Bible Study for Asperger's Adults

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I just joined Wrong Planet today. I have never written a post so here goes. I would like to help start (not lead) a bible study group in the Dallas, Texas area for adults with high functioning Autism and Asperger's. My adult daughter (who also has Asperger's) and I have been looking for something for her to participate in and there is nothing we can find. We are Christians and would love for other believers to have the opportunity to come together and learn more about God in a setting that is safe and comfortable. She has a lot of sensory issues to the noises associated with corporate worship so while we are going to start with the bible study class, if other people have these same issues, we talked about getting a seperate room with a live feed of a service. That way it could be volume controlled. But I dont' want to get ahead of myself. Are there others out there that would be interested in such a class? Does anyone participate in such a group in another area? If so, could you tell us how it has worked? We see this as an opportunity to not only grow in faith but also plan social outings based on the interests of the group. She is checking with her friends. I came across your website and decided to write this post. I think this web page is a great idea and I plan to let my daughter know about it! Thanks in advance for any help.

First, welcome aboard!

Second, I am Fnord, an Aspie.

Third, I despise religion.

HOWEVER, if you wish to teach your Aspie child anything, then it is likely that you will have to approach the process on an intellectual level, rather than through emotional avenues. Three things make this likely: (1) your daughter may be very intelligent, and will quickly see through any attempts at emotional appeals; (2) your daughter may have reduced empathy, which means that she may not readily identify with the emotions of others (especially charismatics and evangelicals); and (3) her dislike of crowds may be due to over-stimulation of her senses and the anxiety (fight/flight) it produces.

Otherwise, a one-on-one relationship is most important in any teaching endeavour. Should your daughter at any time determine for herself that there is any deception or "fudging of the facts", then she will likely not want any more to do with Christian indoctrination, even with you. With that in mind, it is imperative that you exemplify to her the Christian ideals (e.g., love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) in all that you say and do, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your friends should also be careful to do the same. That means no hypocrisy, double standards, or 'special' cases where a person might play a metaphorical "Get Out of Hell Free" card and engage in something illegal, immoral, or unethical -- your daughter will catch on, and her trust will be broken, perhaps irretrievably.

It's much easier to convince an empathetic neuro-typical that an invisible, immeasurable, and unknowable being exists and loves them, even though he might send them to an eternal realm of endless torment for refusing to believe in him.

I wish I could help you, but here's some advice(you can take it or leave it): Perhaps you and your daughter should look into some sort of Christian sect that allows you 2 to worship God alone.....Or at least in the company of just the 2 of you. It almost makes me think your daughter might want to think of becoming a nun, or even a hermit.

Western Christianity seems to be focused heavily on communal worship rather than solitary worship. I've never really understood why. It's particularly disdainful of protestants to eliminate monasticism as well as refusing to recognize hermits.

Religion is all about community, because this is how it is passed on and retains some consistency. Individual worshippers have their own ideas about God; the songs, rituals, ceremonies and so on are a way to have the congregation think the same thoughts. It's a bit creepy, really, but as any psychologist can tell you we have a tendency to believe things more when everyone around us says the same thing.

For a more secular example, look at sporting events. Crowds of people, sharing the same emotional state, chanting the same songs, united under the same cause. This can be a wonderful high if the game goes well. It can also lead to hooliganism and violence if it goes badly. Song concerts are better, as they tend to be entirely positive experiences, but they have a similar effect. And at the risk of evoking Godwin's law, look at the political rallies that Hitler held - and which still happen today in America, under the banners of both political parties. This is damned powerful stuff.

One side effect is that there's an "us versus them" feel, with the congregation feeling they are better than the not-we (delusions of wisdom and infallibility are common - look up "groupthink") and treating those that actually refuse to join (or, worse, leave) as being somehow warped and inferior. Hermits are considered weirdos, probably drunks or druggies, or these days there might be rumours of paedophilia (fifty years ago, it would probably be homosexuality or communism, or both). Loners are viewed as a threat, which is why atheists do so badly in public polls. Even other religions are considered more trustworthy! ("He's a muslim? He may be a terrorist, but at least he believes in God.")

Ever heard of HOLY SCRIPTURES? If you believe the Bible to be the literal word of God, then you need not be part of a community of believers. All you have to do is read your Holy Book. I find it laughable that religious hermits would be considered communists 50-60 years ago considering that communism is explicitly against religion. If there really IS a God, then for crying out loud God is more powerful than people are, even when people are in a big group, and obedience to God is not the same as obedience to humanity.
The first and most important component of religion is Faith. The second component, which is of much lesser formal importance, is community.


Maybe that's the point of Christian Fundamentalism: If there is a standardized scripture that is not open to interpretation, then God's word is the same for everyone and people will know when some charismatic preacher tries to *interpret* the Bible to convince people that his ideas are the truth.

There's nothing wrong with corporate worship, though. Christians find their strength in numbers, which is the beauty of weekly meetings to celebrate the resurrected Lord. Christianity is just simply not a religion to be practiced in a vacuum. Church communities act to strengthen members' faith and live lives of service to each other.

I don't know how anyone else feels about this, and I'm not 100% sure it's a great idea, but I'll just throw it out there: If accommodating a disability is a concern, why not have a sort of "house church" for those who have similar problems meeting in a large church context? Plenty of respectable churches broadcast their services, so you could conceivably worship with that congregation even if you meet as a group elsewhere. Not only that, but if you're the one who initiates it, you also take part in service to others by filling a genuine need.

The thing I DON'T like about that idea is that it segregates people who have certain sensitivities or disabilities from the worshiping community. It would be easy to go from that, which might be innocent at first, to associating a particular church with exclusionary practices. You would want to periodically appear before the whole congregation so they can see how your group is doing and how that is working to build the body of Christ. It's the same idea if you split a church between traditional worship preferences and "progressive" worship styles--at some point you need to join the two to show that there is unity between the two groups and that both groups are working to reach the community for the cause of Christ. "Home churches" are a good thing, but it could deteriorate into "Oh, you're autistic? Well, the ret*ds meet at Ms. Smith's house..." I don't really think that's a very positive direction to go, so I'm suspicious of pushing any sub-group within a church community to the fringes.

^Nothing wrong with CORPORATE worship, eh? Are you defending sleezy televangelists who view religion as a business? The move "Leap of Faith" explores the issue of corporate religion.

To our ppr debators: is anyone actually reading, undertanding, and trying to repsond to the OP's question about her adult child? She has an idea and is wondering if it is workable.

To pendi: I would also try posting in Parenting, since that board isn't so debate driven, but I will note one concern I have: I don't know if you can find the critical mass you need of people with AS who believe in similar enough ways to enjoy communing together. Which is probably why I'm not aware of such groups existing. Don't let it stop you from trying, of course. I'd love to be wrong.

hello, im jess and im have aspergers. unfortuanatly i dont know of any bible groups for people with aspergers mostly because i have never meet an aspie that belived in god. perhaps you could see if there are any aspergers adult support groupd in your area though. these are a great place to meet people in the autistic community

What makes them holy? You must have got the idea (and the bible) from somewhere. There are some isolated people that think like this. They tend to be a little... fervent.



That wasn't quite what I was going for. I was referring to social outcasts in a wider sense, though the point still stands - if you aren't joining in with your local church, what ARE you doing? Most people in the era of McCarthyism didn't really have a clear idea of what communism was - after all, studying it would be a clear sign that you were a communist. It's the same logic that sees fundies denouncing Harry Potter as promoting witchcraft - they will never understand why this is ridiculous without reading it, and their own crazy logic tells them that reading it would be exposing themselves to witchcraft.



Faith is a big part of religion, yes. But you don't really understand the point here. God's existence is irrelevant - either he isn't there, or he is there and doesn't directly act. Faith, therefore, has no direct impact either way. All the major works of religious groups are done not through prayer or faith but by collective effort.



The point of Christian fundamentalism is that the bible is the true, unerring word of God. In practice it's a collection of writings by different authors from different periods, translated several times and copied out by hand over generations, and most damning of all completely edited for political motivations on at least one occasion. It's a complete mess. There are several versions now in existence, and even the separate versions are riddled with contradictions, vaguaries and downright errors. Because of this, it's unreadable as a whole and needs to be "interpreted". You can basically read any version of Christianity you like from there if you pick the right passages and underplay the others. Fundamentalists try to believe all of it at once, which only works if you throw out logic and truth.



I think it's a good idea, and it could benefit other autistic Christians. A small group without all the noise and incense and so on would be much more conducive. If you struggle to find other people in the area, perhaps arranging online groups would be practical - perhaps a Google+ hangout or similar? This would allow your fellow autistics to join in from the safety of their own home and have the comfort of being able to control how much they take in.

Thom, what I'm trying to get across to you is that there IS no rule that requires those who are Christian to join A church and/or be part of a community of believers.

There really ARE alternatives. And as I pointed out, NOT all Christians in the US are protestants; let alone evangelicals! If you are indeed a Christian fundamentalist, then your bible is the source to Gods word. You don't need a preacher to tell it to you since it's in a book. I used the qualifier "HOLY" because religious folk believe their scriptures to be such. Also, in the Orthodox Church it is possible to live a solitary life devoted to serving God. The idea is that if you have enough faith within you, then you don't need other people to validate it for you.

Not everyone who is a believer has faith because others do, the idea is that faith comes from within. Christians, your input is invited.

pendi - Almost all of the posters in this forum are atheist or agnostic (myself included), and a good number are hostile towards any form of organized religion (myself not included).
I would suggest you post this topic in the Parents Forum. Just be aware that most of the posters in that forum are NT (neuro-typical or "normal") and may misinterpret or get upset about anything posted with beautiful Aspie flair (aka blunt rudeness).

Corporate in this sense means "as a group" it has nothing to do with corporations or televangelists. Corporate derives from the Latin "Corpus" meaning "body".

Though I am a religous skeptic, I would go to a Aspie Christian group if there was one. Has God got the power to happen expecially here in Blighty.

Er, wrong sense of the term. "Corporate" can also pertain to the members of a group, a collective, or a "body." The root word for "corporate" means "body," therefore in the sense I'm referring to it refers to a congregation. But the way I see it, it's not so much that one think of himself or herself as worshiping with a single congregation but as part of a global community of like-minded believers. It's that "strength in numbers" aspect of Christianity that I feel builds up and encourages believers. At least it SHOULD, and probably succeeds more often than not. It's not a perfect world that we live in, after all...

Televangelists? Ew... I just meant that there are a number of churches out there that broadcast their services locally through television, radio, and of course through internet. Actually, the internet probably offers congregational worship the best advantage because even smaller churches can get in on this kind of outreach. Heck, even a small congregation with less than 75 attending members can go "multi-campus" just like the mega-churches, and the technology to make it happen is as ubiquitous as your mid-performing, cheap laptop. Congregational worship is on the verge of becoming much more participatory than in the past. You could conceivably text-message questions to your pastor and he could address those questions over the course of the sermon. Sometimes I wonder with the possibilities that are open to us if the church as a whole isn't reverting back to 1st century worship concepts such as discursive sermon format as opposed to the familiar homiletic. It's kind of a cool time to be a Christian these days, don't you think?

Point is there are ways to "plug in" special-needs groups and individuals such that they are very much a part of congregational, aka "corporate" worship and yet are accommodated for their specific needs.

Not only that, but even within various denominations, worship styles show a lot of variation from church to church. I'm on staff at a church that has long used a very traditional format (it's a southern baptist church) and has in recent years undergone extensive renovation to pretty much ensure that it stays that way. It's a beautiful building, especially the interior. But it has the traditional tall ceiling, hard walls, everything is painted white, the lighting is all white, there's not a shadow in the room, it's got big-building acoustics and bare-bones sound reinforcement. To keep you awake, it has long pews with a cushion running the length of the pew but no padding on the back--you can't get comfortable in those seats! You're not going to have loud concerts complete with fog machines and lasers at this church! Sure, our worship style is gradually moving away from a strict traditional baptist style, but there are practical limits to how far we can go with it without demolishing the building and starting completely over.

But on the highway, just outside town, there's another large church with a high ceiling, but it's painted black, has overhead "clouds" to deflect sound, baffled walls, and a mostly circular interior--all with a modern sound system and an isolated control room for it. It has multicolored lights, decorative or "environmental" lighting, projector screens, and a brightly lit stage that directs the congregation's attention forward. Instead of traditional pews, it has nicely padded and comfortable chairs that can be easily removed if they need to repurpose the sanctuary for special occasions.

There are pros/cons to both settings. I like the flexibility of the contemporary setup and I prefer interesting music, but there you're assured that there will be possibly over-stimulating lighting and loud guitars/drums. If that doesn't appeal to you, a "softer" place like my church where we do modern praise and worship songs but keep even that sort of thing subdued for a much older congregation might be friendlier if you're easily overwhelmed.

The Peter Popov movie? Hilarious...

Of course, there's this guy:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ousKoyDxlDE[/youtube]

EPIC!! !