Zoe: [00:00:00] 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 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 in the latest conversations in the fields of autism and theology, share relevant resources, and promote ways.

That help faith and non-faith communities enable autistic people to flourish. This podcast is run from the University of Aberdeen's Center for Autism and Theology, [00:01:00] which we've shortened to cat. If you would like to access the transcript for this episode, it can be found via the link in the show notes.

Before we launch into our cat chat discussion today, I just wanted to quickly invite everyone to the Center for Autumn and Theology's online conference happening this November. So on the 5th to the 7th of November, there'll be a three day online conference on faith on the margins, engaging with non-speaking and black autistic Christians.

And we're really looking forward to this event. There's a link in the show note. In the show notes where you can find out a little bit more about that and register. So yeah, please do have a look at that if you're interested in more substantial conversations about autism and theology. So yeah, today we're reflecting on two whole years of the Autism and Theology Podcast, which.

Just feels quite crazy that we've had, like we've been running this for a while. I think we're on 52 episodes. I can't remember. I [00:02:00] did see it the other day and I was like, that is. Yeah, it really does not feel like we've been doing this for two years. And yeah, we're so grateful to everyone who's continued to engage with us, everyone who's sent us questions and all of our speakers.

So yeah, we just wanted to spend a bit of time today reflecting on Yeah, last two years and where we're going in this next year. So yeah. Ian Krysia, what have your kinda highlights from this year of the podcast? Been. 

Ian: So, um, I really enjoyed the conversation I had with Luke Aylen about his book, the Forgotten Palace. Uh, it was fun to do an episode That was, I, you know, I, I don't wanna say unserious 'cause it's not, it certainly was serious, but it wasn't, um.

Heavy it dealt with, with more creative sort of life-giving, exciting stuff. So much of what we talk about, I don't, it doesn't, it's not that it's negative, but a lot of what you deal with when you're talking about autism research is the [00:03:00] impacts on autistic individuals from society. Right? And most of those impacts are not great.

So having a conversation with someone about. Something that was just really fun. Um, and ways that he portrayed autistic experience in that book by having a, or, or neurodivergent experience, I should say, by having a neurodivergent character that I think a lot of people can relate to or can understand in terms that were clear.

I think it was just a really good conversation and, and really cool to, to, to explore that dimension of things. 'cause it was very much a change of pace from what we. Tend to do, not that there's anything wrong with what we tend to do, of course, but it's, it was, it, it just stood out because it was, it was just a, um, so different, 

Krysia: I guess for me, there's been.

Tons of highlights. I enjoyed all of the episodes that I recorded in the last year with Sarah, Amy, and Katie. [00:04:00] So I spoke to Sarah McAfee about autistic women who have faith. I had a chat with Katie Unwin, I believe this year as well. Interdisciplinary Conversations about Autism, which was again, really good to hear about people from different disciplines who have a similar view to I do, but also to.

Let's just know that we're all kind of theologians to some aspect and we can apply it in all that we do. And also just chatting to Amy, I know we've reflected on the mental health series already, but I had a conversation with, um, Amy Pearson about masking, and again, just bringing that dialogue into a.

Spirituality and faith-based setting is just so important. I think so. I think for me, I just, the whole year was a highlight.

Zoe: Yeah, I think it's been quite interesting. So obviously in the first year we were like just starting out, [00:05:00] didn't know how it would be received. Whereas I feel like this year we've had maybe a bit more confidence with like inviting different guests and like seeing what conversations we can have and that's been really cool.

And like along similar to what Ian was saying, I really loved doing the episode with Maddy about social media. 'Cause I think as well with that it's like. You're so right. It can be, these are important conversations because like you look at all the topics that are so different and so many areas where autistic and neuro divergent people face exclusion or barriers, and there's so many topics to cover and it's so important to discuss those things.

But yeah, sometimes when we're like, so focusing on the barriers, we forget to look at the sort of like. Uh, just different angles of things and, um, yeah, those slightly lighter conversations that are still just as important to have in some ways. Um, and kind of, I guess like really encourage like the light of things.

Like, as I was saying with Maddie and her social media activism, it's not, you know, she's not doing [00:06:00] like, um. Anything particularly out there with it. She's just sharing about her personal experience online and people are resonating with that and that was really cool. Um, yeah, it's just been really interesting again, like having, um, I'm gonna forget one side, I'm listing them off, but having John Alistair talk about Neurodiverse Church again, that was really interesting.

I really enjoyed that f episode. Um, I mean, I love Christmas, so having our the Christmas episode was good fun. Um, and yeah, I think the mental health series was really enjoyable and I. Yeah, difficult in a lot of ways. And yeah, as Krysia said, we've reflected on that. It was difficult, but really good conversations came out of that.

And we've had a lot of your emails saying like, can you talk about depression? Can you talk about like this? Can you talk about this? And yeah, so much more to discuss. Um, and yeah, I think that series. We felt it worked really nicely to just block a few together. And [00:07:00] it's not that we won't ever talk about mental health and autism ever again, but it was helpful to block it together.

And that's something like taking forward into this year, listening to feedback on that we're gonna do a little block towards like. Around the same time of year, kind of that like late spring, summer, we're gonna do a block on autism, um, neurodiversity and sacred text and have some really interesting conversations there.

So something quite different, but something to look forward to. So, yeah. Um. Like it's fun reflecting back, but I'm also really excited for a next lot of guests that we have planned in this upcoming year. Um, and yeah, I guess another highlight for me is our CAT chats, like conversations that I learned so much from, like, I think a lot about just the last one we did on heat sensitivity, like that is not something I understood at all.

Or even like when Krysia, we did that episode, we didn't really know what we were gonna record on [00:08:00] that day, and Ian couldn't make it. And we were like, well, we've both seen Wicked. And then we started chatting about Wicked, and then we're like, we need to do our CATChat on this. Um, and just this fun con, it's a privilege to have these like fun conversations, um, in our CATChat episodes and just, yeah, like learn from you both and get to know you both.

Um, and yeah, I hope our listeners feel the same and get a lot out of it too. 

Krysia: I do have to admit that with the next installment of Wicked coming out in November time, we may if Zoe and I and Ian as well, if he can make it get chatting, we might have to follow up our part one conversation with the part two CAT chat.

Yeah, we'll need 

Zoe: to, we haven't actually scheduled for that, so we're gonna need to move around the schedule a little bit so that we can actually do that. 'cause what, it's November again, so. 

Krysia: Yeah, I think it's coming around about the same time of year. 

Zoe: Well, our Thanksgiving topic can get [00:09:00] binned for, um, some Elpheba chat.

Elpheba is a practical theologian, I think it was. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. 

Ian: I think, um, not to go too far down the rabbit hole of pop culture, but I think, you know, so thinking back, one of the other conversations that I really enjoyed was the one with Rudy Reyes, right? Mm-hmm. Um, talking about intersectionality, because I think that's such a key issue and, and we can't allow ourselves to get siloed, right?

Um, and I don't think this is, I I, I, I'm not. I, I, I don't think this is necessarily a major concern, but sometimes we get so focused on one particular issue that, that it's possible to forget about others. And I really appreciated that conversation talking about how, um, there's no such thing as a singular struggle, right?

That, that our, the struggle autistic people experience is similar in some respects to the struggle that Latino people experience, right? Or that the, that, um, you know. [00:10:00] In, in places that have institutionalized racism or, um, you know, controversy or, or not controversy, but um, difficulty in, in sort of oppressive systems or systematic, um, injustice.

That, that there's more, um, that all of those struggles are intertwined and that we can't sort of isolate ourselves from them. We can't say our. Our liberation or our freedom or our, um, allowing us to flourish comes at somebody else's cost. That's, that's not really acceptable. Right. Um. Mm-hmm. The reason I brought up pop culture is because it makes me think of, um, K-pop demon hunters.

I don't know if y'all have seen this on, uh, Netflix, but it's a, it's, it's wildly No, I haven't, it's like wildly popular all of a sudden. Um, it's, it's a, it's animated. It's a, it's a musical basically, but it's really resonated with a lot of people. 'cause there are themes about guilt and [00:11:00] shame and acceptance.

Um, and, and. Uh, for a lot of different people who have felt, um, ashamed or, or, um, marginalized, they've found resonance with those, with the, with the themes of that movie. And it just, Remi, it's just sort of a reminder that, um, that if we're working towards. If we're working towards, uh, liberation, that it's everyone's liberation, right?

If we're working towards a just society, it's a just society for everyone. And so the, the, the issues and the struggles that autistic people face in society are not isolated. They're part of a larger system that that marginalizes a lot of people. 

Krysia: I think that's also something that, um, a colleague and friend of mine ran, Karl and I wrote in a recent paper.

We can pop that in the show notes as well around how, see we come from completely different backgrounds, although we have disciplinary [00:12:00] similarity, um, there's, we basically face the same pile of rubbish from different angles. So actually that's almost just to say absolutely, and I think that's something we can really build into our.

Basically what we do on the podcast going forward.

Zoe: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's what I really enjoy about this podcast is like obviously the focus is autism and will always continue to be au to be a focus on autism because like, I think it's important to have those spaces, but then so many of our conversations are relevant to other neurodivergent people as our quite often, like, stuff resonates with me as a dyslexic person and um, even neurotypical people, like everyone does feel.

Marginalized at points, and I think that's what's great about the podcast as well, preserving a space to talk about autism. We can also bring in other people. 

Krysia: Yeah, I completely agree because I think [00:13:00] there's

there's almost, sometimes when you talk about autism, you can talk about only being autistic at the expense of other parts of. What it could be mean to be autistic and to experience other things at the same time as well.

Ian: I think also, you know, looking forward at the, at the year that we have ahead, one of the things that we're looking at when we talk about that engagement that we're looking at with, with Sacred Text, we're looking at that from a number of different religious angles, right?

Not just, not just, um, Christianity's perspective as though there were a singular Christian perspective anyway, but um, looking at engaging with sa sacred texts in different ways, um, and just. I think I, I think always, um, having an eye toward the bigger picture, um, is just a, is is always a benefit and that's something that we've tried to balance and I think have done okay and will continue to work at.

And, and so, um, it's [00:14:00] always good to hear those. That listener feedback, right? Where they say, Hey, have you thought about tackling this topic? Or have you considered this perspective? Because sometimes we haven't, right? There are times that we've needed that, um, in order to go, oh, that's a really good idea, or, yeah, we should definitely cover that.

Um, so yeah, it's just, it's good to hear from people because the, the, the, the more voices we hear from them, the more we can focus on the, the varieties of autistic experiences rather than. It just being our own perspective. Right. 

Zoe: Yeah, definitely. And that's like we really appreciated everyone who filled out the Center's Impact survey, um, or feedback survey to kind of gauge what like the impact is that the podcast and other things are having, but also to hear feedback and also to hear what can be done better.

And, um, I know one of like, like one or two of the responses had said they felt like the podcast was very church focused. And while that [00:15:00] was interesting, they wanted more kind of like, um, personal religion. Um, so yeah, like similar to what Ian was saying with different faith perspectives, different perspectives.

Like, we appreciate your feedback because that means we can incorporate stuff that's actually relevant to people and what people wanna hear. Um, so yeah, definitely. And yeah, I'm really interested. We've got. Yeah, a really diverse group lined up hopefully for that sacred text, um, series. So yeah, I think it'll be good fun.

Krysia: And what's I'm particularly looking forward to this year is I get to do the Christmas episode this year and I haven't done one yet, so I'm really looking forward to doing the Christmas episode, which will be really, really exciting. 

Zoe: Yeah . it's always so fun to have these kind of check-ins, like as the three of us, but also, yeah, just like reflect on the year behind the year coming ahead of us.

Um, but yeah, if you have any questions, wanna share topic ideas, um. [00:16:00] Yeah, anything at all, you can message us at autism and theology on social media, or you can send us an email at cat@abdn.ac.uk. Even if it's just to say hi. We would love to hear from you.

And yeah, again, we thank you so much for engaging with the podcast and supporting us and encouraging us. 

Thank you for listening to the Autism and Theology Podcast. If you have any questions for us or just wanna say hi, please email 

cat@abdn.ac.uk 

or find us on Twitter at Autism [00:17:00] Theology.