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.

Explainer

Creed

Seven Deadly Sins

Sin

28 August 2023

7 min read

Sloth’s languid lack of passion

In the appropriately last in a series on the Seven Deadly Sins, Graham Tomlin looks at what’s lost to life when sloth sets in.

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

Sloth is the most perplexing of the seven deadly sins, and the one that is hardest to define. Most people would probably think first of laziness when they think of sloth. On the other hand, sloth is often related to the older Latin idea of ‘accidie’, which is sometimes translated ‘spiritual weariness’ or ‘despair’. But these two definitions indicate the problem we have with sloth. If it is just sheer laziness, it might be considered as a slight moral failing, but most of us would hardly classify a little idleness as one of the great threats to human life. Sleeping in just a little longer in the morning hardly promises to bring western civilisation to its knees. On the other hand, if it is defined as ‘despair’, that sounds very close to ‘depression’, and we know that depression is usually an illness that afflicts some people without their choosing – it is not a freely chosen pattern of life, an act of disobedience to God or anyone else. By this understanding, sloth hardly counts as a sin either. Sloth is either too trivial to worry about, or too involuntary to blame.

Clinical depression is an illness that can hit people for no apparent reason and for no fault of their own. The symptoms are similar, but it is important to distinguish depression from sloth. Depression can be caused by genetics, a traumatic event or the misuse of drugs. Sloth is not depression – it is another form of despair that starts with small things, a deliberately chosen shrug of the shoulders, a turning away from someone in need, a switching off of something in the heart. Sometimes it can be caused by disillusionment with life, but it sets in a pattern of allowing yourself to drift towards a languid ‘couldn’t be bothered’ approach that in time becomes a habit of life.

Once sloth, or spiritual weariness, gets hold of you, it is hard to shake off, and it can lead to disaster. Sloth is essentially a giving up on life, and it leads to finding no pleasure in it, a dull, steady torpor that expects nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing worth getting out of bed for. Dorothy Sayers wrote of sloth:

“It is not merely idleness of mind and laziness of body: it is that whole poisoning of the will which, beginning with indifference and an attitude of ‘I couldn’t care less’, extends to the deliberate refusal of joy and culminates in morbid introspection and despair.”

When we lose the passion for life, goodness, laughter and joy, then it may be a sign that sloth has fixed its grip on us.

Our culture is the most over-stimulated in history. Only a generation or two ago, children had to make do with a football, a doll, a game or two and a few friends. Then black-and-white computer ping-pong was born, closely followed by Space Invaders and we all thought the ultimate in entertainment had arrived. We were never to be bored again. Those games now look stone age. Yet with the arrival of unlimited information at the click of a mouse, games with graphics enabling you to fly the world, fight the Second World War and create your own civilisation, have we eradicated sloth or boredom? If anything we have increased it.

Peter Kreeft comments:

“how do we explain the irony that the very society which for the first time has conquered nature by technology and turned the world into a giant fun-and-games factory, a rich kids’ playroom, the very society which has the least reason to be bored, is the most bored?”

The problem is that however intricate the technology, however scintillating the entertainment, it soon gets superseded by something else. Hence, it’s hardly surprising when we turn our noses up at the triumphs of yesterday, as we have something better today, and when we even get disillusioned with today’s wonders, knowing they will soon be consigned to history as well.

But to dig a little deeper into the origins of sloth, Thomas Aquinas describes it as “sadness and abhorrence or boredom regarding a spiritual and divine good”. He refers to what happens when through numerous small choices and turning points, a person becomes incapable of being stimulated by anything good or beautiful or wise. Or worse, when goodness, beauty or wisdom evoke a response of disgust or a cynical smirk. When we lose the passion for life, goodness, laughter and joy, then it may be a sign that sloth has fixed its grip on us. It happens when there is nothing left, outside ourselves, to really believe in.

Looking at the other sins, we might be forgiven for thinking that they are a long list of restrictions, a denial of some of the fun things in life, a restriction on our pleasure-seeking, a dampener on passion. It is the inclusion of sloth on the list that gives the lie to this once and for all. Sloth is precisely a lack of passion, a settled laziness that for whatever reason fails to get worked up about poverty or cruelty or the threat to life on earth through climate emergency. It is a dullness that fails to wonder at green rolling hills, brooding mountains, an act of sheer unexpected kindness, the birth of a baby, Botticelli, Mozart or Taylor Swift (take your pick from the last three, or add more – beauty is naturally subject to taste). It is the spirit that reacts to cruelty, injustice and pain by shrugging the shoulders and switching the channel. Christianity encourages a passion for life and all that is good and beautiful. That is why it is fundamentally opposed to sloth, and puts it firmly on the list of habits to be shunned at all costs.

According to the Christian account of life, we are beings created with a capacity for immense joy, passion, wonder, inquisitiveness and emotion. The world was created as an arena for all this enchantment. It was made so that we might regularly sit back in amazement at the fact that we get to live this life, this physical/spiritual life on this planet that is our home, a place of sheer beauty, the majesty of a lion, the speed of a hummingbird, the taste of pure water. We were intended to take delight in such things, to explore them and enjoy them, yet most of all we were intended to delight in their Creator, the author of all this goodness, the one from whom they (and we) all come, the most beautiful and desirable one of all.

In his great autobiographical reflection entitled ‘Confessions’, St Augustine says of the human race: “they choose to look for happiness not in you, but in what you have created.” Now Augustine himself was never quite sure whether taking pleasure in created things was a good idea or not, however, he did at least make this one point supremely well: that our ultimate joy was to be found in God. The joy we find in sunsets, friends and apple tart are tasters, anticipations, to give us a taste for the very best, which is God himself. And conversely, when we lose our taste for God, we are likely sooner or later, to lose our taste for other good things, or even to develop a taste for things that are bad for us, like hallucinogenic drugs or the thrill of theft or even cruelty, that try to imitate the ecstasy of a close connection with God.

I remember my first taste of Guinness. The dark, swirling Irish drink had always had a fascination for me growing up, and I remember the first time I plucked up courage to look older than my age, and bought a can in the local store to give it a try. It was foul. I hated it – it tasted sour, bitter and unpleasant. It didn’t help that it was a hot summer’s day and the beer was warm, but that didn’t matter – it was the kind of experience that might have made me never touch the stuff again. It wasn’t until later on, a few years older, after a bit of perseverance that I began to appreciate the hidden flavours, the rich, full wheaty taste. I learnt that just because it didn’t taste like lemonade did not necessarily mean that it was bad. As I learnt to appreciate and enjoy it, Guinness soon became a favourite drink, something I would choose above all others.

If it doesn’t sound too irreverent, for many people it is a bit like that with God. The idea of enjoying God is about as appealing as that sip of Guinness was for me aged 16. Yet in time, we can learn to appreciate things that have a deeper richness, a more profound taste. Guinness is a trivial example, but the same can be true of God – an acquired taste can take a while to come, but when it comes, it is the richest of all.

The great past masters of the Christian way advise us that the surest way to combat sloth, the turning away from all that gives life, is to cultivate not just a zest for life, but an unlikely but deeply satisfying desire for the one who gave the gift of life in the first place.