Autism and the Image of God with Harry and Ian

This week, Zoe is joined by Ian Lasch and Harry Gibbins. They discuss their research on autism and the Imago Dei and how our understanding of the Image of God impacts how we treat people. Harry also shares about Dungeons and Dragons as a way of addressing this topic.

The transcript for this episode is available here:
https://share.transistor.fm/s/405c4084/transcript.txt

Listen to Harry's Webinar on autism, theology, and Dungeons and Dragons here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cS_qM4Xu2s&list=PLmKrFyUVrIH74-RZvegXzmwxufEHJfQGo

If you have any questions, or just want to say hi, email us at [e-mail] or find us on twitter @autismtheology.  

This podcast is brought to you by The University of Aberdeen's Centre for Autism and Theology. 

Website: www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/centre-for-the-study-of-autism-and-christian-community-1725.php

The artwork for this podcast uses the Centre for Autism and Theology Logo, created by Holly Russel.

Creators & Guests

Host

Ian Lasch

PhD candidate at the university of Aberdeen researching autism and the Imago Dei

Host

Zoe Strong

PhD candidate at Aberdeen Uni studying dyslexia and engaging with the Bible. @SGSAH funded. @CumberlandLodge fellow. Autism and Theology Podcast host.

What is Autism and Theology Podcast?

The Autism and Theology Podcast is a space where we engage with the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, share relevant resources, and promote ways in which both faith and non-faith communities can enable autistic people to flourish.

Our episodes are released on the first Wednesday of every month. We have a variety of guests who are related in some way to the field of autism and theology. Some are academics, others are people with life stories to share, and some are both!

We also release CATChat every third Wednesday of the month. These are shorter and more informal episodes where your hosts will share news and give you as listeners an opportunity to ask questions and share your stories.

 Zoe
Hello and welcome to January's episode of the Autism and Theology Podcast.

I'm Zoe, one of your hosts, and today I'm joined by Ian, my other co host, and Harry Gibbins. And I've invited Harry and Ian to speak here, to come here today and speak about Autism, Theology, and the Imago Dei. But first, Ian, our regular listeners know you, and but Harry, would you like to introduce yourself?

Harry
Yes, sure. So, uh, my name's Harry Gibbins, as Zoe said. Um, I'm also a student at the University of Aberdeen. I'm doing a PhD, um, with the Centre for Autism and Theology. My, my project is on this intersection between autism and Christian ministry. So my research primarily focuses on the experiences of, uh, ministers, uh, who are kind of in a Christian context who are autistic, trying to understand what it's like, um, in that role and how autism presents, um, differences in how they approach that kind of role.

Um, I've done some work on the Imago Dei in previous research and it kind of crops up in a lot of, uh, what I've been writing the past year or so. Um, so I'm really looking forward to having this discussion.

Ian
Yeah. So, um, the Imago Dei is, is, uh, a really exciting topic. I'm, I'm excited to be here and, and talking about it too. Um, I'll say a little bit about why I got into it first, which is just to say, I've always been drawn to those sort of those, those concepts that lie, uh, Um, underneath everything that aren't always made explicit, um, that are, that are sort of central to theology, but often go unexamined.

And the Imago Dei is one of those. It's one of the sort of foundational theological and ethical concepts in, in the Christian tradition is what does it mean to be human? It's really a definition of theological anthropology. What does it mean to be human and created in the image of God? And that's picking up on, uh, the creation story in Genesis one, um, in Genesis one Chapter 1, verse 27, um, we're told that God created humanity in God's own image.

And Imago Dei is just the Latin translation of that, the image of God. Um, and so for centuries, really, I mean, really all along in the Christian tradition, one of the fundamental questions has been, what does that mean? What does it mean to be created in the image of God? And what is that trying to convey?

And it's never stated explicitly in Scripture, so we've, that's, that's been primarily the work of theologians to sort of expound upon it. And, um, the prevailing definition, one of the more common definitions that people, um, have, at least with, if they don't think about it a great deal, um, the, the sort of primary understanding that a lot of average Christians have is, built around the concept of rationality, right?

And this is dating back to Aquinas, and even before Aquinas, but really becomes mainstreamed with eh with Thomas Aquinas, because that's how he defines the Imago Dei is the rational soul or memory, reason, and will. And so a lot of people think that's what separate, because that's what separates us from the animals, quote unquote is rationality, then that must be what it means to be created in the image of God. And so if that's the prevailing understanding, um, then, then first of all, it's not self evident, right? It's not self evident from Scripture that that's true. Second of all, it's not entirely clear what we mean by rationality, and Aquinas definition probably doesn't exactly align with the average Christians today, um, and there are a lot of people who have different understandings of what rationality might mean, and so it's it's a, it's a contentious topic.

It's a topic that not everyone agrees on, even though we have the sort of same language that we put to it. Even if we talk about being created in the image of God, not everybody means the same thing by saying that. And that's. I think one of the more fundamental questions of disability theology is how do we define the Imago Dei?

How are we defining what it means to be human? Because so frequently, um, disability theologians have pointed out that how we define humanity inevitably leaves people out. Um, and particularly if we're building it around rationality or memory, reason, and will, then you're, you're, creating a definition that has some members that are clearly part of the human species that don't bear the image of God or don't bear the image of God as clearly based on how you've defined it.

And that has serious implications for the way that we treat people. You know, later in Genesis 9, um, the initial prohibition on murder is because humanity is created in the so even, even sort of in the base of our religious theory and ethics is the idea that human life has value because it bears the image of God.

And so if we're defining that in such a way that some people don't have it or don't have it as obviously or conspicuously, then what we've created is a situation where we've said, it's okay to treat them as less than human, because in some sense, they are less than human.

Um, and so that's what. That's what got me into it. That's why I think it's, it's a, it's such a live topic, particularly in disability theology. And I think it's, it's worth exploring from every possible angle.

Zoe
That's so interesting, Ian, to hear, um, more about the Imago Dei and how your interest in it began and came to be. Um, Harry, you've had a slightly different, um, route in I guess the thinking about the Imago Dei, would you be happy to share about that?

Harry
Yeah, sure. So I had, I guess I had a less initially a less academic approach to how I wanted to do my theological study. So when I left school, I had kind of surrendered myself to this assumption that I, I'm not a very academic person, um, and that that informed the, not just kind of the, the, where I wanted to go, kind of, as I left school and wanted to study at university.

Did I want to study at university? Did I want to go straight into work? Uh, but when I kind of came to that decision of, yes, I want to go and do a theology degree, it meant that I was a bit wary of these kind of, these Latin words and these large topics that, like Ian says, don't get talked about because they're not explicitly talked about in scripture and as church kind of likes to kind of root themselves in biblical language and Imago Dei isn't really, isn't literally biblical language in the sense that it's not laid out explicitly what it means.

So, fast forward to, um, at Aberdeen, I discover actually I love studying theology and I want to carry on doing it. Um, I move up to Aberdeen and I start studying for a master's degree. Um, And I wanted to have this focus on Autism and Theology, and hence the kind of link there with Aberdeen. Um, I, I, part of that process was to kind of try and stretch me to look deeper into theological areas that I wasn't comfortable with.

Um, I really, previously I'd done a lot of work in youth work and youth ministry, very vocational stuff. I really wanted to try and like, really give, if I was going to try and do academia, I wanted to really just try as much as I could, and that's how I came across kind of Christian ethics as a way in for that.

Um, I became very interested in what that kind of means for disability theology. Some people may know, but Aberdeen has quite a reputation for a lot of kind of disability theology stuff goes on there. Um, and so that inevitably led to me kind of reading up on the, the Imago Dei some more. The, the kind of domino effect that had was, um, this kind of realization that this question of what it means to be human being such an explicitly theological question, and yet we all think slightly differently about it, um, informs so much of how we, we kind of read in quotes, air quotes there, um, autism. What does it mean to be autistic? Um, is it just like a word we use to categorize people or is it something kind of deeper within we start peeling back the layers of a person. Where's the autistic layer? Is it at the core? Is it higher up? Right?

Um, this is how I kind of came to discovering there's different ways of approaching the Imago Dei in terms of is it, is it about rationality? Is there a more social element? Is it about the relationships we have with one another or between humanity and God? Is that what's meant by God made us in, in his image, et cetera, et cetera? Um, It kind of led me to these questions of, well, if it's, if it's, it's not necessarily a contentious topic, but if it's a topic where there is naturally so many different ways of understanding it, is there ways that actually Not necessarily harmful, but how you can, you can draw out a meaning from it that can, can give us a, an understanding of people who have disabilities, people who are autistic, or maybe even broader than that, people who are just different, um, to the, the norm, the normal, air quotes again, um, It's clear that we have to start thinking about these very carefully, especially if we're going to take that into the, like I am, into the context of how people then go and do ministry.

Yeah, so then I ended up writing a dissertation as part of this degree that focused quite heavily on using the Imago Dei as part of exploring autism theology.

Ian
Yeah. And Harry, you mentioned, um, sociability as one of those possible definitions. And that's the thing is, um, I, I talked about rationality as sort of the prevailing definition. I think a lot of people have of the Imago Dei, at least at least the average lay person. I think that's if they, if pressed, that's the answer that they would give, but it's not the only answer that's ever been given.

Um, we also have people who define, define it more performatively, right? So say that bearing the image of God is about, uh, our role as stewards of creation, right? And then there's, um, a more modern movement, I'll say in theology to define it in terms of social Trinitarianism or, um, bearing the image of God is, is related to the interpersonal relationship of the Trinity.

Well, the, the, the interesting thing about that, about both of those is, I think both of those also have issues. Um, and, and I'll say, the rationality portion, the memory, reason, and will, the, the primary criticism that I think is, is, Um, is important that I've heard of that has to do with mental illness and has to do with dementia. And what do we do when those sort of threaten to undermine the place where we've defined what it means to be human.

So I think we rightly say that can't be it. That can't be it perfectly. But then Stewardship and sociability are the other two sort of widespread definitions out there. And I think those potentially have issues too, um, particularly from an autistic perspective, right?

What does it mean if we're saying stewardship of creation has to be what it means to be human when autistics struggle with executive dysfunction, right? Like, that's, I'm, I have to be in charge, not only of myself, but also of all creation in order to bear the image of God. Like, that's, that's a problem. Um, and if we define the image of God in terms of sociability, in terms of inter Trinitarian relationships, the question I have is, who gets to define what is socially normative, right, particularly because that's one of the hallmarks of the, of the pathological definition of autism that most people have, which is saying that autistics have quote unquote social deficits or deficits in social communication.

Well, we know thanks to, um, Damian Milton and the double empathy problem that that isn't exactly true. And yet if we're defining the Imago Dei, if we're saying what it means to bear the image of God is to be social and to be in relationship, then unfortunately, we hit, we run the risk of crafting a definition that once again has autistics on the outside looking in, because they don't socialize the way that, that, uh, a neuro normative, neurotypically normative society expects people to function socially.

So, that's, that's sort of how I, that's That's how I got into this, and that's what I think is so important from the perspective of autism and theology is saying none of these definitions fit perfectly because there are holes or blind spots in all of them or areas that they all have something lacking.

Zoe
Yeah, it's so interesting hearing from both of you and both your kind of different angles that you're viewing this topic from. I'd be interested to know how that kind of the practical implications of both of your thoughts on the Imago Dei and how practically that looks in theology, in the field of autism and theology, and also in practice and faith communities or daily lives of people?

Harry
I'll jump in because I've just, I, right, so I was joking about this before we started recording, but I'm going to jump into it anyway. So, like I said earlier, I wrote a dissertation. It was all very formal and academic and there was lots of italicized Latin in it. I was having a great time. So many footnotes.

Um, one of the things that I, one of the conclusions I came to when asking these incredibly dense and open ended questions of what does it mean to be human? What does it actually mean to be made by this divine entity? What does it mean to be made in an image of something else? I came to this, to this, uh, like junction where I, I realized that there's so many different angles you can take to try and explain it away, but what's at the core of all of these is that we've got to think more kind of creatively about these assumptions we have, and this is kind of what Ian's just been saying, that there, there is, there is a normative assumption about what social ability means, and so when we approach something that is like autism, there's a conflict there, or there might be a conflict there, and that's where there's tensions.

That's where we start to get, we realize that our definition of what it means to be human works most of the time, and that's fine for most cases, right? Um, I started to kind of come at this from the perspective of if, if as a Christian I believe that, that all people are made in the image of God, then that means that these normative assumptions, we we are maybe subconsciously, but we are placing those within our social context ourselves.

Um, and we can see that. Even historically, if we look at say, um, the, the, the rise of feminism in the 20th century and how the, the, I'm doing lots of air quotes today, the role of the woman has changed dramatically over time, especially as 21st century, while there's still lots of work to be done, we can see that what a woman is, isn't consistent throughout history.

And if we think geographically, we see the same thing happen again. We see what a woman is, isn't necessarily consistent across the globe. And I think that kind of thought process is very useful. Um, when we start thinking theologically about autism, the normative assumptions about apparent social deficit might not be consistent.

So then taking it into a practical, to come back to your question, Zoe, to take it into like a practical application, I. As part of this, um, research project, I, I asked the question of, well, what's a really creative way I can approach this relational element that I've identified is an important talking point in this discussion of the Imago Dei, if we're to assume it's just to lean into that assumption that autistic people are going to, at the very least, maybe relate differently to people who are non autistic, are there ways that we can approach that, we can bridge that gap and see that actually this definition of Imago Dei, being made in the image of God, doesn't exclude autistic people?

And that led me to a really interesting, um, like, realization that I'm already doing that. So, I, um, every fortnight I play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends online. Uh, we have a great time and I love it so much and I will talk endlessly if I'm given the opportunity about how brilliant this fantasy game is, right?

To, to be incredibly brief, um, You focus, a lot of the game focuses around role play. So you're pretending to be someone else. Um, and I realized, uh, along, alongside my friends, we kind of came to this realization together, um, that often when people play a game like Dungeons Dragons, they, they take a really introspective approach to, um, asking the question of who do I, what character do I want to play as?

Who do I want to pretend to be for hours at a time, online on an evening? Um, and that that often leads to a question of, um, how much of myself do I want to put into this and how much of other people or things that I've seen, maybe influenced by stuff you've seen in TV or in a book, whatever, what do I want to bring in into the person I'm going to pretend to be?

Um, what often happens in these circumstances is that people, not all the time, people often will, will play characters who instill qualities that they either see in themselves or that they wish that they had. So they, they will play maybe a slightly, slightly more charismatic version of themselves if they feel like they wish they were more confident, right?

This meant that basically as I was pretending to be this character in a game, I was taking some, somewhat of myself, somewhat of that image, right, and placing it within the context of this fictional character I'd written. And I suddenly kind of, a switch flicked in my mind. I realized that that's a, that's a really interesting thought experiment to kind of take into the Imago Dei.

Um, how much, if I think of myself, In the process of creating, as God has created human beings, as creating his character, I almost cannot help myself but imprint myself on that. Um, how does that, um, inform the relationships that I then build with the other characters in the game of which other people are doing the exact same thing with as well.

I realized that even though, um, the character that I'm playing in the game kind of, is it inherently going to take on these characteristics for myself? I almost cannot, I cannot entirely remove the Harryness from it completely, even if I really tried, if I even really went out of my way to not do that, that would still be a conscious choice that I would have to make, that Harry is still having to make to shape this character.

Yet I'm still making, I'm still building relationships among my peers. Um, I realized that perhaps that perhaps the assumption that the neuro normative assumption that Ian has already addressed that I've brought into this is that I'm going to struggle because I'm autistic to build relationships and perhaps I can draw upon very real and tangible examples of that from when I was in school or a host of different examples, and yet here I was, unconsciously, like subconsciously, not intentionally going out of my way to do that, but kind of going through this therapeutic exercise of asking what actually does make Harry Harry?

Where is, again, if we peel back the layers, how far down do we get to Harry? Um, and those questions were only asked. Because I had the context of the game to help me do that. And so that's kind of the conclusion I came to in the study was like, maybe we should play more Dungeons Dragons. Maybe less explicitly than that. It was far more formal. But that was the idea. I just thought it was a really interesting idea to take a very creative, almost, it's almost like a form of creative writing. And ask, well, what happens if I intentionally lean in to the, the self -ness that I'm putting into this work, because it is part of me in that sense.

What does that tell me about how, kind of, God made me in His image as well? And I just thought it was really cool. It's not like, again, as Ian has said, none of these definitions give a really simple, easy, blanket statement that ties up with a nice little bow. That's, that's the reason we've argued about it for 2000 years.

But I think it just, it encourages, it encourages us to look at these things from a slightly different angle and realize how perhaps previous assumptions we've made about how, how we how we configure humanity in our brain, how we approach difference and otherness in our social context, in our religious context as well, in church and other places as well.

The assumptions we, we bring into that can have harmful consequences that tend to exclude people, such as is the case with, um, the autistic community. Sorry, that rattled on, and I did say, I said, I warned them, that I would go on about Dungeons Dragons. It was gonna happen, Dungeons Dragons was coming up. So I will end there.

If anyone wants to talk to me more about Dungeons Dragons, you're more than welcome.

Ian
But I think that's, I, I, I think that's something important that you've hit on, Harry, which is, um, regarding the image of God, there is, um, there's a problem with defining it in a singular way. And this is, this is one of the conclusions that I've come to, right?

And this is partly just by thinking about images in general. The purpose of an image is to make present something that isn't present, right? In a, in a, in a really dynamic way, not in a static way. And if we approach an image. Expecting a singular definition for that image, then that's all we're ever going to see.

Right. So if you approach Andy Warhol expecting to see only soup cans, that's all you're going to see. Right. Um, and there's something I would argue that you're missing something from that. If you approach the Mona Lisa expecting only to see a woman smiling or a woman frowning or whatever, then you are, you are going to miss something about that image and about the art that lies behind it, and the reality that lies behind it.

One of the things that I think is missing from the discussion of the Imago Dei is Matthew 25, right? Matthew 25 is the parable of the sheep and the goats, where Jesus separates the sheep from the goats by virtue of Who has seen Christ, the face of Christ, in, in the least expected places, in the imprisoned, in the naked, in the hungry, et cetera, et cetera.

Um, I think that part of that parable is trying to, is trying to explain to us what it means to bear the image of God, right? Which is something sort of fundamental to who we are. It's saying, in us, something of God, not the fullness of God. Right? But something of God can be seen, um, in us, at least in the essential parts of us, the parts that lie at the core of us, you can get a glimpse of the holy.

Um, and I think that's a fundamental question about what it means to be human and by extension what it means to treat other people as human. Part of the reason that D& D works, that Dungeons and Dragons works, is because everyone buys in. Right? If one person is role playing a character and everybody else says, no, I don't buy it. I'm not listening to you. I don't accept your reality. Then the whole game falls apart. Right?

And what we've created is a society where without, without making it explicit, without talking about it, um, sort of in, in, in a more, um, open air way and without, you know, without making our assumptions clear, we've created a definition of what it means to be human that leaves some people out, um, that, that makes some people tragically something less than human or tragically not bearing the fullness of the image of God.

If we do that, A, it allows us to see some existences as tragic, right? It allows us to look at a person and not see the face of Christ, not see the image of God, but see only tragedy because what we've expected to see in terms of the image isn't there. And ethically, what that enables us to do with that tragedy is to somehow shuffle it off to the side or eliminate it because it makes us uncomfortable.

And so we have, we have, I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm overstating this, but the truth is our assumptions about what it means to bear the image of God are what allow us to treat some people as less than human. And so that's what leads us down the road of of euthanasia, of eugenics, of all sorts of institutionalization, um, because whether we want to admit it or not, we view those people as something less than human. So it doesn't matter what we do with them.

Um, and I think that's, I think obviously, I think that's wrong. I think part of what we need to be able to do, and this is, this is what my work is specifically about or trying to do, is say, let's not just affirm that everyone bears the image of God and leave it at that, because if we do, we've, we've made a mess of that countless times throughout the centuries.

What if we try to define the image of God in such a way that we can locate it even in autistic people and autistic experience? Not exclusively, I'm not saying autistic people alone bear the image of God and neurotypicals are out on the outside looking in, but so often we define it in a way that excludes autistic people. What if we defined it in a way that we said, Autistic people, by virtue of being autistic, show us something about God that we can't see elsewhere. Um, and I think that's, I think that's a really important point and something that needs to be explored for every sort of essential category of humanity, is how does this exact experience reflect God and God's own being to the world.

Zoe
Yeah, it's so interesting what you're both sharing, and just that importance of not just saying, oh, we value everyone, but actually what does that look like in practice? What does it mean for, um, for us to believe that, that everyone has made an image of God? And it's so interesting how you both approached that kind of question.

Um, I'm just wondering as you're speaking, do either of you ever feel frustrated by, um, by the way that the image of God is spoken about, but then not necessarily practiced correctly? Like, as you said, Ian, you mentioned things like euthanasia, and even just the way that we marginalize people.

Yeah, how, how do you feel about that kind of like disjoint between what the Church and many people say and what's actually practiced?

Ian
I mean, I'm, I, I don't want to suggest that if we get the theory behind it right, then all of a sudden the practice will fall into place, because it won't, right? I mean, as hard as I try, I also fail to see people as fully human and as mirrors of the divine image, um, and bearers of the divine image at times.

But that is, to me, I think that is our fundamental, most essential responsibility as Christians is to recognize the holiness and the belovedness and the value that God has given to every other individual that we encounter. And we fail to do that in so, so many ways. But in that, again, I don't want to make too much of Matthew 25, but in that parable of the sheep and the goats, That's what separates people, is how they treated the people that they didn't have to treat well, right?

The people that society said are marginal, or unimportant, or uninteresting, or otherwise lacking value. So, I, I, I think that, I think that's one of the more important things. And yeah, it's frustrating. It's frustrating as heck because some people want to define, I mean, want to define the image of God, whether they acknowledge it or not, in a way that lets them off the hook for just perpetuating the biases that they already have.

Um, and I know that I, I'm as guilty of that as anybody, don't get me wrong. Um, but, but, but I think that if we want to take this Christianity thing seriously, it's something that we, we have to continuously work at.

Harry
Yeah, I just want to, um, kind of echo what Ian has said, um, there's been so many times that I think the way in which we approach, it's not necessarily just autism, I think this taps into a broader conversation of community, I guess, and how we approach how we set those boundaries of where a community is, what is it that kind of ties of people group together, and that often is that there are, they are similar in some sense.

So in a religious context, we might say, oh, a group of a church is a group of Christians they all share a similar belief. There's going to be diversity in what that actually means. But fundamentally, we can put that down to kind of these core tenants that Jesus was the son of God, he died and rose again. Blah, blah, blah. You get the idea.

Um, whenever we whenever that boundary is, it's not necessarily challenge, but when we are, when we realize that there is ultimately going to be weaknesses there, in that we've made a fence post around a people group and gone, here's our group, aren't we all wonderfully similar to one another? And then suddenly someone realizes that one of the fence posts is a bit wobbly and actually it doesn't really make sense. Here, and here, and here, and eventually it falls apart.

One of the ones that I am, I have become more conscious of since engaging in this kind of study is the way churches in particular, but I'm sure that there's similarities across other people groups as well, approach the disabled community, right? So it's, it's come at from an angle of inclusion. People who are kind of familiar with disability theology will inevitably be familiar with the work of John Swinton, who has written a lot on this kind of stuff.

Um, he says that there tends to be an understanding of inclusion in churches. So we might, we might look at that as, and I'm aware that this is a really simple example, but, um, in order to include the wheelchair user, you make sure there's a ramp because they're not going to get up the stairs. Or if they are going to go up the stairs, it's going to, it's going to come into conflict with their dignity and agency, etc. So you're going to put a ramp in. Cracking. You've nailed it. Big tick on the checklist.

The wheelchair user can get in the building. But that's where the questions stop. It's their literal, physical location within that community. There has been no question of what, what John Swinton encourages us to think of, of the next stage along from inclusion and that's into belonging, um, and he, he mentions that like, perhaps one way of thinking about belonging is, um, you will be missed if you are absent from that space, so it's not just that you are there, but you are there and there is something being provided, you're being strengthened as a group, in this context as a church where the body of Christ is often, to use a theological term, the church is like the body of Christ.

Um, and if, if that one person, in this case, the wheelchair user is absent, regardless of whether there's ramps or not, the community is lacking something. And I think this really drills into what Ian has kind of pressed upon with, it's not even necessarily about making sure that autistic people can get into church, or are comfortable, or that their needs have been considered, or that there's someone shouting from the rooftops on their behalf.

All of these things are, you know, are obviously going to lead to good ideas about autistic inclusion. But if we stop there, we never consider how does autism actually strengthen that community rather than just act as like a challenge to overcome. Why do we always think about people who are different only in terms of they bring something in spite of who they are, despite them being autistic?

Actually, they're really good at stacking the chairs at the end because they love patterns. Ha ha ha. Great. That's wonderful. But if that's all we're doing, we're still looking through that lens of, we have to approach this negatively and I think that that comes with such a, again, circles us backgrounds to how we approach the image of God.

We think of people who are different or who challenge our, our understanding of what it means to be human, even in little ways, as being lesser. And it will be subconscious , like, we all will do it, I will do it as well, and I, and I'll kick myself when I realise, but part of, uh, like Ian says, part of, if we're going to do this Christian thing seriously, part of this Christian journey, as it were, is to actually come to this new vantage point of realising that if I only think of Disability in terms of how I'm getting people in.

Have I really seen the human being that's in there? Or have I only seen a list of tasks I've got to get done so that I can get them in? Because I think that that comes from this weaker understanding of the Imago Dei, of seeing these people or other as people who are lesser, different, maybe even broken, is the kind of language that you would hear.

Zoe
Yeah, it's so interesting hearing what you're both sharing. And as someone who doesn't really know much about conversations about the Imago Dei, it's so fascinating to hear how this fits into the whole idea of inclusion and, um, yeah, valuing people. Um, that's everything I wanted to ask you, but do you, do either of you have anything else you would like to share about your work and the Imago Dei?

Ian
I'll just say, um, one of the, one of the difficulties that you run into, particularly around the topic of autism is there are two narratives that represent the extremes that I think a lot of autistics reject. And the first is deficit thinking or, or tragedy thinking that defines autism and solely in terms of what autistic people lack.

But the other is framing autism as a, as a superpower, right? You'll sometimes hear that, and I'm using the air quotes there too. Um, and I think a lot of autistic people reject that because there is something disabling about autism per se. There are ways in which, um, the existence of autistic people is made more difficult just by virtue of being autistic, right?

Um, and that can't all be explained away, I don't think, by the social model that says a lot of what's disabling about disability is the attitudes that society has towards disability. Um, I think there are ways in which autism actually does contain within it some limitations that are imposed upon autistic people per se, right?

So I'm not trying to say autism is wonderful and perfect and, and we should, we should view it as a superpower and, and that sort of thing. But what I want to say is, uh, the reason that I'm writing what I'm writing and studying what I'm studying and working on what I'm working on is to say to autistic people, there is something beloved about you, not in spite of your autism but because of it. There is something valuable about you, even with this thing at the core of your being that a lot of society wants to view as an issue or a bone of contention or a problem. There is something about you and your autism and and being autistic, that God absolutely loves and has value to the rest of the world, because I don't see that message out there in a way that I think Uh, it needs to be.

Harry
Yeah, that's so true, Ian. I think this and I know i've done this, I dread to think if I go back and look at previous stuff I've written in drafts and whatever It's so easy to get into that romanticizing idea of what what autism can mean.

To circle back rounds to that example again if we swing the entire other way then you start thinking oh, I don't I don't see a wheelchair user I just see a person and the wheelchair isn't even really there. Well, that's going to be dismissive of the very real mobility challenges that are going to be presented if you're in a wheelchair in a, in the context of autism, there are going to be differences, and that might mean that there are things that are more difficult, and that is that sucks sometimes. That's really, really challenging. Um, and to just hear that like, ah, actually autism's a superpower, actually your, your ability to see a pattern is really useful for these specific tasks, does seem to sound like we're minimizing the very real challenges that many autistic people, um, deal with.

I think it, it, it kind of, it's very coincidental, or perhaps a perfect circular narrative here, that it's almost similar to how the way we approach the Imago Dei cannot be perfect. And any way that we try, any definition we give is going to have gaps in it. I think maybe it's the same way when we talk about things like disability and autism in such broad sweeping ways, we forget that it's actually people who we're talking about and that we've got to be able to stop with all our theory and listen to them and through that process of actually listening to the people who are affected, we'll, we will gain a better understanding of whether that does mean that adjustments have to be made or whether that means that yeah, I've been carrying around an assumption about the abilities of this type of person that isn't true. I've been led to believe this through a whole host of different, um, different sources.

Uh, yeah, it's, it's one of those very delicate, it's, delicate might be the wrong word. It's just a very broad topic where, like, it starts quite easy you think, ah, there's a couple of verses where it says that we were made in the image of God. And then you go down the rabbit hole and you realize that you come out the other side being, what even is a human being? I don't even know who I am anymore. And I think it's okay to be, to, to not answer that question so easily, or like to hold that unanswered to a degree is okay. It's all right. If you've listened to this entire thing and you've gone, I wish Harry could just talk about Dungeons and Dragons again because now he's rambling on about his broad theological ideas and not really saying anything at all and believe you and me, I wish I was doing that as well but here we are. I'll end there.

Zoe
Thank you both so much. Harry, we, maybe you just need to set up your own Autism and Theology podcast where it's just Dungeons and Dragons every single week. Um,

Harry
I'll be down for that. I'll be down for that. I can't add another thing. I can't add another thing. I shouldn't do that.

Zoe
Well, as always, I'll put a few things in the show notes, and you can also get in contact with Harry if you do want to hear more about the Dungeons and Dragons stuff, and he's also done a webinar on it, so you can find out more about that. Thank you both so much for this really interesting dialogue we've had today.

It's been fascinating to hear your thoughts on the Imago Dei, and yeah, how that fits in with autism and theology and how theological questions about the Imago Dei can have a positive impact on practice as well. Um, so yeah, thank you both so much for joining me today. Um, and thank you everyone who's listened.

As always, you can email us at cat@abdn. ac. uk and we will see you in two weeks time for our next cat chat.