” Print first workflows and PDF as the default put the creator’s control of layout ahead of the reader’s use of the content. The same pattern appears when accessible materials are not a normal practice. Not having accessible materials is itself a barrier.

The Cost of Access Is Stressed While the Cost of Exclusion Is Ignored

Disabled scholar Amy Kenny writes in Sojourners that churches were more focused on the cost of inclusion than on welcoming disabled people into the community. Exclusion has a cost of its own, and the Bahá’í International Community named it in a 1988 statement to the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities:

“Society will be the loser if it fails to benefit from the talents of disabled persons.” -The Bahá’í International Community, Human Rights and Disability (6 August 1988)

Exclusion blocks participation in programs, services, events, and communications, and it cuts members off from belonging and value in the life of their community. The page on removing barriers describes the barriers and the practical steps to remove them.

Disability Is Treated as an Exception

When disability is treated as an exception that disrupts normal community life, accessibility is ignored until someone complains or is harmed by exclusion, and often it is ignored even then. The Social Model rejects that framing. It names barriers as the cause and places responsibility on planners and hosts to remove them. When People with Disabilities are left out of planning, the exclusion is built into the system, not into the person.

What Belonging Looks Like

Belonging is concrete and measurable. People with Disabilities are expected, included, able to contribute, and valued, because the environment, materials, and process are built with them in mind. They take part fully as equal members of the community. Unity in Diversity describes a community in which every member is welcomed and difference strengthens the whole.

Each measure serves particular members and removes a particular barrier:

• A ramp or elevator and an accessible restroom remove the stairs barrier for members who use wheelchairs.
• Agendas, handouts, and study texts in braille, large print, audio, and accessible electronic files give Blind members and members with low vision the same information at the same time as everyone else.
• Captions and sign language interpretation give Deaf and hard of hearing members access to spoken content. Audio Description gives Blind and low vision members the relevant visual information in a video.
• Labeled form fields and clear error messages let members who use screen readers register without asking another person to do it for them.
• Consultation with People with Disabilities before the plan is drawn puts the knowledge of those who meet the barriers into the plan. A clear way to report a barrier, with a timely reply, keeps the plan honest.

Many of these measures also serve other members. Captions reach anyone in a noisy room, and a ramp reaches a parent with a stroller. They exist because particular members cannot take part without them.

Calling the contradiction hypocrisy is not about shaming people. It is about telling the truth so that a community can change what can be changed. Start where you are:

• Walk the route from the street to the meeting room and note every step, door, and surface.
• Read your last invitation and your last registration form with a screen reader.
• Add captions before posting a video, and ask a describer about Audio Description.
• Ask People with Disabilities in your community, privately and early, which formats work for them.

Resources for Faith Communities

• That All May Worship: An Interfaith Welcome to People with Disabilities (PDF), from the Interfaith Disability Advocacy Coalition of the American Association of People with Disabilities, includes an audit of barriers covering parking, ramps, doorways, restrooms, and worship spaces, and guidance on communication formats and attitudes.
• The Anabaptist Disabilities Network offers a Congregational Accessibility Survey that assesses a congregation’s physical and attitudinal accessibility in five areas: mobility, hearing, sign language, vision, and disability awareness and inclusion.
• Harvard University Information Technology publishes Creating Accessible Emails, with guidance on templates, color contrast, image descriptions, and readable formatting so that messages reach members who use screen readers.

Questions for Reflection

Bring these questions to a community reflection gathering. Look for the answers in records, calendars, and the experience of the people affected.

1. Where does our community say “All are Welcome,” on a sign, a website, or an invitation? If a member who uses a wheelchair, a Blind member, or a Deaf member acted on that promise this week, what would each one find, and who has checked?
2. Which of our welcome statements can we match to something we changed in the past year, and which can we not? What do our records, calendars, and budgets show?
3. Where have we told a member that access would come later? What was the promise, who holds the date, and who has the authority to keep it?
4. Who chooses our meeting places, writes our invitations, and publishes our materials, and which of those people are People with Disabilities? What would change if the people who face the barriers sat where those choices are made?
5. When we discuss the cost of removing a barrier, what figures do we use, and what do we leave out? What have members lost in participation, leadership, and belonging while a barrier stayed in place?
6. Which phrases and habits in our community, such as “we have always done it this way” or “we don’t have anyone like that here,” have shaped our choices about access? Whose absence do they explain, and how would we find out?
7. Whom has your community not yet heard from, because the barriers kept them out of the room? What is one concrete step to reach them before the next plan is drawn?
8. Which one barrier will we remove in the next thirty days? Who will remove it, who will confirm with the people it affects that it is gone, and where will we report the result?