Book - ‘ Autistic Thinking in the Life of the Church’

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IF YOU followed the University of Aberdeen’s Autism, Theology and the Church conference in December 2021, you may have listened to Stewart Rapley speak on this book, Autistic Thinking in the Life of the Church one of many exciting and diverse titles to come from SCM Press over the past year. You may also have noticed some considerable anxiety among autistic theologians attending the conference. It is a fraught thing to hear yourself described and debated, especially by those who do not share your identity.

As Rapley writes from the inside as an autistic theologian, I approached Autistic Thinking in the Life of the Church with generosity — and, indeed, there were many moments of recognition and clarity in the book. He presents not only a helpful sketch of what it is to be autistic and to “think Christianly” about autism, but also offers a small study that draws attention to gaps between autistic and neurotypical experiences of the Church and suggests a model that may be of mutual benefit to autistic worshippers and the Church at large. The practical focus of this work is a real strength, as are Rapley’s occasional personal vignettes, which permeate the whole text with a sense of lived experience and pastoral intelligence.

Throughout this book, Rapley is meticulous in “showing his working”. At no point is the reader left wondering about the principles undergirding his thought, from convictions about neurology — autism is a distinct way of being — to theological convictions — that autism is a “valid” way of participating in the imago Dei — to Rapley’s closing pastoral recommendations for churches seeking to engage autistic worshippers better.

While I was concerned by the author’s references to Simon Baron-Cohen’s research in his earlier chapters — a scholar who has famously described autism as “the extreme male brain” — Rapley ensures that there are no gendered or stereotypical assumptions about his participants’ engagement with Christian spirituality.

Rapley is strongest when writing from personal experience as the “tenth participant” in his study, making perceptive and vulnerable contributions relating to his desire for the church to be a place in which one is equipped to be with God; to have space for questioning; and to be equipped to wrestle with the resources of our tradition. His “Engagement Model” is a helpful framework for providing an accessible space for autistic worshippers to ask questions and to acquire skills in biblical interpretation.

None the less, I was left with two questions. First, is there a risk that this model strays into “doing to/for” rather than “being with” autistic worshippers, creating spaces in which neurotypical church leaders are set up as gurus for their autistic congregants? There is, I believe, a mistaken assumption here that there are not enough autistic church leaders to facilitate learning and exploration.

Second, the focus of Rapley’s proposed resource is learning skills and information about the faith. As Rapley astutely suggests, there may be a preference among autistic Christians for mystical understandings of God, and a sense of dwelling in the divine. How might this be nurtured just as much as autistic worshippers’ intellectual engagement with the faith?