Christianity, Disability, and Autism: My Thoughts on Faith as an Autistic Person
Today, I thought I'd share my thoughts on faith as an autistic person. This can look very different for a lot of people, but for me, my experiences as a Christian are shaped by my autism, and by the way that I believe that God has made me. In this portion, I'll be sharing some of my thoughts on several meaningful Bible verses on disability.
This continued into high school and college, where I grew in my knowledge of the Christian faith, but I still experienced struggles finding community, especially as an undiagnosed autistic person. It wasn't until college and difficulties related to the pandemic that I was able to find a label to describe these experiences, which then encouraged me to explore what an autism diagnosis meant for my faith.
Most people probably don’t know much about autism outside of Sheldon Cooper, but for me, it means that if I’m having a long day, loud environments can stress me out. It means that I can have trouble keeping up in conversations with two or more people. It means that I have to be flexible in a lot of invisible ways, and sometimes small things can become big things that break the camel’s back. It also means that I’m detail-oriented, and I notice when my family puts generic orange juice into the brand-name container. I can focus very intensely on things that interest me, which you will know if you’ve ever mentioned Star Wars within a three-block radius of me.
In learning these this about myself, I also learned that it was okay to have different needs and limits than those around me, and the perfectionistic part of me has been able to let go of the idea that there’s only one way to be a good Christian.
Learning about how God made me also helped me find coping mechanisms that worked for me, and it opened my eyes to the fact that there’s others out there with similar experiences and struggles. This encouraged me to join disability groups, since autism is a disability, and later, it encouraged me to study what the Bible says about this topic. And what I found past the surface level was really interesting, especially when we look at what it means for God’s heart for the outcast and for people with disabilities.
Usually in church, when we talk about disability, it’s in the context of healing or fixing the disability, or we’ll use disability as a metaphor for shallow faith, but looking at examples of disability in the Bible showed a much deeper meaning than that.
One of the first passages I looked at was Luke 5:17-24, where we see a paralyzed man who was brought by his friends to see Jesus. When they weren’t able to get through the crowds, they dug through the roof and lowered their friend down to Jesus. We tend to skip straight into the healing aspect, but Jesus’ first action is to tell the man “Your sins are forgiven,” rather than immediately healing him.
Some context: in Jewish culture, disabled people weren’t allowed to come into the temple to give sacrifices, meaning their sins couldn’t be atoned for by animal sacrifices, so they were outcast from relationship with God, and were separated from community with others because of Jewish customs about those considered "unclean."
In many ways, our lives are marked by places where God has blessed us, but it is also marked by the ways that we’ve been challenged on Earth. For people with disabilities, whose experiences here on earth shaped them in significant ways, where they see their disability as a part of who God has made them to be, there’s the argument that there’s room in heaven for disability. Not causing pain and suffering and separation in the same way it does here on earth, but displaying the work that God has done in us. Yes, we will be transformed in the Biblical sense, and we won’t have pain and suffering and separation because of our disability, but also, other people’s understanding of us will be transformed and barriers in communication won’t exist anymore. For me, I can see heaven as a place that’s perfectly accessible for all of God’s people, where we can forever learn what it means to know him more.
Most people probably don’t know much about autism outside of Sheldon Cooper, but for me, it means that if I’m having a long day, loud environments can stress me out. It means that I can have trouble keeping up in conversations with two or more people. It means that I have to be flexible in a lot of invisible ways, and sometimes small things can become big things that break the camel’s back. It also means that I’m detail-oriented, and I notice when my family puts generic orange juice into the brand-name container. I can focus very intensely on things that interest me, which you will know if you’ve ever mentioned Star Wars within a three-block radius of me.
In learning these this about myself, I also learned that it was okay to have different needs and limits than those around me, and the perfectionistic part of me has been able to let go of the idea that there’s only one way to be a good Christian.
Learning about how God made me also helped me find coping mechanisms that worked for me, and it opened my eyes to the fact that there’s others out there with similar experiences and struggles. This encouraged me to join disability groups, since autism is a disability, and later, it encouraged me to study what the Bible says about this topic. And what I found past the surface level was really interesting, especially when we look at what it means for God’s heart for the outcast and for people with disabilities.
Usually in church, when we talk about disability, it’s in the context of healing or fixing the disability, or we’ll use disability as a metaphor for shallow faith, but looking at examples of disability in the Bible showed a much deeper meaning than that.
One of the first passages I looked at was Luke 5:17-24, where we see a paralyzed man who was brought by his friends to see Jesus. When they weren’t able to get through the crowds, they dug through the roof and lowered their friend down to Jesus. We tend to skip straight into the healing aspect, but Jesus’ first action is to tell the man “Your sins are forgiven,” rather than immediately healing him.
Some context: in Jewish culture, disabled people weren’t allowed to come into the temple to give sacrifices, meaning their sins couldn’t be atoned for by animal sacrifices, so they were outcast from relationship with God, and were separated from community with others because of Jewish customs about those considered "unclean."
In Leviticus 21, this is talked about more. Jesus’ first and most important healing in this story was restoring this man’s relationship with God and with his community by forgiving his sins, and the healing was a secondary proof that he had the authority to forgive sins. When the emphasis is placed on bringing him into fellowship with Christ, rather than his healing, it can change a lot about how we approach disability in the church.
We’ve talked a lot in my church about how God made humans to be in community, and people with disabilities are included in that intent. So, a pretty big frameshift happens when we start seeing healing as Jesus’ way of removing barriers to bring disabled people into community. That’s part of why so much of Jesus’ ministry was spent with the social outcasts, because he wanted to bring everyone into community with him, and for the first time, Jesus’ forgiveness of sins made this possible. Other passages in scripture talk about this idea of bringing others into the love and community of Christ, like Romans 15:7, which says to “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”
Along with this idea of inclusion comes the idea of being included in God’s good creation. As Christians, we are God’s workmanship, created for good works, and this isn’t just something for people with typical minds and bodies. Colossians 1:15-17 says that all things were created by God; Psalm 139:14 says we are fearfully and wonderfully made; Ephesians 2:10 says that we are his workmanship, designed intentionally for Him. And first Corinthians 6:19 – 20 says the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. These statements don’t come with a caveat. We were made intentionally by God for his purposes.
And this is just as true for people with disabilities as it is for everyone else. To explain, let’s talk about Taco Bell. My sister loves Taco Bell; she could eat it 24/7. And Taco Bell is great, but it isn’t Mexican food; it’s inspired by Mexican food. That’s like how we were made in the image of God, but we’re still humans, imperfect reflections of a perfect God. And Taco Bell has lots of different menu options, but a Dorito Taco isn’t any more Mexican than a Crunchwrap Supreme, just like people with disabilities aren’t inferior image-bearers of Christ.
This intentionality when it comes to disability can be hard to think about, since how can a good God intentionally allow suffering, whether in the form of pain or the experience of being an outcast? Personally, I trust God with this question, as difficult a question as it can be, because I prefer to believe in an intentional God, rather than believe in one that made a mistake while forming me in my mother’s womb.
To be clear, I’m not saying God uses disability as a punishment. The Bible’s very clear about this in John 9 with the story of the blind man who shares the story of his salvation even in the face of religious rejection by the Pharisees. Sometimes when someone with a disability isn’t healed or “fixed,” others can see this as a lack of faith. I listened to the testimony of a wheelchair-user who grew up in the church, constantly being asked if he was ready for his miracle, often without asking what he wanted, but he was never asked how his walk with God was. His physical healing was seen as more important than his spiritual relationship with God.
Sometimes, even physical healing can be a barrier to faith, similarly to Galatians 1:5-6 when the church argued about whether Christians had to be circumcised before they could be saved. While God can heal, physical or mental healing isn’t a guarantee or a necessity in the Christian faith, and this can be hard to hear for a lot of people. But we only have our own perspectives on this topic, with what we know of this world and it’s expectations, but God knows a lot more about this topic than we ever could, so if he chooses not to heal everything, then I have to trust that it’s for a reason. As someone who has experienced anxiety and depression, that can be a hard truth to swallow, but it’s also good to know that he carries me through those times, and he has in the past.
We’ve talked a lot in my church about how God made humans to be in community, and people with disabilities are included in that intent. So, a pretty big frameshift happens when we start seeing healing as Jesus’ way of removing barriers to bring disabled people into community. That’s part of why so much of Jesus’ ministry was spent with the social outcasts, because he wanted to bring everyone into community with him, and for the first time, Jesus’ forgiveness of sins made this possible. Other passages in scripture talk about this idea of bringing others into the love and community of Christ, like Romans 15:7, which says to “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”
Along with this idea of inclusion comes the idea of being included in God’s good creation. As Christians, we are God’s workmanship, created for good works, and this isn’t just something for people with typical minds and bodies. Colossians 1:15-17 says that all things were created by God; Psalm 139:14 says we are fearfully and wonderfully made; Ephesians 2:10 says that we are his workmanship, designed intentionally for Him. And first Corinthians 6:19 – 20 says the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. These statements don’t come with a caveat. We were made intentionally by God for his purposes.
And this is just as true for people with disabilities as it is for everyone else. To explain, let’s talk about Taco Bell. My sister loves Taco Bell; she could eat it 24/7. And Taco Bell is great, but it isn’t Mexican food; it’s inspired by Mexican food. That’s like how we were made in the image of God, but we’re still humans, imperfect reflections of a perfect God. And Taco Bell has lots of different menu options, but a Dorito Taco isn’t any more Mexican than a Crunchwrap Supreme, just like people with disabilities aren’t inferior image-bearers of Christ.
This intentionality when it comes to disability can be hard to think about, since how can a good God intentionally allow suffering, whether in the form of pain or the experience of being an outcast? Personally, I trust God with this question, as difficult a question as it can be, because I prefer to believe in an intentional God, rather than believe in one that made a mistake while forming me in my mother’s womb.
To be clear, I’m not saying God uses disability as a punishment. The Bible’s very clear about this in John 9 with the story of the blind man who shares the story of his salvation even in the face of religious rejection by the Pharisees. Sometimes when someone with a disability isn’t healed or “fixed,” others can see this as a lack of faith. I listened to the testimony of a wheelchair-user who grew up in the church, constantly being asked if he was ready for his miracle, often without asking what he wanted, but he was never asked how his walk with God was. His physical healing was seen as more important than his spiritual relationship with God.
Sometimes, even physical healing can be a barrier to faith, similarly to Galatians 1:5-6 when the church argued about whether Christians had to be circumcised before they could be saved. While God can heal, physical or mental healing isn’t a guarantee or a necessity in the Christian faith, and this can be hard to hear for a lot of people. But we only have our own perspectives on this topic, with what we know of this world and it’s expectations, but God knows a lot more about this topic than we ever could, so if he chooses not to heal everything, then I have to trust that it’s for a reason. As someone who has experienced anxiety and depression, that can be a hard truth to swallow, but it’s also good to know that he carries me through those times, and he has in the past.
This is another one where I appreciate the examples of disability in the Bible. Paul in 2nd Corinthians talked about a “thorn” in his side, which a lot of scholars speculate to be chronic pain, or a similar disability. Paul was an amazing man of faith, knowledgeable about the gospel, and he wrote half the New Testament, so when God didn’t take away his pain, it wasn’t because of a lack of faith. He wrote, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” It wasn’t a matter of faith, but of God wanting to show his power even more in Paul’s weakness. It wasn’t Paul’s fault he had a “thorn” in his flesh, and it didn’t exclude him from ministry. In fact, Paul says that because of his weakness, God was able to use him perfectly, in ways that he might not otherwise have been able to.
All too often, we can look at the Bible and see Jesus healing miracles and think “Jesus healed people with disabilities, so that’s what we need to do.” But we forget that Jesus did so in order to bring them into community, and that he walked on this earth for 30 years without healing anybody with a disability. And when we only focus on the healing aspect of faith for people with disabilities, we can leave them out. We assume that God will heal people with disabilities in our churches, so we don’t work to make churches more accessible. It takes significantly less effort to ask someone “do you want to be healed” than it does to walk alongside them, include them, and show them what it means to be a loving follower of Christ, even if immediate healing looks cooler to us in the moment.
Along with this idea of including people with disabilities is the idea of including them in ministry, as co-laborers in Christ. This is another one where the Bible does a good job of modeling accommodating different needs while serving God. In the story of Moses, we learn that Moses has a speech impediment, describing himself as “slow of speech and tongue.” And God knows this. He knows Moses, and his limitations, and who he’d made Moses to be. With this knowledge, he accommodated Moses by having Aaron come alongside him and speak to Pharoah for him, but he still included Moses as a mighty man in his ministry to the Israelite people.
I’m an introvert, and sometimes it feels like I have to be an extrovert in order to join in ministry or to be a good Christian, but variety in the body of Christ is good, because God made each of us different for a reason, and that goes for different needs as well. 1 Corinthians 12:18-26 talks about this as well, explaining that different members of the church are like different parts of the body, and how “the weaker members are treated with special respect.” If we look at this thinking about people with disabilities in the church, it makes sense that people can receive accommodations while still being necessary to the body of Christ. People with disabilities are still part of the body and it’s okay if different things have to happen for them to be fully included in church, including ministry. And this goes for the entirety of the church, with everyone’s individual strengths and weaknesses. While the Bible is right when it says that there is one way to salvation, I’m glad that we also have a creator who designed us with intention and knows exactly what we are capable of when it comes to serving him and serving others.
With the idea of salvation though, I did wonder for a while what heaven would look like for me. Would I still be autistic in heaven? Would the detail-oriented, hyper-focusing, socially-awkward parts of me be completely gone? I look forward to my struggles with anxiety and depression being gone, but if I believe that God made me intentionally, then wouldn’t traditional biblical healing change me into a completely different person? I wasn’t quite sure how to answer this question for a while, both for myself and for other people with disabilities, like those in the Deaf community who don’t see their disability as something inherently broken or in need of fixing in the way that is often portrayed in church.
For one possible answer to this question, we can look at the cross. I found this perspective from a professor of theology and disability, who talked about his relationship with his brother with Down Syndrome, and I think it’s really neat that Jesus’ own resurrection can give us another possible view of what heaven looks like. Jesus’s suffering at the cross was a huge part of his identity as our Savior and God. His disciples recognized him and identified him by the marks on his hands and feet and side, and he still had those after he’d been resurrected. They no longer caused pain and suffering, but they remained as identity markers and signs of the great work that was done through Christ, that we would no longer be separated from him.
All too often, we can look at the Bible and see Jesus healing miracles and think “Jesus healed people with disabilities, so that’s what we need to do.” But we forget that Jesus did so in order to bring them into community, and that he walked on this earth for 30 years without healing anybody with a disability. And when we only focus on the healing aspect of faith for people with disabilities, we can leave them out. We assume that God will heal people with disabilities in our churches, so we don’t work to make churches more accessible. It takes significantly less effort to ask someone “do you want to be healed” than it does to walk alongside them, include them, and show them what it means to be a loving follower of Christ, even if immediate healing looks cooler to us in the moment.
Along with this idea of including people with disabilities is the idea of including them in ministry, as co-laborers in Christ. This is another one where the Bible does a good job of modeling accommodating different needs while serving God. In the story of Moses, we learn that Moses has a speech impediment, describing himself as “slow of speech and tongue.” And God knows this. He knows Moses, and his limitations, and who he’d made Moses to be. With this knowledge, he accommodated Moses by having Aaron come alongside him and speak to Pharoah for him, but he still included Moses as a mighty man in his ministry to the Israelite people.
I’m an introvert, and sometimes it feels like I have to be an extrovert in order to join in ministry or to be a good Christian, but variety in the body of Christ is good, because God made each of us different for a reason, and that goes for different needs as well. 1 Corinthians 12:18-26 talks about this as well, explaining that different members of the church are like different parts of the body, and how “the weaker members are treated with special respect.” If we look at this thinking about people with disabilities in the church, it makes sense that people can receive accommodations while still being necessary to the body of Christ. People with disabilities are still part of the body and it’s okay if different things have to happen for them to be fully included in church, including ministry. And this goes for the entirety of the church, with everyone’s individual strengths and weaknesses. While the Bible is right when it says that there is one way to salvation, I’m glad that we also have a creator who designed us with intention and knows exactly what we are capable of when it comes to serving him and serving others.
With the idea of salvation though, I did wonder for a while what heaven would look like for me. Would I still be autistic in heaven? Would the detail-oriented, hyper-focusing, socially-awkward parts of me be completely gone? I look forward to my struggles with anxiety and depression being gone, but if I believe that God made me intentionally, then wouldn’t traditional biblical healing change me into a completely different person? I wasn’t quite sure how to answer this question for a while, both for myself and for other people with disabilities, like those in the Deaf community who don’t see their disability as something inherently broken or in need of fixing in the way that is often portrayed in church.
For one possible answer to this question, we can look at the cross. I found this perspective from a professor of theology and disability, who talked about his relationship with his brother with Down Syndrome, and I think it’s really neat that Jesus’ own resurrection can give us another possible view of what heaven looks like. Jesus’s suffering at the cross was a huge part of his identity as our Savior and God. His disciples recognized him and identified him by the marks on his hands and feet and side, and he still had those after he’d been resurrected. They no longer caused pain and suffering, but they remained as identity markers and signs of the great work that was done through Christ, that we would no longer be separated from him.
In many ways, our lives are marked by places where God has blessed us, but it is also marked by the ways that we’ve been challenged on Earth. For people with disabilities, whose experiences here on earth shaped them in significant ways, where they see their disability as a part of who God has made them to be, there’s the argument that there’s room in heaven for disability. Not causing pain and suffering and separation in the same way it does here on earth, but displaying the work that God has done in us. Yes, we will be transformed in the Biblical sense, and we won’t have pain and suffering and separation because of our disability, but also, other people’s understanding of us will be transformed and barriers in communication won’t exist anymore. For me, I can see heaven as a place that’s perfectly accessible for all of God’s people, where we can forever learn what it means to know him more.
Personally, I don't have a degree in theology or divinity, but as someone who grew up going to church, reading the Bible, and participating in ministry, these realizations were a turning point for me and my faith, and I hope that they can be helpful for others with similar questions. One thing I love about the Christian faith is the fact that we're encouraged to learn, question, and grow. By testing our faith and asking difficult questions, we can grow in our understanding and in our ability to help others. Through this studying, I was able to align these two parts of my identity, my faith and my identity as an intentionally created autistic person.
This blog post is a shortened version of a teaching I gave to one of my ministry groups, and I'll probably post a complete list of biblical sources later in case anyone wants to do their own study. Personally, I have not yet experienced a pastor give a topical teaching on Christianity and disability, but a lot of this discussion came in bits and pieces from growing up in the church. It just took a while for me to put them all together. If this study was confusing or dense, feel free to ask questions and I'll do my best to answer. I've put a lot of thought into this topic, so I hope I did it justice.
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