Neurodiverse Church, Living Stones and Weird Shaped Rocks with John Allister

In this episode, Zoe is joined by John Allister who speaks about neurodiverse church, a website based around inclusion. He talks about his personal experience as an autistic clergy person as well as his reflections on what inclusion means and looks like.

The transcript of the episode is available here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/5eb893bc/transcript.tx 

Neurodiverse church website: www.neurodiversechurch.org

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: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/cat

Register for the webinar on the 20th February here: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=rRkrjJxf1EmQdz7Dz8UrPzNFa7ljapNItVtbi6_NWAZUNDJaUE4zTTlMTlFDRTRWSVFZTzczSUM4Ni4u

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

Works mentioned:
Grant Macaskill, Autism and Church: https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481311250/autism-and-the-church/

Creators and Guests

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: Welcome to the Autism and Theology podcast, brought to you by the Center for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Autism in Theology podcast. I'm Zoe and it's great that you've joined us this week. This podcast is a space where we engage in the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, share relevant resources, and promote ways that faith and non faith communities can enable autistic people to flourish.

This podcast is run from the University of Aberdeen's Centre for Autism Theology, which we often shorten to CAT. Today I'm joined by John Allister, a vicar in Nottingham, who also runs the Neurodiverse Church blog. I'm absolutely delighted to have John here to share with us, and John, I wonder if you would like to start by introducing yourself, telling us a little bit more about you and what you do.

John: Sure,

thank you Zoe. Yeah, my name's John. I, as you said, I'm the vicar of St. Jude's Church in Nottingham. Um, I'm married with two kids. I'm a massive geek. I used to be, um, I used to be a physics teacher. Uh, that was my job before training for ordination. Um, and I'm autistic. I've, I've always known I was different, uh, from the normal people.

Um, I've always found academic stuff really easy and people stuff really hard, uh, for example, but it's only really been in the last few years that I've realized that fits the label autism. And since then, really, I've been working on trying to help the church get better at inclusion, um, and that's where Newer Diverse Church has come from.

Zoe: Thanks for sharing that, John. Um, can you share with us about Neurodiverse Church and, I mean, you mentioned a passion for inclusion in the church, but can you share more about what inspired you to start it and how that happened?

John: Sure, yeah, I, I think one of the key stages in me realizing that I was autistic, um, was reading Grant MacAskill's book, Autism and the Church, um, doing a little plug for, because I know he's a professor at, um, Aberdeen, um, and I think, I think there's three main, reasons behind Neurodiverse Church.

One is to try to help people like me, um, autistic and other neurodiverse Christians find their place in the church and feel like that we can belong to it and think through some of the, some of the difficulties and stresses that can come from being part of a church. The second reason is to help church leaders, whether ordained or not, whether neurodiverse or not, get better at including neurodiverse people in the life of the church.

Because I know that Christians ought to be the best people in the world at including and welcoming diversity. And I know that churches ought to be the best places in the world at helping people feel welcome and included and belonging and valued. But I know from my own experience, it doesn't always work that way on the ground.

Um, the third is to help us think through neurodiversity biblically. I'm, I'm a massive Bible geek. I've been a Bible geek for longer than I've been a Christian, and I'm a preacher as my day job. And I'm very aware there's a lot of theological engagement with neurodiversity that's mostly from the liberal end of the theological spectrum or from the practical side of it and looking at it from applied theology.

But that's not really where I'm at. Um, and I've not seen much that's. Biblically driven in the way that I'd, um, I'd find most helpful and that takes things like, uh, sin and the fall and some of the surrounding, uh, doctrines seriously. Um, so it's trying to help people who need to think through inclusion and neurodiversity biblically to do that.

Zoe: Yeah, that's amazing that you've created something out of that passion for inclusion and your interests in it all, um, yeah, I wonder if, just building off on that, could you share about what you think inclusion looks like in a church context?

John: I think, I think inclusion is fundamentally about everyone feeling welcome in church as they are and not having to pretend to be someone else in order to be fully part of things that are going on, in order even to be involved in leadership.

I mean, there's, there's a guy at our church who is, who's autistic. and who doesn't like being in the main body of the church. He will be standing against the back wall during services in a, he'll come along to home groups every week, but he'll often just stand by the door, um, stopping people going to the light switch.

And, and it's realizing that actually, yeah, He's happy. He's engaged. Getting him to sit with everyone else is not a discipleship issue. It doesn't, the fact that he wants to be on the edge of things and never speaks unless spoken to, that's nothing to do with his walk with Jesus. That's just to do with how he is as a person.

And he's, he's very welcome to be in church like that. And he's very welcome to be part of things like that. Um, ditto with, with folk who've got ADHD. I remember chatting to a lovely lady at our church who's got ADHD, and she says that all her life, she's been going along to churches and feeling that she has to mask, she has to be someone else in order to fit in and be accepted.

And she's finally starting to realize that she can be who she is in all her ADHD wonderfulness, um, and be part of church and feel valued as part of church and feel included and be involved in leading things as As very clearly herself as someone with ADHD in the community. Um, yeah, so I think that's what inclusion looks like in a church context, specifically, um, In terms of, in terms of biblically, there's all kinds of, um, there's all kinds of connections here.

And I think it's important that people should be able to feel included in that way as they are, um, in a church community. Um, and you could go for this to 1 Corinthians 12. um, Paul's metaphor of the body, where all the different parts of the body look different and have different functions. And, and you can't just swap two parts of the body round, because each is designed for the job it's meant to be doing.

Um, I, I sometimes spend a lot of time there. Um, but one I've, I've not come across so much in my reading that I found really helpful for thinking through this, is about the contrast in the Bible between bricks and stones. So we, we first come across bricks in the Bible in Genesis 11, in the Tower of Babel story.

Um, people want to build a tower that reaches to the heavens. Um, there's obviously occult symbolism going on there. Some people have suggested it's a temple for worshipping the stars or some kind of astrological thing. Um, but it's clearly an attempt by people to get to God on their terms. And it goes horribly wrong.

And brick symbolism It starts badly in the Bible and kind of gets worse. So the second time we see bricks is at the start of Exodus. God's people are enslaved in Egypt, their job is to make bricks. They get punished if they don't hit their quotas and they need straw, which tells us something about how they made bricks in those days.

But also right from the start, there's a contrast between bricks and stones. So one of the key things with the Tower of Babel, one of the key ways that's picked up in Genesis is Jacob's dream in Genesis 28. So they both feature towers with their top in the heavens. But in Genesis 28, it's from God, rather than built by people.

It's about God coming down to be with people. And the story there begins and ends with Jacob setting up a stone, rather than a brick. Um, isn't that interesting? Or, after the people escape from their brick related slavery in Egypt and reach Mount Sinai, the first set of laws God gives the people, right after the Ten Commandments, there's a set of laws about how they worship him.

So they're not to make idols or representations of gods, and they must make their altars out of earth or natural stones. They aren't allowed to use chisels, let alone bricks. Exodus 20, 25. For some reason, when people read the Ten Commandments, they stop, um, after coveting. And so, time and again, It, through the Old Testament, the people worship God, and when they worship God, it's, it's at sites that are made of natural, uncut stones.

And there's something really important there, that human effort and design are represented by bricks, and that leads to hubris, and it leads to downfall. Whereas stones express something about dependence on God, and using what he gives, and, and therefore, as we'll see, respecting people as they are, not as we want them to be.

So, hundreds of years later, Solomon comes to build the temple. Solomon orders it needs to be built of quarried stone, rather than brick, and, um, they had to, And the stones have to be finished and chiseled into shape at the quarry because he doesn't want any sound of chisels allowed at the temple building site.

It's kind of slightly missing the point of what God said, but he's recognizing that there's a rule there and trying to respect it. Um, but in Psalm 118, What it does with stones is really striking, because it says this, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This came from the Lord, it's wondrous in our sight.

So the psalmist says there's a stone that the builders threw away, because they couldn't see how to fit it in. But it turned out that in God's plan, it was one of the most important stones. It just had to be put in the right place. And of course, uh, this passage is picked up five times in the New Testament, all used to talk about Jesus, three times by Jesus himself, and twice by Peter, whose name means Rocky.

So Rocky uses the picture of people being like rocks in a building site. And he says that Jesus is a great big, weird shaped rock. A lot of the builders come across this rock and reject it. Jesus doesn't fit the way they want to build their lives. He's inconvenient for their plans, so they ignore him. But, says Peter, actually, Jesus is God's chosen rock.

He's meant to be the cornerstone, the one you build everything else around, the key rock that determines the shape of the whole building that Jesus will fit, but only if he's the most important piece. Otherwise, you end up having to leave him out to reject him. If you do, he ends up being the rock you trip over, because he's the inconvenient truth.

You might be able to ignore him for a while, but you can't get rid of him. Who he is, and he ends up causing you to stumble and fall. Um, that's what Peter says. And I sometimes use the picture of Harlech Castle. The Harlech Castle in Wales, other castles are available, I hear there's some in Scotland, is a big imposing castle on the Welsh coast.

It was built by Edward I as part of the Ring of Iron. Harlech is really strong because it's built into a rocky outcrop as part of the structure of the castle itself. And when the builders were making a castle there, of course they used stones rather than bricks, it's much stronger. But even then, there's two different ways of building a castle in Harlech.

You could find a sensible flat place to build it, away from the rocky outcrop, and build it according to the How to Build a Castle book. Or you could do what they actually did. You could make the rocky outcrop a central part of the design and structure of the castle. And that's the choice we have when it comes to what to do with Jesus.

We, we can build our lives and our theology on him, or we can build it away from him and have nothing to do with him. Those are the options. Why? Because Jesus isn't a standard shape. Spiritually speaking, he doesn't look like other people. He doesn't fit in nicely. In modern terms, I'm pretty sure we'd say that Jesus is neurodivergent.

Not that he's autistic, or has ADHD, or dyslexia, he obviously doesn't. But he doesn't think the way that most people do. Jesus brain works differently from my brain, or your brain, or a neurotypical brain. Um, Isaiah 55a, Jesus famously says, My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways.

God's emotions function so differently from normal people's emotions, that many authors argue either God doesn't have emotions at all, or they use different words to describe them, like affections or themotions, depending on who you read. And because it's, because God's so different, we need to fit everything else around him, or we just ignore him altogether.

But Peter, when he's using this metaphor in 1 Peter 2, he doesn't stop there, he carries on. He says that Jesus is the living stone, but that those who come to him, the church, are like living stones, and that we're being built together to become a temple. So we are stones. We're all different. But because we're united with Jesus, we become more and more like him.

We become stones because we follow the living stone and then we're built together. Uh uh. I sometimes talk about what it means for stones to be built together. So stones aren't bricks. It's wonderful 'cause it means we're welcome as we are. We are. God welcomes us in the shape we're in. already. We don't have to fit in with other people's ideas of what we should look like, but at the same time it means that the stones around us are also stones, they're not bricks either.

We've got rough edges, we've all got pokey bits, and sometimes in the skill of a builder those rough edges and pokey bits are just what's needed to build the wall strong, but sometimes there's bits that need to be worn down in contact with other stones as well to make us together into a stronger shape than we would be apart.

So for those of us who are autistic or dyslexic or neurodiverse in various ways, this isn't a license for us to be jerks about our autism or to use it as an excuse for not engaging properly with others. Some of these bits may well be bits that are meant to be worn down by being alongside and working alongside others, but it's also a context where our strengths should be used, where we should be welcomed with the same grace we extend to others.

there's inclusion in this picture and there's also transformation. And the building of course when it's finished is a temple and a temple only exists so that people can come there and meet with God. So when Peter calls us living stones in 1 Peter 2, he means we're meant to be transformed by God, built together into a community that can be so much stronger and more impressive than we can be when we're apart.

And together we're meant to hold out the possibility of encounter with God to the wider world. Because of our differences in diversity, because we're based on Jesus, who is different from all of us, and therefore we can work together to include everyone to be part of his church, to be his temple. Sorry, I went on a bit, but that's what I think inclusion means for the church and what it means to be a church that's actually being inclusive of neurodiversity.

It's recognising who Jesus is. that he's different from us and building ourselves around him using people as they are and seeking us to be built together into the pattern that God wants us to be.

Zoe: It's just amazing, John. I think that, like, your living stone stuff is just so fresh and it's so overlooked in Autism theology discourse.

I think what I'll do is when I first heard you speak about this, you gave that image of the stone, um, the slightly, you know, different stone with loads of different edges. I'll link that in the show notes if people want to have a look and just get that visualization. Um, but oh, there's so many amazing things in that.

I love what you said about Jesus being a weird shaped rock. And I think as Like, as kind of funny as that sounds, I think that can bring so much comfort to a lot of people who are maybe different, and just that idea of like, as you said, like Jesus being neurodiverse, like, Jesus didn't think like the norm, like Jesus was different.

And then why should we be expected to fit into these sort of Brick shaped things to fit into the church. And then it reminds me of, um, the idea of the cult of normalcy. Um, I don't know if you've come across this, but Thomas Reynolds and Leon Van Oman builds on this, but just that idea of like, people don't like things that disrupt and that disrupt and maintain social order.

People like things to be brick shaped because that means that everyone knows how things are done and then someone comes in who's. a rock, a bit of a weird rock like Jesus, and disrupts that. And then communities don't know what to do. Um, and Leon van Omen talks about worship practices based on human values will fall short of the values of the kingdom of God and instead continue the call of normalcy.

And I think when we just miss that idea of like the living stones and try and make people bricks, we do miss out on what, um, church and the kingdom of God should be about.

John: Absolutely. And when we, when we assume that everyone should work like The leader does. Yes. Then actually we're excluding Jesus. Yeah.

I I, I love the, I love the joke set in, um, pick your country that has segregation between white and black people. Um, a black person goes to a white church, the white, um, he's kicked out. He's told he is not welcome there. Um, but he really wants to hear about Jesus. He really wants to be able to worship as part of the church.

And so he just sits on the steps outside, um, listening to the service. And Jesus comes over and sits with him and says, well, what's the matter? And the man says, they won't let me in. And Jesus says, well, I know exactly how you feel. I've been trying to get into that place for years. Um, you know, there's something about

if we're, if we're excluding. people or if we're telling people they're not welcome as they are, then actually we do the same to Jesus. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, if you're,

uh, you know, um, let's pick an example. If you've got a person description for a job in your church or in your church hierarchy, you, we, we tend to have these person descriptions now and we imagine what the ideal candidate would look like. And then we describe them. And if it's written by. A neurotypical person who isn't being very deliberate about what they're doing, they'll end up describing a neurotypical person.

And they'll end up describing people in a way that excludes a lot of the people that God has made and maybe the people that God has made to do that role. Yeah. Maybe the people that God's gifted to do that. Well, maybe that even exclude Jesus. Yeah. Um, it's, it's always interesting reading, um, reading person descriptions for pastor's jobs and thinking how many of the apostles would be able to get this job.

Um, it's frequently not all of them. Yeah.

Zoe: And that's such an interesting thing as well. thinking about who we exclude and then who's excluded as a result of that when people aren't being mirrored in church leadership. They're not seeing themselves in the leaders of the church. There's a few research projects at the moment, people researching, um, those have, um, Maybe being excluded from church leadership because of being autistic or, um, and it's so sad because then we're just creating this idea of what should be, what a good Christian life looks like and what the ideal Christian who is charismatic and outgoing and, um, you Yeah, whatever else, and that's not everyone.

Um, and that shouldn't, yeah, as you said, like that doesn't fill, that doesn't follow the pattern of what Jesus taught and who, um, the people who spread the gospel message were. It's so fascinating and I also loved, um, at the beginning when you were speaking, you mentioned the person who in your church will just stand next to the door and maybe won't come and join, but they're still part of that community.

Oh yeah. And I just wonder like, um, so often in churches it's easy for those of us who may be research neurodiversity in church or are neurodivergent or are passionate and, um. read a lot about or engage a lot and understand a lot. Um, it's easy for us to say, well, that's fine. Like we know that that's okay.

But that being said, sometimes people in the church congregations maybe don't fully understand what's going on or maybe feel, um, it makes them feel uncomfortable because that's not what's expected when you go to a Bible study or whatever else. Um, and I just wonder how, um, as a church leader, even through, um, Neurodiverse Church, how you address that sort of changing whole community perspectives on that side of inclusion and allowing people to be who they are?

John: Yeah,

I think I was, I think I was very, uh, I don't want to say fortunate, blessed in this, um, because I am, I am autistic and people who know me No, that's pretty obvious. Um, to be at a church that really doesn't mind that there's several senior lay people in our church who, who've worked in inclusion over the years, who've been school head teachers, who've been, um, SEND coordinators and stuff in their school in schools.

And, and so who were happy appointing an autistic vicar. Even though I can't, I can't meet all the expectations that a vicar should be the person who enjoys going to the coffee morning and making small talk with people for three hours. No, sorry. Um, you know, I'll, I'll tell your friends about Jesus for you sometimes if you bring them along to church, but I'm not, I'm never going to be good at that.

And that's never going to be a worthwhile use of my time necessarily. Um, I think, I think it is. Working through with people that it's okay for people to be as they are, it's okay for kids to be noisy. in church, if that's who they are. I'd rather that we had noisy kids or kids wheeling up plastic ice cream trolleys and offering the vicar plastic ice cream during the sermon, that was a few weeks ago, um, than that there weren't kids there or that they felt unwelcome, you know, and with, with kids, I, um, again, it's a blessing.

I, I've had Uh, two boys, they're lovely, while I've been vicar here, so we've had, we've been through the whole young kids in church stage and, you know, people can't tell the vicar's kids off too much, um, uh, we, we've certainly had, when we merged our morning services, we used to have a traditional service and a more contemporary service, um, when we merged them, there were, to start with, there were some of the more traditional folks would look askance at the kids being noisy during the bit when the kids were in and, you know, Um, and I, I just say from the front things like, um, it's wonderful today that we're all worshiping God together in the same room.

This is, this is lovely. Um, I'm sorry that there aren't separate groups for kids running today because, because it's summer holidays and we don't have enough leaders to be able to run stuff through the summer holidays. I just thank you so much for bearing with the other kids. Don't worry too much if some of the grownups look a bit grumpy, that's just what their faces are like.

And. And, you know, you do this and after a while people start saying, oh yeah, yeah, that actually makes sense. You know, we're actually going to be okay with welcoming people in, um, yeah, we're going to be okay if, we're going to be okay if that chap can't talk properly. We're going to be fine with this, um, with this nonverbal autistic teenager being around.

Um, cause he obviously enjoys being here. Um, we know this chap has a tendency to talk people's ears off if they start conversations with him. Um, but it's wonderful that he's here. Let's park him in the corner somewhere. Um, You know, and it's, it's just, it's valuing people, you know, the, the, I can't say to the hand, I don't need you.

And yet, so often we seem to, don't we, in churches. We, we, we seem to say we don't need the, we don't need that awkward person or that different person. You know, we, we want people to be able to, you know, dyslexia, we want people to be able to read properly in our church and in our Bible studies. So that person who maybe isn't very good at reading out loud, um, let, let's just drop them and.

Not ask them to lead anything. Yeah, but that's not how it works.

Zoe: Yeah. And that's such a helpful point you make as well. Like sometimes we assume like, um, the dyslexia example, like sometimes we assume that, Oh, that person won't want to participate or maybe the person standing at the door, Oh, that person doesn't really want to be here.

We won't force them. Um, but actually that assumption that someone doesn't want to engage is so problematic as well. And it is just that Speaking to people and understanding and helping them, I guess, as well, find their place in the church that's comfortable for them, that, um, find those edges that maybe also need to be filed down, but also finding our own, um, rough edges as well.

And, yeah. Like growing together and shaping together and it's, yeah, so helpful to think of, um,

John: And when I, when I was, uh, when I was a lay person, I was a physics teacher in a school. Um, I went along to my church on Sundays. I did the tech a lot because, hey, here's a Here's someone who's good at tech. Um, and that was the main way I served at church for years.

Um, I only, they only, I never pushed myself forwards to do stuff up front. Um, I was, uh, they only got me preaching because the Vicar left and all of a sudden I was in this church of like 500 people with four services on a Sunday and only one member of staff who was able to do anything up front. And he suddenly realized, Oh, help.

Um, and got a whole load of us. up to preach once a term or something to, to try to reduce his workload and, and to try to grow leaders. And I'm really grateful that he did, you know, cause I wouldn't have got into, I wouldn't have gone to preaching regularly without that. I don't think. And yeah, just. being willing to ask autistic people and unlikely people and the people doing a sterling job of holding the tech up, um, whether they'd like to be involved in Bible teaching.

Zoe: Yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah. And again, coming back to that idea of like, who we kind of have in like leadership positions as well, like just the power that that can have seeing someone who isn't the obvious choice actually flourish and their role that can be so amazing.

John: Um, yeah, I was told at Theological College by one of my tutors that I shouldn't be leading a church because I wasn't a leader.

And what, what they meant was that I've noticed that in a room of 10 people, you'll usually sit quietly. Yeah. Um, and you won't take the lead if there's other people taking the lead. Well, well, no, I won't take the lead if there's other people taking the lead, because I don't need to take the lead. You know, and actually I, I struggle with group conversations.

So I'm not going to be joining in in conversation there. Um, yeah, in terms of, but what, what does that mean? Why does that mean anything about my ability or otherwise to lead a church? It doesn't.

Zoe: Yeah,

it's just that normative assumption, isn't it? Absolutely, yeah. What's been seen, yeah. But yeah, that's absolutely fascinating, just hearing the Livingstone stuff. I think that is It's definitely something that needs developed and spoken about more.

And I think you've got a blog post on that on Neurodiverse Church as well, haven't you? I have, yeah. Um, so yeah, I'll add a link to that in the show notes. Um, but yeah, I wonder as well if, um, you could share more about how people can use Neurodiverse Church, um, to engage with some of these things you've spoken about to, um, be more equipped in their own churches and maybe share things with other people.

Like, how do you kind of see Neurodiverse Church being able to do that?

John: I'd love to, um, And one of my aims at the moment is to put a course together, uh, which individual churches or groups of church leaders can run to help them think through inclusion and neurodiversity properly. Um, I think the reason I haven't done that yet is simply lack of time.

Um, you know, I'm. I'm very much doing neurodiverse church in my, um, I won't quite say my free time because my family get my free time. Um, but in the little bits of Vicaring time that are left over once I've done the Vicaring. Um, so yeah, I'd love to put a course like that together, which should help people engage much better.

I'm happy to come and run training events. I've run various training events, um, helping, uh, curates or ministers, um, um, think through, uh, what it means to work with autistic people, what it means to include people. I'm running a, I've just booked in a training day working with, uh, primary ministry teams and how do, what, what issues might arise in primary ministry working with autistic people.

And, um, Yeah. If anyone knows what I should say, then please do let me know. Can message us at just by the Neurodiverse Church website.

There's plenty of stuff there and yeah.

Zoe: Perfect . But yeah, it's so encouraging and um, kind of like thinking of your short term plans, is there any content that you have planned that you're particularly excited for that you want to tell listeners about? Um, obviously this will be going out a little bit after we record so it might very well already be there by the time this is released.

John: I think I'm, I'm really excited about the um, about the course for, um, helping people get better at inclusion. I'm also trying to write, um, an autism memoir just about some of my own experiences of being autistic and what, what, what that looks like and feels like, um, to try to help people bridge that empathy gap that there often is between, um, neurodiverse folk and non neuro and neurotypical folk.

Um, Yeah, I don't currently have a date, uh, for that being published or anything, but I will, um, I'll let you know if I do and you can put in the show notes.

Zoe: Yeah, certainly. And we'll share things on social media like that as well that you can listen to or you can engage with as our listeners. But yeah, is there anything else you would like to share, John, about anything we've spoken about, anything else related to Neurodiverse Church?

John: I think With people contacting me, um, at Neurodiverse Church, the number one problem that people get in touch about, and so I'd have to guess it might well be the number one problem that people are experiencing with autism in the church, is church leaders not getting the importance of making an effort to include autistic children.

Um, and families, some often feeling pushed away from churches because their church leaders are poor at including autistic kids and. And chatting to parents, it's kind of heartbreaking. Um, I, there's, there's some families with autistic kids who've moved to our church because they find that we're usually a bit better at doing inclusion with that.

Um, but yeah, so to church leaders, I think I'd, I'd want to say, if you've got autistic kids in your congregation or on the fringes of your congregation, talk to the parents. There really are issues here and ask them about what. you can best be doing to include them in the life of the church and how they can best feel part of things because autism presents itself in so many different ways.

Um, as does, as does dyslexia, as does ADHD and talk and often the parents will know what's going on. So talk to the parents and think, think and pray about how to genuinely welcome them. Because the research on autism, as far as I understand, it says that autistic people are massively underrepresented in the church compared to in society.

Yeah. But if you do surveys of autistic people's beliefs, they don't. believe in God less than the wider community. Uh, the issue is to do with how, how often they feel welcome in church. And how good the church are at welcoming them. And we're missing out as a church on so many gifts and skills that autistic people bring to the, bring to the table.

I know. Um, yeah, there's loads of, there's loads of abuse scandals going on at the moment. And And actually a lot of those, a lot of those would have been solved if you had people in senior leadership positions who thought that doing the right thing was more important than doing the loyal thing.

Um, yeah, that's, I, that's a very autistic trait. Yeah. I can't help thinking that a lot of these problems would have been dealt with quicker if the church had been quicker to use the gifts of autistic people. Yeah. In leadership positions. So yeah, welcome, you know, make sure if you're a church leader that you're welcoming, um, to neurodiverse kids.

Uh, there's a far higher rate of diagnosis now than there used to be. That's just because we're getting better at diagnosing, I think. Yep. And if you're not a church leader, then how can you be helping your church get more welcoming and better at welcoming, um, particularly autistic kids, but, but autistic adults as well.

As I say, there's, there's loads of autistic adults who believe in God and would maybe like to be part of things, but just don't find it. a very welcoming place sometimes. Um,

Zoe: Yeah, absolutely. And I just think what you said there is so true and something we come back to again and again in this podcast, there's just the importance of educating yourself and whether that's, um, educating yourself by asking autistic and neurodivergent people, their opinions, engaging with things like neurodiverse church, or just having a basic knowledge of what like autism is.

other neurodivergences are can have such a huge impact. Just that first step of understanding experiences and knowing what's going on as well and not just assuming, um, that we know what's right for people.

John: I think one of the things that, um, just as a person, um, one of the things I wish non autistic people knew about me or realized about me, um, is that I'm absolutely hopeless at eye contact. If, if I'm having a conversation with someone, I can't look someone in the eyes and concentrate on what I'm saying at the same time.

Yeah.

Um, and, and people find, can find that really off putting if I'm preaching somewhere new, I'll often have to introduce myself by saying that I'm autistic. I'm absolutely useless as eye contact because I've known, I've heard visitors in our church just going, is he blind? Why is he not looking at us?

Yeah. When I'm. When I'm preaching, and of course, you know, there's nothing wrong with having a blind vicar either. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think just because, just because autistic people aren't necessarily very good at stuff like eye contact or, um, or all the normal social niceties and manners in conversation doesn't mean that we're not, doesn't mean that we're not being friendly, doesn't mean that it's not worth talking.

Um, I do think that the, perhaps the biggest problem in the whole area of inclusion is a lack of empathy, um, from both sides. Um, and just people not understanding how, how people work

and how

they tick. And so make, you know, make friends with, with people who are different from you and don't be rude just because they can't maintain eye contact or, um, just cause they have a Scottish accent or, you know, actually,

yeah,

actually take the time to talk and to ask Yeah.

Yeah. And that, that might mean talking about things you'd want to talk about. If I'm one of the autistic guys at church, I, I'll talk to him a lot

and

I'll keep up with how his football teams doing some conversation with him because I know that's what interests and he's very happy to talk about that. Um, but yeah, just be friends with people.

Don't let your social circle just be people like you. Yeah, because if it does you're missing out to be very good at including people.

Zoe: Yeah,

John: and And in heaven, we're told there are people gathered from every tribe and language and people and you might as well stick a neurotype in, well, just that wasn't a word, um, classical greek, um, you know, that heaven is going to be people, lots of different people, related to each other.

Connecting with one another and being united with one another in Christ. And, and actually therefore, so people who are different.

Zoe: Yeah, absolutely. And it's just that, like, as, as you said, it's like you make an effort to keep up with that person's football team. And it is that like, it takes effort. We can't expect it to be easy.

And, um, Uh, when we talk about autism theology and neurodiversity, we're not saying, oh, it's easy to be inclusive. Sometimes it is very simple steps, but it does also take work. And that's the thing with the stones as well. Like it's not just bricks that you can lay, like it takes work and it takes shaping and, um, it takes time, but that's the beautiful thing, I guess, about church communities and inclusion as well.

And finding belonging, um,

John: Building a wall out of stones is much harder than building out of bricks.

Zoe: Yeah.

John: But it's much stronger for it.

Zoe: Yeah. Oh, wonderful. Thank you so much, John. This has just been so interesting, so exciting. Um, and yeah, as I said before, just such a fresh perspective on autism and the body of Christ and building.

Yeah, building the wall in like church communities. And, um, yeah, just fantastic to hear from you. It's been really great to chat. Um, as we've said throughout, I'll put loads of things in the show notes that John's mentioned. Um, and please feel free to email us or email neurodiverse church. Um, I'll pop a link to the website and so you can have a look, um, around and, also Neurodiverse Church is open to contributions from different people, so if you have an idea for something that you wanna share, please get in touch with them and, um, yeah, John can chat to you about that as well.

Um. Yeah. But no, it's just been fantastic to have you, John. And as always, to our listeners, if you have any questions, you can message us at autismtheology on X or Instagram or Blue Sky as well. Or you can send us an email at cat at abdn. ac. uk. Even if it's just to say hi, we would love to hear from you.

Thank you for listening to the Autism and Theology podcast. If you have any questions for us, or just want to say hi. Please email us at cat at abdn. ac. uk or find us on Twitter at AutismTheology.