Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Krysia, Zoe, and Ian answer listener questions!
The transcript of the episode is available here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/d088f148/transcript.txt
The transcript of the episode is available here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/d088f148/transcript.txt
If you have any questions, or just want to say hi, email us at cat@abdn.ac.uk or find us on twitter @autismtheology.
This podcast is brought to you by The University of Aberdeen's Centre for Autism and Theology.
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
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 this episode of the Autism and Theology podcast. I'm Zoe and it's great that you've joined us this week. This podcast is a space where we engage with the latest conversations and the field of autism and theology, share relevant resources and promote ways to help faith and non faith communities enable autistic people to flourish. This podcast is run from the University of Aberdeen's Centre for Autism and Theology, Which we call CAT. For today’s CATChat episode, I'm joined by Krysia and Ian, and we're going to be answering some of your questions that you've sent us in over the last week or so. But before we start that, we do have some exciting news to share. Krysia, one of our hosts is now a doctor.
She passed her Viva, which is like her final examination of her PhD with no corrections, so we're incredibly proud of her. And yeah, happy that one of us is now a doctor. So very much expert opinions here.
Krysia: Thank you. And I think it'll only be a matter of time before I'm joined by another two.
Zoe: Yep, but yeah, incredible news.
And we're so happy for Krysia. But now we're going to launch into some of your questions that we really appreciate you sending us, and we're really excited to engage in. So the first question that we have been asked is, can you share more about the research that each of you do?
So yeah, Krysia, do you want to start since you're our new Doctor?
Krysia: Sure. So my PhD looked at autistic people's experiences of social inclusion and belonging in churches and mosques. And basically, I did conversations with group conversations with autistic people and also with Christians and Muslims.
And also I did some longer story based narrative based conversations with autistic people who attend and have previously attended both churches and mosques.
If people find religion difficult, it's for other social and sociological factors like finding the group inaccessible or something bad happening in the group, or issues with power sometimes, rather than necessarily finding faith difficult, which I thought was really interesting. Yeah. So that's basically my research.
Zoe: Ian, what about you?
Ian: So I am researching the Imago Dei, the image of God in the Genesis story of Creation. We're told that humanity was created in the image of God, and I'm exploring what that means, and how that's traditionally been defined, we've had a lot of different ideas of what it means to bear the image of God, but particularly I'm looking at how we might have an understanding of what that means that is actually inclusive of autistic people and disability more broadly because a lot of those definitions that we've had for what it means to bear the image of God have excluded certain people. There's any time you have a singular definition, you usually end up drawing a line that it that has some people outside of it. So looking at how, if we were to come up with an expansive, a more expansive definition, how that might include more people, and how that might lead to actually theological insight from the experience of autistic people.
Zoe: And then that leaves me if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you'll know that I'm not actually researching autism. I've just been adopted as a member of the Centre for Autism and Theology. I actually am researching dyslexia and engaging with the Bible. So my research looks at what it means for those who struggle to read to engage with God through a written text, and also engage with communities where a written text is central. So I yeah, really just there's not really anything in theology about dyslexia. So just starting with exploring lived experiences. even more broadly, and other research has not a huge amount on dyslexic adults, particularly in context of mental health, so my research looks at that a little bit.
And just, yeah, what's going on in the lives of dyslexic Christians and quite a lot of the time, dyslexic Christians are good at what I would call masking and kind of people seem to think that they're OK and they're managing. We've got audio books.
We've got dyslexia friendly Bibles, but a lot of these things are just kind of putting a plaster on an issue and actually a lot of dyslexic people are really hurting, really struggling feeling like they're not good enough, having quite a low concept of self. But on the flip side of that, as is very much at the heart of our centre, neurodiversity is good. Dyslexic people bring different things to the table that are really helpful and that are, yeah, can enable thriving in communities because we need different thinkers.
Something I found interestingly in my research. I think I maybe shared this before in the podcast, but a few of my participants noted that they just have such a strong sense of justice. And they relate that to being dyslexic, whether that's just different ways of thinking or because they've experienced injustices that they just have this passion for justice, which? Yeah. So it's fun. In my final year. And yeah, I really - I love my research. It's fun and a lot of it relates to autism and theology because it's really the closest thing. So what I'm doing so yeah, that's a bit about all three of us.
And yeah, it's cool. I think like all our projects are very, very different, which is quite cool and like just shows how much there is in the field.
Krysia: And I think also shows in a way although they're very different.
There are core bits which overlap, and it complement each other really really well in terms of, so the some of the discussions in my work came out around some of the fundamental assumptions around autistic people being part of Imago Dei in the body of Christ, part of the underpinning of what's gone, kind of why we should be looking at autistic people's inclusion and belonging, even though some autistic people have been really excluded as well, so again. So looking not making sure you don't put a sticking plaster on my work. Really try to ground autistic people's voices much in the same way that Zoe's works tried to ground her work in dyslexic peoples voices.
Zoe: Yeah, absolutely. And I think like just with the Centre for Autism and theology, like a lot of it is like refining each other and like questioning each other to like build our work. And yeah, it's really interesting conversations when there is that overlap.
But yeah, the next question we have is what are some recent books you have read?
Krysia: Well, I can jump in and say one of the books. Academic books I did read.
In fact, I'm just going to go for two academic books because I'm yet to start reading non academic books yet. Because obviously I've been in kind of preparation for my final exam and everything, but the two books I've probably most recently read are both Leon's book on Autism and Worship, and Claire Williams's book on Peculiar discipleship. So really useful in helping me rethink and also think about things I also.
Areas that could be pushed further in the future as well. When we think of kind of more interdisciplinary thinking and why people from all sorts of different backgrounds should be talking about autism and theology. So I found there's two really really helpful.
Ian: And I'm gonna go totally in another direction. The most recent book that I read I read with my son, which was The Wild Robot which just the movie just came out of it.
It's a kids book about a robot that crashes on a deserted island with nothing but animals around and which was a very it was a very fun change of pace, we'll say from what I had been reading academically, I think the most recent thing I've read is the Iconic Imagination by Douglas Headley, which is about images, icons, imagination to put it briefly.
Zoe: For me, I think the most recent academic book that I've read, it's kind of academically kind of not. It was a bit called Preaching Women of the Bible and I was reviewing it for a journal, but it was incredible. If there's any preachers who are listening like, I really recommend reading that book. It was so good. And yeah, fun to review and then non academic. I'm currently reading Fourth Wing which has a load of trash about Dragons, but you know you've got to have something fun when you're researching for a PhD.
Krysia: This is the situation on our way and I need to now find a fund book to read because I've not read a fun book for a while.
Zoe: I can send you some recommendations of absolute rubbish.
That is very not academically.
Krysia: Well, I think I'll welcome them with open arms.
So our next question was, hi. Thank you so much for your podcast.
It's so important for the church and has been really helpful to me.
I did have a question and I don't think it knows autism, exact covers autism exactly, but I have a son who has spina bifida and hydrocelyphus. And my question is more focused on his nonverbal learning disorder, os there a way that a person with a non verbal learning disorder should perhaps approach studying the Bible or any spiritual practices that might be better than what is typically suggested by our pastors and teachers, aAnd building off that other, any resources that you'd recommend? Do you know any scholars or theologians who have might have the same disabilities or work in this area?
Ian: So I'll I just want to preface my answer to this by saying I am not an expert in spina bifida and hydrocephalus in nonverbal learning disorder. Those aren't necessarily my areas of expertise. I have varying degrees of experience with each of those, but I think that there are some answers that I would personally provide pastorally if this were, say, a member of my congregation coming to me. And so that I have - have a perspective on this, right? I am, am an Episcopal priest that focuses a lot on Scripture. One of the running jokes in my congregation is that regularly, when I'm preaching, I'll say this is my favorite passage in Scripture because they're like, they're. I have so many favorites, right? So engagement with Scripture is, to my mind, really, really essential. But we sometimes mistake why it's important, right? So there's an old Buddhist Quan that I read somewhere and I cannot remember where. Where there's a A A Buddhist expert, someone who's who's really a wise sage, essentially who doesn't know how to read, and someone comes to him and says how are you so wise when you're unable to even read, when you're when you're when you don't even know how to read? And he says letters are like fingers pointing at the moon. If you focus on the fingers, you miss the moon entirely. To me, that's what scripture is like. That's how I hold on to Scripture and I don't say that to diminish the importance of scripture at all. But the importance of Scripture is that it is a place where we can reliably encounter God. We know that that scripture is God breathed, right?
We know that that Scripture points us towards the incarnation of God, at least in the in the Christian tradition, right? So the importance of Scripture is not engaging with scripture per se. It's engaging with scripture in a way that leads you to God. Now, that's not the only way that we can encounter God. This is this is part of my research around the Imago Dei is the idea that we can encounter Christ in other people. I think that I am from a liturgical and Sacramento tradition, and that's really important to me because it seems true in the same way that the incarnation is true in that we can encounter God, we can encounter Christ in everyday mundane elements like bread and wine and water and oil, right? So there are other ways other than just scripture of encountering God and and we sometimes lift up Scripture as the primary means, as though it were the only means right. And I think that's important to remember that Scripture is important, but it's important because of what it does, not just for its own sake, right? Which means that there is no wrong way of engaging with scripture if it leads you to God, right? So anyway that you can engage with scripture, no matter, no matter what your academic ability is, no matter what your sort of intellectual ability is. If you see God in scripture, doing it right. And I think that's important to emphasize. And there are some means of engaging with scripture that aren't that academic style Bible study. I'm thinking here of like Lectio Divina, right, where you just listen for what God is trying to speak to you in to say to you in this particular passage, and you lift that up and you take that with you for the day.
That's as valid a way of engaging with Scripture as sitting down and reading a commentary that is comprehensive and covering manuscript history and all this other stuff, right? So that's I think that's my answer or the best answer that I have, which is remember why Scripture engagement is important. Remember what it's pointing you toward. Rather than focusing on the right way of engaging with scripture. Because sometimes we have this expectation that there is a right way to engage with Scripture and I just don't think that's true as long. That's pointing us where it's intending to point us.
Krysia: Yeah, I would almost echo that in how we engage with the Bible and with Scripture needs to be not so much the way we think it should be done to do it the right way. But the way that meets who we are working with and who is part.
Of our church and our congregations. So basically very just to echo everything that Ian has said basically. Which is I think is a really good starting place. I think especially when so much of how we might engage with the Bible and with Scripture can be really normatively, able boded and neurotypically framed.
Zoe: OK, I'm going to cite you saying that in my thesis, Ian 'cause, I was so helpful the way you put it. But I think something that I've found definitely through my research as well is like we can be quite often quite like as I mentioned like quite quick.
In the church to be like, oh, have you tried this? Have you tried this? And actually, almost like bombarding people with all of these different ways that they might be able to engage with scripture can cause more harm than good. And I'm not really sure what the answer is because you want to be practically resourcing people.
But we're currently a couple of us are putting together a little course that we're delivering next week on this idea of dwelling in the problem. And rather than kind of being like, oh, here's a problem, let's find the solution. Actually, just dwelling in the problem and being like, OK, we do need to find an answer. But like, let's sit with it, let's talk to people. Let's just like not try and quickly work out. A solution that's not necessarily an answer, but it's a kind of like, I guess, just encouraging, like slowing down with some of these questions. And really grappling with them. But yeah, I hope we've kind of answered that in an OK way. It's a difficult question, but thank you whoever sent that in.
Ian: And I there's one last thing I would add on that note, Zoe. I think you're right in in sort of just dwelling in the question and struggling with it. And one, I mean, this is this is sort of coming at it from a very, very different direction I don't unfortunately, know of any biblical scholars or theologians with spina bifida or hydrocephalus, but one book that I might recommend that that might be helpful if you haven't read it. If whoever submitted this question hasn't read it, is John Hull’s In the Beginning, there was darkness, which is struggling with Scripture and all the cited metaphors in Scripture as he loses his sight, right? Which is - the parallels may not be obvious, but he is struggling with the fact that scripture, which used to be very, very life giving and very formative for him now like there seems something amiss with it. Like he's not engaging with it right or it doesn't seem to fit in. The same way, and I think even though it's not identical, it's not the same situation.
That struggle that he goes through in that book might actually be helpful, maybe.
Zoe: As a really good book recommendation and it's not a difficult read either.
Krysia: Yeah. In fact, any person you have from some of having read quite a bit of John Hull's work. It's a really good starting place for a lot of the more difficult grappling questions, especially where the three of us, although we know a lot we don't know. We know our area really, really well and really tightly. So I think, yeah, Zoe and Ian have some fantastic insights. I think as a starting place. And our next question we got was what has been the highlight of doing the podcast so far?
Zoe: I'm gonna jump in 'cause. You both did the catch out on the highlights, so I've not had my thoughts here. I think I would say like echo what you both said in that last catch episode about the episode with Autumn consecrated and just that was so challenging and constantly being like, are we doing this in the right way? And I don't again like I don't know that we did it perfectly, but just that like challenge of that was such a learning experience. But also, just like the satisfaction of being like, oh, you can do this in a different way, and make it work. And it was, yeah, that was pretty cool. And also just getting to know you both like I really enjoyed having conversations with you both over the last couple of years and last couple of, yeah, I guess last couple of years and in the planning process. And then the actual podcast, I think that's been a big highlight but yeah.
Krysia: Yeah. Definitely for me as well.
I think this is the first time Zoe and Ian have heard this, but they are in my thesis acknowledgements for the conversations we've actually had and how it's actually strengthened some of the thinking that I've done and also kind of thinking, well, how do we turn a 90,000 word book into actual, tangible practice and how we might want to bring this forward for my work into churches and mosques, and other faith spaces.
How do we transfer that into ways that it's not full of academic jargon, and long pages of citations. How do we make it so that the normal churchgoer, mosque attendee, other faith group attendee, is probably going to be able to go you know what? That's quite interesting. I'll have a look at that.
Zoe: I was just gonna say that's lovely. We're in your acknowledgements, Krisha. Thank you.
Ian: That's awesome. That is lovely. Yeah, that's awesome.
I've given a serious answer to this on the last CATChat in terms of that autism consecrated episode. I also really enjoyed talking with Leon about autism and liturgy because those are two of my special interests, but which leads me to 1/2 joking answer that I will give which is 100% true. One of the highlights of doing this podcast is it gives me a place to info dump right? And as an autistic person like that is invaluable. Like I get to talk about things that I really want to talk about in ways that like my wife is absolutely tired of hearing about by now.
So it's just, I mean, it's great to have a forum. It's great to have this this sort of means of getting our research and getting other people's research out there and really spotlighting and highlighting the research that's going on autism and theology, I think there's a lot a really exciting time in this sort of academic sub discipline and just the idea that we're able to get this out there in some degree is really, really cool.
Krysia Definitely I'd echo that coming. Having come from a department and working on a project obviously, but really that works with autistic people and that highlights autistic voices. But actually, we're - not necessarily everyone's contributing to the field of autism, religion and theology. It's really exciting to be with people. I can chat about what I'm really, really. You know what? What? For six years made me get up in the morning. And what put basically pushed forward my career basically.
Ian: So our next question is, what pastoral care do you recommend church leaders offer to church members going through an autism diagnosis?
Krysia: I guess the 1st place that I would start from is actually some of the Church of England guidelines that Ann Memmott has written because Ann's done some fantastic work on explaining kind of what it means to be autistic, what kind of autistic experiences there are, and how this can occur within a church setting which I think is a really important foregrounding for any kind of pastoral care people are actually going to do. So I'd almost start from that position, I sure that Zoe and Ian have also some other practical suggestions being practical theologians to contribute to my very autistic led voice led suggestion.
Zoe: Yeah, I think absolutely agree with that. Like, those resources are great, kind of like along a similar line. I think an important thing is actually like educating yourself and understanding kind of similar to what you're saying like understanding autism.
Because I'm just trying to find a quote here. But yeah, here we go. Leon, our director, in his book. He has a really good quote that says church can inflict unkowing like unknowingly a lot of pain leaving people battered, sometimes for life. And I think a lot of that pain can come from not actually knowing enough about what you're talking about. So I think just like educating, it's not hard to find resources just by what is autism as those resources Krysia mentioned that, and I think also just like listening and not again, I think as I'm the idea of dwelling in the problem is on my mind very much, but not assuming that you know all the answers and just and not even necessarily needing to give answers like a lot of the time, people just need to be listened to. And they don't actually need, like, oh, have you thought about this?
Have you thought about this? They just need you to lessen. And I think, yeah, that would be. The yeah, few things I would say against the actual clergy person here, so yeah.
Ian: Sure. And I'll borrow an insight my when my wife, who is also an Episcopal priest, was doing CPE, which is a clinical internship, her supervisor said in pastoral care, you know, in the rest of the world we hear, don't just stand something, don't just stand there, do something. And in pastoral care, don't just do something. Stand there, right? So in other words, be with people in their difficulties, in those moments where they need pastoral care rather than trying to provide solutions a lot of times. And our inclination is to want to provide solutions or want to provide resources. There's nothing wrong with resources. I think the this question in terms of pastoral care to church members going through an autism diagnosis varies wildly depending on the age of the person, right? So I wasn't diagnosed until I was in my late 30s and for me an autism diagnosis was a relief because it made sense of a lot of things in my life to that point that hadn't really made sense before. Like a lot of ways in which I was sort of, I felt weird or out of the ordinary, and it made them made it clear that those are actually expected or within the norm. For what autism actually is, if that makes sense.
But for children who are being diagnosed, a lot of times there's heavy resistance on the part of the parents. There's a lot of tragedy framing, right? So that autism is viewed in autism, diagnosis is viewed as tragedy is viewed as this bar to advancement is viewed as this sort of closure of the future. And I think the best thing I don't know how to say this because pastorally you want to be there with those parents, but you have to resist reinforcing that narrative. You can't necessarily reframe it for the parents in that moment, and I'm not suggesting you need to tell them what you're feeling is wrong. But you can avoid reinforcing that right? And the church ought to be one place where we don't say this way of being is tragic, right?
Even if the rest of the world buys into that notion, I think the church needs to be different. And so, even though you can't reframe that for them, I think refusing to reinforce the idea that an autism diagnosis is inherently tragic is something that's is, is really important is really important to do. And yeah, just echoing, educate yourself about autism because there are just so many misconceptions about it that abound.
Zoe: This is been such a good conversation. We have more questions that we've not managed to get through. So if we've not answered your question, I'm very sorry, but please send us an e-mail or whatever and we can try and write one to you I guess.
But yeah, this has been so much fun. Thank you for listening. And as always, if you have any questions, you can message us at @autismtheology on X or Instagram or you can send us an e-mail at cat@abdn.ac.uk, even if it's just to say hi or send a picture of a cat. We would love to hear from you on October the 24th. We have our next webinar, Elizabeth Cochran is speaking on autistic ethics, moral community, empathy and virtue. You can find a link to register in the show notes.