The Autistic Christian

Let me say from the start that I have a strong faith and although I’m willing to discuss it, I have not started this thread to try and evangelise anyone. Simply I’d like to discuss with other autistic Christians how they cope with church, other Christians and trying to resolve their head around everything.

  • 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

  • I agree with Handi-andis, it could be very annoying to be preached at in a place from which there is no easy escape. People who go to a church (whether they have made a commitment to it or not) have gone there voluntarily and expect to be preached to, the commuters have not.

    On the other hand, is it much more annoying than having to overhear someone else's boring phone conversation or choice of music?

    If a Muslim tried to convert me to Islam in a similar way, I wouldn't be interested, but I would try to be polite, and maybe explain my beliefs to him (or her) in return.

  • It is how to put people off by having things rammed down their throat. Preaching on a street is one thing as people can always walk away, but on a commuter train you don't have that opportunity. If we turn it around and ask the question, how would you feel if it was a Muslim doing it what would be your response? 

    That said, if that is what they feel the Lord is calling them to do then so be it, but personally despite my faith I would find it very annoying if I was in that carriage on that train

  • New topic; how do you feel about people preaching the word in a packed commuter train?

  • Now that I have a permanent job, a good deal better than I was. Also may well be a few other Christians in my workplace.

  • I see the world simply, as a place where I, with love, traverse the skies upon wings,

    trying not to fear, always loving, always trying to be kind, though through the dark we may yet fly,

    the light of love guides on and we shall be as we are but more and more for the day is coming when we shall be

    surrounded by waving trees and waterfalls, alight and bright, we will meet at last and we shall feel everlasting love

    in the orchards of the overhanging sky.

    That was some of my poetry in case you didn't guess.

  • God has told me to teach the world about love and so I do

  • If one is in darkness, know there is also light, and the light will shine forth.  Not the light of the sun or of the moon or the stars, but the light of love.  To think like this is to feel love always.  And who has seen or felt this light of love?  All those who have loved or who have been loved.  That is awesome.  

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