Autism and belief: beyond the stereotypes

Reflect on living with the illogical beauty of feeling hemmed in by faith.

Henna Cundill

Henna is a researcher with the Centre for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

A theatrical set door stands in the middle of a snowploughed road between fields of snow under a blue sky.

Photo by Zach Vessels on Unsplash.

Do autistic people believe in God? Can they? The stereotype says no. The stereotype says that autistic people have a preference for all things logical, scientific and systematic, and therefore God, accessed only through the medium of metaphor and subjective experience, must be beyond the autistic ken.

But we all know about stereotypes – they rarely serve us well. As it turns out that there are quite a few autistic people in churches, worshipping a God in whom they supposedly cannot believe. In fact, at the Centre for Autism and Theology (based at the University of Aberdeen) we have whole programme of research dedicated to understanding what it means to be an autistic person of faith.

It is not only true that autistic people can and do believe in God (some, anyway), but also autistic Christians can teach the rest of us a thing or two about the assumptions we make when it comes to why people live a life of faith. For example, if we assume that anyone with a preference for all things logical, scientific, and systematic is not going to believe in God, then we are also assuming that that faith is some kind of considered, intellectual choice; a conscious decision that Christians have made on how to approach the world and the experience of living in it.

But is faith really a choice? For many centuries the church was mired in this very argument about free will versus predestination. The matter never really got settled, indeed some theologians still earn their bread and butter by carrying the discussion on. Meanwhile, here in the academic cheap seats (so called ‘practical’ theology) we ask a different question: not do people have free will to choose the Christian faith, but do people feel like they have free will to choose the Christian faith? And what difference does this feeling make?

If I reflect on my own life as a Christian, I know there have been times when I’ve stumbled into prayer, angry or in despair (often both), feeling as if I don’t like my faith all that much. Or that maybe that God just doesn’t like me. More than once I’ve prayed, “I’m going to keep following you, God, no matter how hard you make this!” Is this great faith, or just sheer bloody-mindedness? I like to believe that I can walk away from practicing my faith, but can I really walk away from having it?

My research with the centre for autism and theology has been an education in how to live with the illogical beauty of feeling hemmed in by faith.

At one point in the Old Testament a psalm-writer speaks of feeling “hemmed in” by God. This resonates. My life is a patchwork quilt of being faithful to the Christian call, but also unfaithful, reluctantly faithful, faithful in public but, frankly, a bit iffy in private… yet every time I get to the very edge, somehow God is there. I cannot rationally explain God’s persistence in always catching me before I fall into utter, irrevocable faithlessness. It is certainly not logical. It is most certainly beyond my ken.

My research with the centre for autism and theology has been an education in how to live with the illogical beauty of feeling hemmed in by faith. Autistic Christians have taught me so much in the way that many of them persist in attending church, even when it is being stated or implied, not only by their non-Christian acquaintances but also by other churchgoers, that they are simply not meant to be there. Some have wandered from church to church and from denomination to denomination, trying to find acceptance and welcome. As one autistic young woman put it:

‘Going to church is just part of what Sunday is… [but] a lot of spiritual life is just up in the air and me working things out.’

When the purpose is counting bums-on-seats, research does tend to show that autistic people are more likely to be atheists. At the same time research also tends to show that socialisation is a big factor in the formation of faith. Perhaps it is little wonder then, that a group who often find themselves excluded socially are less likely to nurture and develop a faith. But then again, how do we explain a whole cohort of people who still have their bums on the Sunday seats and their hearts engaged in worship? Autistic people can and (some) do believe in God, and they keep engaging with church, working things out. Is this great faith, or sheer bloody-mindedness? At any rate such resilience is certainly not logical or rational, but perhaps it is just another thing that is beyond my ken.

Article

Character

Creed

7 May 2024

4 min read

The zeal of Simon Reeve

Is personal conviction enough to persuade others to change the world?

Steve Dew-Jones

Steve is news director of Article 18, a human rights organisation documenting Christian persecution in Iran.

An enthusiastic hiker stands in front of a view down a valley, smiling and holding his backpack straps.

Simon Reeve on his travels.

It wasn’t until I took my seat in Exeter’s Great Hall the other Friday that I noticed the title of the Simon Reeve show I had bought tickets for over a year prior - “To the Ends of the Earth” - and it was to prove apt.

The seemingly ageless TV presenter was his usual effervescent self as he regaled the audience with stories from some of his journeys to the distant place of the world - the Ends of the Earth.

We were taken from the hottest to the coldest places, the wettest to the driest; and alongside humorous and poignant anecdotes, there was also an almost evangelistic zeal in Reeve’s frequent pleas to “green” our money and time.

“Less screen time, more green time!” he revealed is a Reeve family motto.

And if he could give us one piece of advice, he said, it would be to “green” our pension - ensuring that the money invested goes to good causes that reduce our carbon footprint, rather than, say, to tobacco or oil companies.

It may not make us as much money, he said, but it would do more for the environment and reducing our carbon footprints than never getting onto another plane.

Food for thought.

Although, perhaps surprisingly, Reeve is actually somewhat of an advocate for tourism.

For despite the carbon footprint and potential to tarnish some of the best places on Earth, tourism also provides an important source of income and an economic reason to keep beauty spots special, he explained.

We can ask people as nicely as possible not to cut down trees or to look after wildlife, he said, but if they have an economic incentive, it’s likely to prove more persuasive.

Perhaps my biggest takeaway from the show was the passion with which Reeve spoke about the climate, “Mother Earth”, “Mother Nature”, “the natural world”, and “the spinning rock on which we live” - all phrases that he used.

At times, his language was almost spiritual.

But perhaps another motivator that could spur us on to action could be the knowledge that each of us have been charged by our Maker - another word employed by Reeve - with the responsibility to care for our world.

He talked about time in the great outdoors as being “good for the soul”. He even shared how on a recent visit to Greenland, it had made him - “as someone who is not religious” - consider whether there really might be a Creator, as it seemed as though the huge pool of ice there had been intentionally left there as a warning to the world not to melt it.

And as I reflected later on all I had seen and heard, I wondered whether, without a religious conviction, we may be lacking a persuasive motivation for people to stop destroying our planet ever further.

Humanists may argue that there's a shared humanity to fight for, but if we are just living for this one life, isn’t the most logical course of action to look out only for one’s own immediate interests?

Might we need another incentive, in the way Reeve explained that money can encourage people to look after their local habitats?

I wondered whether Reeve had known when he chose the title of his show that he was quoting the last words of Jesus, when he said his disciples would be his witnesses in Judea, Samaria, and “to the ends of the Earth”.

In the case of lovers of the planet like Reeve, perhaps their witness to the ends of the earth is the message of just how wonderful our planet is - and this is certainly a very valuable message.

It is to be hoped that the many thousands who will have heard Reeve’s message on this tour and on the screen will do their own bit to make our planet a better place.

I certainly find it a motivating factor.

And in spite of all our faults, Reeve said that the real highlight of all his travels has been the people he has met, and this has also always been my experience.

You can find such love in our species, he said - “the best species that there has ever been on our planet” - and I would agree, even if we reached the same conclusion based on a contrasting set of overriding beliefs.