The Autistic Christian

I believe because I have faith the Lord my God, my Heavenly Father, which I know sounds like a circular argument but it truly is the case and that is the point. You can not tell someone how to believe you can simply show they why you believe and they either will or won't. Most people have faith for one of two reasons, either they were brought up in the church and so have always had faith or the Lord showed them what happens with faith. What I mean by that is that they had a miracle happen to them, or they witnessed a miracle or they know someone that a miracle happened to them and they heard that person's testament. In my own life, despite growing up in a Christian family where my father went back to being a Church minister and the negative impact that had on my life, a host of things have happened to strengthen my faith and to get me through the hard times.

I will give you just one example, and will happily tell you others if you want them. I left a solid job to work for the offshore safety division of the HSE and found it was my calling but there were lots of issues within the organisation, which I instantly saw and pointed out. Well the net result was that I got fired but at the same time I was seeing a Christian girl and got dramatically dumped after revealing something from my past I hadn't told anyone before, then having flown back from London to Aberdeen having been dumped I developed double pneumonia, which was when I got the letting terminating my contract. So unsurprisingly I was in a very darkplace and because of my upbringing, I couldn't speak to anyone about it. So once day, I was out in the car with my then young daughter asleep in the car behind me and drove down to a bench by the grey North Sea and stopped. I sat on that bench and had a smoke whilst looking out to sea. I had an overwhelming desire to just walk out into the grey cold inviting flat calm sea and just keep walking. Well I felt the Lord tap me on the shoulder and say to me "she needs you" and I turned round and saw the car and my daughter sleeping in it. That snapped me out of it and pulled me back to normality and gave me the drive to find another job and to get on with life, which I did, as by the time my notice period was up, with the Lord's help I had secured a new job with almost equivalent pay. 

I hope that helps you to have faith, but I can't force you to and I certainly did not start this thread to evangelise, just to try and help myself be a better Christian, even if it has started some very interesting sub-threads including your own. So thank you for that and the opportunity to share part of my life story.

Try: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AspieChristian/ or https://www.facebook.com/groups/christianityandaspergers/ they, like any facebook group, can vary a bit but its interesting to talk to christians from other countries and many denominations

Whilst as I have not been sexually abused I can not sympathise or empathise with you in that regard, I can when it come sot church and abuse. You see from the age of around eight onwards my father was a church minister and he and my mother were not only always busy with church stuff, to the detriment of family stuff in my view, but I was also expected to help with church stuff regardless of whether I wanted to or not. Hence, for me church has a lot of baggage and going to it more so, but I have a strong faith and lean on the Lord, not as much as I probably should do and I know I am not a particularly good Christian at times, but I do have faith. So whilst there are wicked people in the church and outside of it, at least one of the most infamous American serial killers was in fact a church elder,  that does not mean that all Christians and church goers are bad people. Whilst I for one believe the church as a collective whole should be more welcoming than it often is, from that perspective it is often no different to non-church organisations. Let's face it, even an autism group is often not that welcoming and is probably more a biological issue than a human trait, as it makes sense for any group to be non-welcoming at first until such time as the person is proved safe in order to protect the herd. So is there a question here that maybe our expectations when we go to church are too high? There is an interesting verse in Kacey Musgraves' "Follow your Arrow", which goes:

"If you don't go to church you'll go to hell (uuh)
If you're the first one on the front row
You're a self-righteous son of a
Can't win for losing
You'll just disappoint 'em
Just 'cause you can't beat 'em
Don't mean you should join 'em"

fair dos everyone has right to agree to disagree.its just nice to be part of this forum. regards gaz

But I have to say that the abuse I have experienced from people who aren’t Christian people is a lot worse. But makes no difference you get all sorts wherever you go

Puts me off going to church too especially because I was sexually abused by someone at a church once

There are lots of fake people on this planet. 

Yes lots of people are superficial 

It depends on what their saying or if they are shouting loudly 

I’m not sure what you mean? Can you explain this sentence please?

I have a son with autism that is 35 years old and he has gone to church his whole life. Even when it doesn't seem like he is paying attention he doesn't miss anything.  He is currently living in a group home with four other absolutely adorable autistic men and one of his staff in an effort to avoid taking my son to church told me that I was the one that wanted him to go to church and that He ( My son) didn't comprehend what was being said. So on the day of the Christmas service my son had called a pastor from a church ( I still don't know what church he went to) and he asked the pastor to pick him up for church. He then sneaked out right under the noses of two staff workers and was gone all day. lol He didn't miss the sermon. I do understand that it can be difficult. In fact I could not take my son to a white baptist church but he can sure make  Pentecostal preacher proud, lol If your having a hard time with the church your going to, I would advise you to try a different church. And for all you haters out there, remember the everything you do or say will be repeated.....lol

You are right I do not have a clue about your background, but, and it is a huge BUT, we are all shaped by our pasts and what we have been told. As I said in my previous post, there is a lot of negativity around what people can do, which tends to limit not only their ambition, but what others are willing to do to help them or see in them. If one is capable of communication then one is capable of working in some way, but as I also said, it is about finding the right job or been given the right opportunity. That doesn't make me hypocritical or self-righteous it simply makes me positive about disability. The strap line for my own company is "integrity through neuro-diversity", I make no secret of my autism in the professional workplace, I sit on the members forum of a trade association for self-employed people and champion disability rights and opportunities. So to say that I am the same one one of "those jesus hypocrites" is a long way from the mark as you do not know me. If you read my previous post carefully you would have seen that I caveated my championing statement by saying "a lot of disabilities regardless of type can work", thereby acknowledging that there will  be some people, either because they are too disabled or for other reasons can not work. That said, from my perspective the default position should be that the disabled do work in some manner in a job that best suits them and their abilities, as the benefits are many fold particularly when considering mental health and personal worth. So yes I am ambitious about disability working, not in a big way, I am not saying everyone has to do forty hour weeks, I am not saying every disabled person has to earn enough to live on, all I am saying is that there is a talent pool out there that is being wasted due to a lack of ambition due to negativity. 

Andrew

if your refering to me you dont know reason i cant work and you havent a clue abt my history.. you sound the same as those supposed jesus hypocrites. well done on your business.gaz

It happens will all hidden disabilities as I am in a chronic pain group, and people complain about the same lack of understanding there too. I would pull you up on one point though, I think there is often a lack of ambition surrounding autism, a lot of which is institutional and is often associated with early diagnosis from my observations. It is my firm belief that a lot of disabilities regardless of type can work, it is just they have often not found the right job or been given the right opportunity often due to a lack of ambition due to negativity. I have a RAAD-R of 189 and yet run my own company, sometimes more successfully than other times, but I was only diagnosed within the last few years so did not suffer from diagnosis negativity and other people having a lack of ambition on my behalf. There is a career for all of us, and often self-employed is the way to go for a variety of reasons, but we have to believe in ourselves and then use that to get others to believe in us.

yes this. it puts me off goin to church and i get paranoid abt people. especially as i dont work and people dont understand that you cant work. middle class churches especially.. hypocritical bigots.sorry .gaz

That might be true in some cases, but you get all sorts.

Socially superficial. As in adopting pleasantries and politeness, but not really meaning them and deep down not really wanting to associate with you or even like you in the first place.

Define superficial.

I'm trying to tell if this is my psychosis or not: are lots of Christians superficial?

Amen, God puts people in our paths to love on hard, unfruitfully