Understanding Neurodiversity in the Church: A Dialogue with Jon Machnee

In this enlightening episode, we engage in a profound dialogue with Jon Machnee, an Anglican researcher and data analyst, who elucidates the intricate relationship between individuals on the autism spectrum and their experiences within the Church. Our discussion is anchored on the critical need for greater understanding and inclusion of autistic individuals within Christian communities. Machnee shares insights garnered from extensive research, which reveals a troubling trend: many churches operate under the assumption that their practices effectively accommodate neurodivergent individuals, yet this is often not the case. By exploring the nuances of autistic cognition and the barriers faced in spiritual contexts, we aim to illuminate pathways toward a more inclusive Church. Ultimately, this discourse challenges us to reconsider how we engage with and support those who navigate these dual identities of faith and neurodiversity.

The discussion transitions into personal narratives, particularly focusing on Jonathan Mahney's experiences with faith and autism. Mahney recounts his journey from a Mennonite Brethren background, through a period of deconstruction during his university years, to a renewed engagement with Christianity. He reflects on the unique challenges faced by autistic individuals within religious contexts, emphasizing the need for churches to better accommodate and understand their experiences. The speakers further elaborate on the concept of neurodiversity within the church, advocating for the inclusion of diverse perspectives and the importance of recognizing the varied ways individuals connect with spirituality. They contend that understanding these differences can enrich congregational life and promote inclusivity, thereby allowing the church to fulfill its mission of unity in diversity. The episode posits that through compassion and informed dialogue, communities can forge deeper connections with all members, including those on the autism spectrum.

The episode culminates in a discussion on practical steps for churches to engage more effectively with neurodivergent individuals. The speakers emphasize the importance of education and awareness, urging congregations to learn about autism and its implications for faith practice. They suggest implementing structured and liturgical elements in worship that resonate with autistic individuals, providing tangible expressions of faith that do not rely solely on emotional experiences. The dialogue reinforces the idea that churches can create environments where all individuals feel valued and understood, regardless of their neurodiversity. The speakers conclude with a call to action, encouraging listeners to embark on their own journeys of learning and to foster unity within their communities by embracing diversity and understanding the unique contributions of every member. This episode serves as a profound reminder that inclusivity is not merely an ideal but a necessary component of a vibrant and loving church community.

Takeaways:

• Jon Machnee discusses the importance of understanding Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) within church communities, highlighting the need for awareness and education about how it manifests.
• The intersection of autism and Christianity reveals a trend where many autistic individuals feel disconnected from church practices, often perceiving them as tailored for neurotypical individuals.
• A significant portion of the autistic population experiences challenges with traditional relational expressions of faith, necessitating adaptations in church practices to ensure inclusivity.
• Machnee emphasizes the value of data mining in understanding the experiences of autistic Christians, which helps illuminate their specific needs and how churches can better accommodate them.
• The church's approach to evangelism often uses language and concepts that do not resonate with autistic individuals,...

Episode Transcript

(00:24):
Second Corinthians 13, 11, 13in the Christian Standard Bible say,
finally, brothers and sisters,rejoice, become mature, be encouraged,
be of the same mind, be atpeace, and the God of love and peace
will be with you. Greet oneanother with a holy kiss. All the
saints send you greetings. Thegrace of the Lord Jesus Christ and

(00:46):
the love of God and thefellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with you all. So just beforethis prick view of Scripture, the
writer had discussed the powerwe find in our own weaknesses. The
writer warns the church atCorinth to test themselves and be
sure that their faith is pure.After this, the author ends his letter
with the above. JonathanMahney, why do you believe after

(01:07):
telling people to testthemselves, that the author thought
it most appropriate to end theletter by admonishing the church
to love one another and to beof one mind?
Yeah, great question. I'm notsure I have an amazing answer for
this, but I, I think the, thebasic reason why you do that is,
is testing each other andtesting yourself is quite, quite

(01:27):
stressing and has a lot ofpotential to have impact on your
community and cause fractureswhere fractures aren't, aren't necessary.
And so there in, in mostcommunity and most social dynamics,
you're always going to havepressure to expand and pressure to
test and then pressure tocontract. And it's always good to,

(01:48):
to hold these things intension, not let one overpower the
other. I think in that sameway, testing each other and loving
each other are, are two partsof, of opposing dynamics that you
need to keep in balance. Andit's very easy to remember to test
other people, but notnecessarily as easy to remember to
love them. So, so I thinkthat's probably, probably what's

(02:09):
going through his head, if Ihad to guess.
Yeah. Yeah, makes sense to me.Hey everybody. Welcome to the Whole
Church Podcast, possibly yourfavorite church unity podcast. If

(02:29):
not, though, that's cool. Wedon't hold a grudge because that'd
be kind of counterintuitive alittle bit. I am Joshua Noel. I,
I am the announcer.
I'm.
That's all I am. I'm just hereto announce other people, particularly
of course the, the co hostthat means the most to everyone.
Yeah. Even if your first timelistening, you don't know who I'm
talking about. He means moreto you than anyone else. The one

(02:50):
and only TJ Tapiros fromBlackwell. How's it going, tj?
Good.
Yeah. And of course also herewith. I'm a great guest. I'm really
actually quite Excited forthis topic today we're going to be
talking with Jonathan Macnie.I think I pronounced that correct.
Is that right?
You did, yeah. You got itright first time.

(03:11):
He is an Anglican researcherworking to collect data from people
on the spectrum and how thechurch can best be equipped to better
include those on the spectrumwith what we're doing in our churches.
So excited to get into this.It's a kind of fun surprise. We haven't
covered this yet, actually. Alittle bit of diversity unity stuff.
It's gonna be a fun talk. Verywhole churchy.

(03:33):
Yeah, yeah. That's the vibe welike to have on the show.
Whole church.
Whole churchy. Yeah, yeah. Soif you're listening here, you might
want to check out the Onazowpodcast network website. The link
is below for shows like oursand shows that aren't like ours,
that we like to like. And ifyou're already listening, if you're
on the YouTube channel, hitlike and subscribe, please.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(03:54):
Sometimes running out.
What do you mean? Time runningout? They have limited time to like
and subscribe on YouTube.
Yeah, everyone does.
Well, I mean, I guess that's,yeah, technically true. All right.
And with that, you guys know Ilove starting our show off with a
holy sacrament of unity,because you can't be in disagreement

(04:17):
when you're as silly as I liketo be. Yes, of course. As always,
we are starting ourconversation off with a silly question
in today's what might be themost inconvenient thing about being
a ghost? I. I really want tohear TJ's answer first, actually.
Yeah, it's got to beintangibility if you're not like

(04:38):
a poltergeist. Specificallynot being able to pick stuff up.
That's gotta suck.
Just like, in general. Yeah,I. I feel like this might just show
that I have a. Have anunhealthy relationship with food.
But I'm thinking like, justthe ability, inability to eat things
because, like, I like a goodmeal, I like culinary arts, all that
kind of stuff. Wouldn't beable to experience it. And more importantly,

(05:00):
if I'm just thinking aboutinconvenience when I get bored, I
just like to munch things.It'll be so inconvenient if I just
couldn't munch. I'm justexisting. I can't even take a nap
just there. That seems prettyinconvenient. Yeah. Yeah. All right,
John, what's the mostinconvenient thing about being a
ghost?
Yeah, great question. I'm notreally sure because ghost Means so

(05:24):
many different things. Andimmediately what comes to my mind
is like, okay, what are theparameters that we're dealing with?
Or are we dealing with, like,you know, the one of those situations
where you can't. You're georestricted, like, you can't leave
a certain area because, like,you died in that area and now you're
haunting that. Or I feel likethat'd be pretty inconvenient. But

(05:46):
also like, are. Are you therein a state of. Of mourning because
something happened to yourbody and you're just in a perpetual
state of grief? I feel likethat'd be pretty bad. But like, without
knowing the specifics, it'sreally hard to comment on that. I
think most things about beinga ghost would be bad, to be quite
frank. Like, I don't really. Ithink it'd be harder to list the

(06:06):
upsides than it would the downsides.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah. See, I think most of,like, the bad sides I think of, though,
aren't really a thing ofinconvenience. It's more of like
a, wow, that's just a torneternal torment.
But, like, I think eternaltorments. Inconvenient.
Yeah. Yeah.
At least a little bit.
Yeah.
At least a little bit.

(06:27):
All right.
I guess generally speaking,not recommended.
Yeah. So one thing we foundthat really helps to get to better
engender Christian unity is tohear one another's story. So check.
John, would you mind sharingwith our listeners a little bit about
your faith journey and thecommunity you find yourself plugged
into today?
Yeah. So I grew up in ruralSaskatchewan in Canada as a Mennonite

(06:52):
Brethren. So I don't know. Areyou guys really familiar with Anabaptists
and that whole thing?
Yeah, not on like a show level.
But we know we've hadAnabaptist on a couple times.
Yeah. So, I mean, the joke isMennonite brethren. MB stands for
mostly Baptist. So that'slike, you know, close enough. And
like every. Every goodMennonite, at age 18, I joined the

(07:14):
army. That's. That's funnybecause Mennonites are pacifists.
Yeah.
Yeah. And so joined the armyat age 18, went to the Royal Military
College of Canada, which iskind of like Canada's West Point,
and started training as anarmy officer. Quickly deconstructed

(07:34):
after. After getting touniversity, left the faith altogether
after maybe one or two yearsat university. Mostly just started
learning lots of new things,digging really deeply into questions
of creation and evolution andthen finally questions about New
Testament critical scholarshipand things like that. And just rapidly

(07:57):
Deconstructed. And yeah, then,then I still just found religion
very interesting. And Ihappened to meet at one point a whole
group of other people who werealso at that time, it was called
Asperger syndrome. We were alldiagnosed with Asperger's, we met
each other and we all haddeconverted. And I thought that's

(08:22):
kind of weird. How did thathappen? And so I talked to them and
we all started realizing mostof us had the same deconversion story,
most of us went through thesame path. And so I just started
thinking that's kind of weird.Is this an anomaly, my little microcosm,
or is this indicative ofbroader trends? So I looked at the

(08:43):
peer reviewed literature thatexists, did a deep dive into the
science of autism andreligiosity and found that generally
speaking, the peer reviewedliterature showed that there was
a general trend of negativecorrelation between autism and religion,
meaning if you have autism,you're less likely to be religious.
And I thought, okay, cool, butwhy? And I found all the why answers

(09:07):
they were giving did notaccord with my intuitions and, and
didn't seem to be right. Likethe, the suggestions were, were things
about like autisticmentalizing capacity or theory of
mind ability and how thatwould translate to your ability to
relate to a personal God andthings like that. And it was like,
well this, this wasn't reallymy issue. And so I thought you to

(09:30):
discover the answer myself. SoI, I at the time did not realize
I would be interested in thistopic for this long. But that was
10 years ago that I, I starteddoing this. And so I embarked on
what is now one of the largestdata mining campaigns to ever exist
on autistic Christians. Andthen I started doing interviews with

(09:53):
autistic Christians and exChristians and I've done over 500
interviews with them. Andanyway, so I was an atheist for most
of that time and then I leftthe military. And after I left the
military I had a lot ofthinking to do about my time in the
military and I was still likein contact with lots of Christians

(10:17):
because my research was mostlyabout autism and Christianity and
this overlap between autismand Christianity. And I just slowly
found myself coming back toChristianity through a whole variety
of methods. I spent probablythree hours trying to explain that

(10:38):
on my podcast, if you want thefull long story, but the short story
is I left the military,started to think about the context
of all the things I was doingin the military and Christianity,
and sort of had a change ofheart and converted back to Christianity.
At the time I was going toAnglican churches as an atheist mostly

(11:02):
because I just like theliturgy. So I thought I'll just keep
going to an Anglican church.And that's basically how I ended
up where I am.
That's kind of funny.
Yeah, I went through a periodwhere I really looked at Catholicism
and Orthodoxy and other formsof Protestantism. But eventually
I just ended up also beingmore intellectually convinced by

(11:24):
the Anglican case and the sortof holistic Anglican tradition as
the one that I would best fitinto. And so, you know, by, by sheer
coincidence of having gone toan Anglican church, it turned out
I found, I found the church Iwould eventually end up in. And yeah,
that's, that's how I came.

(11:45):
Or the full story. You go toChristianity on the spectrum. Listen
to that.
Yep, that's the short version though.
It's cool.
Go ahead.
I'll say you talk about datamining a little bit in your story
and I'm curious. I think a lotof people kind of know what data

(12:05):
mining is. Maybe not everyone,but as far as like thinking of like
autism and Christianity, howdo you explain that to just average,
ordinary, you know, whoever,whether they're part of the church
or not, if they're like askingyou what you do, you know, do you
have to do much explaining ordo most people kind of get where
you're coming from? Just fromthe beginning, most people hear.

(12:26):
Data mining and they assumeit's some sort of bulk data collection,
which is, I mean, closeenough. I like to think it's a little
more sophisticated than that.But essentially, essentially I built
a whole bunch of tools,building off of a whole bunch of
other tools to scrape socialmedia for people who were calling
themselves autistic oridentifying themselves as autistic

(12:49):
in their bio or involved inautism specific forums and autism
specific groups or in contactwith those and then basically just
pulling all their posts thatthey had publicly available and reading
through them. That's basicallywhat data mining is. Data mining
is really useful for, forgetting sort of an inch deep, mile

(13:12):
wide view of things. But oftenit's not enough to go really deep
into people's views. And sothat's where I come in with like
dropping surveys and then longform interviews and things like that
to actually dig underneathwhat people are saying online. You
know, there's yourinteractions online and then there's

(13:34):
what you would say to someonewhen you're actually talking to them
about, about what they thinkabout Christianity or, or their issues
with Christianity. And soit's, it's sort of data mining combined
with Ethnographic research andsurveying and a whole bunch of holistic
data analysis techniques thatyou see in lots of sort of longitudinal

(13:56):
statistical studies. And.Yeah, so that's sort of what it is.
It's my, my background'smilitary intelligence. And so I often
joke that I, I use, use my, myskills from a past life to, to answer
questions that, that interestme. And the questions that interest

(14:18):
me specifically are questionsabout autism and Christianity, mostly
because I am autistic. So I, Ishould also specify, when I say autism,
I'm talking about what's nowcalled ASD1. So autism, if you look
in the DSM, it's called autismspectrum disorder. So the DSM is
like the big book ofpsychiatric disorders that people

(14:41):
diagnose other people with.And within the DSM there's autism
spectrum disorder. And autismspectrum disorder has three levels
to it. It is ASD1, 2 and 3. SoASD1 is where I am and it's where
the vast majority of thepeople that I research are. So I,
I say Christianity and autism.It's really Christianity and ASD1

(15:04):
that, that I study, butparticularly. So there used to be
three diagnoses, so highfunctioning autism, Asperger syndrome,
and PPD nos, or sorry, PDDnos, which is pervasive development
disorder, not otherwisespecified. And so you take those
three diagnoses and nowthey're all labeled under one, which

(15:25):
is, which is ASD1. And, andso, yeah, it's just something that
I find really fascinating. Andso I read research papers, I keep,
keep up to date with all that.And then I just lurk on the Internet
and listen to what autisticChristians are saying and ex Christians
and figuring out what thatmeans about Christianity and about

(15:49):
autism and how those thingsinteract. That's basically all I
do.
Yeah, super interesting.
Do you feel like that's a,that's a thing where you might reach
an end point eventually whereyou're like, okay, I figured it out
or is it just kind of.
No, unfortunately it's one ofthose perpetual changing things,
because Christianity is aperpetual changing thing and autism
is also a perpetual changingthing. And the way that we think

(16:12):
about autism has wildlyshifted. So when I got diagnosed
in 2009, it was sort of likea, I don't know, no one knew what
it was. If you said you wereautistic, the only real touch point
for that was probably likepeople with, with profound autism
or like a significantintellectual disability that you'd

(16:34):
think about them. However,nowadays people have a much better
understanding of what autismIs. But then that adds in additional
complications and, and thereare a whole, whole lot of things.
So I, I think this is sort ofgoing to be a ever shifting target
and moving target that reallynever ends. So I say, I say I'm going
to do this until I get bored.And that, that doesn't seem like

(16:58):
it's on the horizon anytime soon.
Yeah, see, at least you dohave an end point. You're going to
stop when you get bored. Us,we have a goal. It's just constantly
moving.
So when the entire church isin complete unison, we'll stop. Yeah,
well, then we'll just turn itto a celebratory podcast probably.

(17:20):
Actually.
Yeah.
Do a full season of justcelebrations and it'll be just as
long as this season.
Yeah. Which is so far.
Six.
Six years. So there is onething that we like to do to help
our audience and us to get toknow you better and we call that
our speed round segment. Sowe're going to ask you a series of
questions about what youbelieve and ask that you try to answer

(17:41):
them all in a single sentenceor you can skip them. And we're not
allowed to ask you any followup questions at all. Are you ready?
Can you handle it?
Yep.
All right, Perfect.
So.
Who or what is God?
The triune God as specified bythe Nicene Creed.
What is salvation?

(18:02):
Salvation is deliverance from sin.
What is the significance ofbaptism in the Eucharist?
These are sacraments.
What authority does scripture have?
Lots.
What authority does tradition have?
Also lots, but in a differentway from Scripture.
Do you believe in acontinuation of the gifts of the
Spirit?

(18:23):
That really depends on whatyou mean. Generally I find myself
being quite skeptical.However, I'm open to be corrected.
Alright. Can God change?
Depends what you mean by change.
What do you love about the Bible?
I find it interesting.
What do you love about the church?

(18:44):
Good question.
Which, if any of the sevensacraments do you follow?
Baptism, Eucharists,confirmation, penance, anointing
of the sick, marriage and holy orders.
Cool.
All right, Cool.
Great job. Yeah. That's it.That's the speedrun.

(19:05):
That was one of the speediestspeed rounds.
Yeah. A lot of peopleoverthink it. We just need the answer.
Yeah, I mean, I don't knowthat's a correct answer.
You said short answer, single sentences.
Yeah. You nailed it. Younailed it.
That's perfect.
Perfect understanding of the task.
Yes. The thing with autisticpeople is we tend to hyper literally

(19:26):
interpret what other people say.
Yeah. Thank God.
Yeah.
Just need more.
I got a Bit of that in me.
Speed round speed.
Exactly.
There we go. Yeah. All right.So one thing we really talk about
on our show is kind of thework of the Spirit in unity amongst
diversity. So, like, how theHoly Spirit is working all of us

(19:48):
towards unity, even with ourdiversities of thoughts. Neurodiversity,
biodiversity, all that kind ofstuff is working in that. I was curious,
what do you think your workcollecting data and stuff could do
to help the Church concerninghow we better include those who are
on the spectrum or maybeothers who are just neurodivergent

(20:10):
in some way?
Yeah. So the biggest thingright now, at least at this point,
is most people have no ideawhat autism is, have no idea how
it manifests, have no idea howit interacts with Christianity. And
as the saying goes, knowing'shalf the battle. And, I mean, I may
be biased because mybackground is sort of military intelligence,

(20:32):
knowing things. Yes. And so Itend to think having clear and accurate
pictures of battle space isessential in order to be able to
conduct any sort of operation.And so this is sort of within that
wheelhouse. Most people don'teven know what they don't know about
autism. You know, they'llmaybe have some ideas about what

(20:53):
it might be from a documentaryor from watching Rain man or the
Big Bang Theory and beinglike, oh, it's Sheldon Cooper, and
that's sort of the limit oftheir experience with autism. Or
they'll know a family who hasan autistic child, and that's basically
the limit and the extent ofwhat they know. So the biggest. The

(21:14):
biggest thing that I think myresearch does is it sort of just
says, okay, here are thefacts. Here is what the actual state
of the ground is. Here is whatthings typically look like. Here
are things that work. Here arethings that don't work. Here are
the common complaints theyhave here. The. The common things
that they, like, do with thisinformation. Whatever makes sense

(21:38):
in your specific context. Soif you're a Catholic, use this information
in the context of Catholicism.If you're a low church evangelical,
use this information in thatcontext. But just, like, get a better
picture of what's going on andjust understand what it is that you
are dealing with so that youcan actually address it and properly

(21:59):
maneuver and function withinthis space. One of the things that
I say a lot on my podcast is,is there's a really common complaint
you see online by. By autisticpeople who leave the church. And
it is something to the effectof Christianity is a religion by
neurotypicals forNeurotypicals and what they're expressing

(22:20):
when they say that is thechurch doesn't think about us. They
don't understand we exist.They don't do anything to try to
accommodate us. It is asthough we don't exist. And they are,
they are practicing thereligion as though we're not actually
here. And it makes sense.Like, I, I understand what they're

(22:43):
saying. However, I reallydon't think that needs to be the
case. However, the first stepto making that not the case is to
just know that, that thesepeople exist and, and there are like,
problems and what thoseproblems are and how those problems
can be alleviated. So as faras my work and research goes, it's
just that it's giving peopleclear and accurate information, pictures

(23:07):
about the space by the sheerpower of data science, which is a
big thing.
And I'm pretty sure last year,a couple years ago, Christianity
Today really started trying toget information like that out. Not
about autistic peoplespecifically, which could be helpful.
But I mean, it's somethingwe've learned on our show too. And

(23:28):
just like talking to peoplewhere like, we'll do an interview
with like, early on, when wefirst interviewed, like, some Catholic
priests, we had so many peoplecome to us who were like, we didn't
think Catholics prayed toJesus at all. We thought they just
prayed to like, Mary. Andwe're like, no, they like Jesus too.
Yeah.
And it's just like, wow,there's so much misunderstanding.
First up to anything, justlike, hey, let's actually understand

(23:50):
what is, you know, autism?What is church unity? What do people
believe? What are theyfeeling? What is their life experience?
All this stuff, like, if wedon't have that knowledge up front,
we can't even take any stepsat all. No, just walking blind. Yeah.
Yeah, no, exactly. Andanother, another thing I always say

(24:11):
is, like, learning more aboutsomething will never hurt you. I
mean, maybe there are cases inwhich it will, like, I don't know.
But generally speaking,learning more, the worst case scenario
is you just waste a bunch ofyour time. That's sort of the worst
thing that can happen. But thebest thing that can happen is you
can really learn to thinkabout, about things in a way that

(24:35):
is a lot more helpful. Andlike, even, even if, like, this,
this work is helpful forpeople specifically who have ASD1,
it's, it's also useful forsort of everyone because there are
lots of things that you wouldbe. Do for a church that might help
people with, with autism, butalso might help people who don't
have autism, who would justprefer ways of doing Christianity

(24:57):
that are more aligned with us.I know a lot of people who aren't
autistic who have. Haveautistic family and friends who've
listened to the podcast andthought, actually, you know, this,
this way of doing Christianitythat you've talked about might actually
work better for me as well.And so it isn't just for us, but,
you know, there's lots to be learned.

(25:18):
Could you give us an exampleof like. Like, what would it look
like to do church or have achurch activity that's more functioned
for those who are, you know,more neurodivergent as opposed to
neurotypical? Like, what doesthat difference look like practically?
So there, there's a phrasethat I use called no silver bullets.
Basically, there's no one sizefits all solution to this. And autism

(25:41):
is a really heterogeneous andbroad category that encapsulates
a whole bunch of differenttypes of people. And so you have
autistic people who are likeme, and in just still within that
ASD1 bracket, you will havepeople who are very, very different
from me. And, and the types ofchurch that work for me don't work

(26:02):
for the other people. Butgenerally speaking, the, the ways
that, that autistic Christianstend to practice their faith tend
to de. Emphasize a lot of therelational components of Christianity
that we often think is coreand essential, mostly because forms
of autistic cognition don'talways prioritize thinking about

(26:23):
relationships in the way thatmost people think about relationships.
Yeah. And so, yeah, yeah, Ifeel like it's, it's like most people
don't understand how commonASD1 really is.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's likeone in one in three or. Sorry, it's
one in 33 people, not one inthree. That'd be wild. Yeah, but

(26:47):
it's, it's. It's like around 1in 33 people are. Are on the autism
spectrum. But the majority ofthose, like 80% are going to be some
form of ASD1 or ASD2, whichwill. Which have a lot of overlap
in them. Yeah.
So do you, do you believe itwould be harder for the church to

(27:09):
reach people on the spectrumwho are outside of our church communities
or to better engage andinclude people who already are inside.
Yeah. So this is like aconstant, persistent challenge for
churches to be able to reachand communicate to people like us.
Like, one of the things I'mconstantly pointing out is that most

(27:31):
of the evangelism materialsthat we have most of the ideas that
we push forward as this iswhat Christianity is, are often deeply
counterintuitive to autisticpeople in ways that a lot of us don't
realize. So one good exampleof this is teleological reasoning.
So autistic people tend tohave significantly diminished amounts

(27:54):
of teleological reasoning. Andso teleological reasoning is reasoning
in terms of meaning andpurpose and attributing meaning to
events that happen within yourlife. Autistic people just aren't
likely to do that or aresignificantly less likely to attribute
meaning to events than otherpeople. But you look at ministry

(28:15):
tools like Alpha or thingslike that, and it's all about attributing
meaning to events in your lifeand, you know, seeing God in places.
And a lot of autistic peopleare just genuinely confused by that
type of language and don'treally understand what people are
trying to say. I. Another,another big thing that comes up a

(28:35):
lot is people will say, youcan have a personal relationship
with Jesus. And you're sayingpersonal relationship to Jesus, to
someone who, like, under thediagnostic category of autism, has,
has a label that is likepersistent deficits in social communication
relationships and socialemotional reciprocity. To be autistic

(28:58):
is, is to. To fall under thatcategory. And it's like, I, I'm married.
I don't even, like, I oftenjoke, I don't know if I have a personal
relationship with my wife.Like, how am I supposed to have one
with Jesus? This doesn'treally make sense to me. However,
there are all sorts of ways ofpracticing Christianity in ways that

(29:18):
don't. We don't really need toconsider a sort of emotive emotional
connection or experience.There are ways of doing and practicing
Christianity that don't needto involve these types of mechanisms
that work really well forother people. But for a portion of
us whose brains are sort ofradically different from other people's

(29:41):
in the way that we processthese things, these types of thinking
just sort of don't penetrateto us. It's. It's like, you know,
asking someone to describe acolor that, that they've never seen.
Oftentimes I often describemyself as doing that. Like, I'll
read Christian books and I'llbe like, I know these are all English

(30:03):
words, and I know they're allput together in a sentence, and I
know these sentences arecoherent, but I have no idea what
they're trying to say here.
Yeah, like, there's no cluewhat that sounds.
Says, yeah, this isfundamentally not an experience that
I'VE ever had or one that Irelate to in. In any way. And so
when you're trying to talk toChristianity to a. A guy like me

(30:26):
who. Or like a. A similar guyto me who was never raised in Christianity,
and you start going off about,like, personal relationship with
Jesus and seeing meaning andthe Holy Spirit moving in your life,
it's. To us, it sort of soundslike you're. You've kind of lost
it a bit. Right? Like, it's.You're. You're trying to tell me

(30:48):
about this new color, and I'mcolorblind. And it's like, well,
I'm sure that's great for you,but that does not seem like something
I should care about.
Yeah, I feel like we struggle,especially in, like, Pentecostal
churches, because a lot ofwhat we do is very difficult for
people to touch. Sensitivity.
Oh, yeah.

(31:08):
Which is. Yeah, a lot of theASD1, you know, micro spectrum. So
that it's really hard for usbecause, you know, lay on hands,
washing feet, none of that.Yeah, that's gonna work.
And, like, specifically. So Idid a whole episode on this with
an autistic charismatic guywho spent a lot of time in Pentecostal

(31:31):
movements. And, yeah, the. Andthen I've talked to a lot of people
often. They're. They're formercharismatics who talk about, like,
I just hated being touched. I.I did not understand this. And then
also the sort of expectationof ecstatic emotional experiences.
And there. There's this. Thisstory that's described to me and

(31:54):
that I read so many times,and. And it happens almost so frequently
that I call it the universalautistic experience of. Of church,
which is there's a praise andworship band up at the front. Like,
they're. They're giving itright. Everyone in the crowd is feeling
it and moving with it. And theguy up front is like, I can feel

(32:16):
the Holy Spirit moving in ourmidst right now. And you as the autistic
person are standing in thecongregation, like, what is going
on? What is wrong witheveryone else here? Completely disconnected,
Completely, completelyisolated from everyone and everything
else. Not being able torelate, not being able to understand
and not being emotionallymoved by these things. And you have

(32:36):
to think, okay, is theresomething wrong with me? Or is there
something wrong with everyoneelse? And whichever thing you try
to answer, it's bad. Right?It's. It's not a particularly good
thing to. To say, oh,actually, there's something, like,
deeply broken inside of me, oractually, everyone else has something

(32:59):
wrong with them. And thisisn't real. It's all. It's all hallucination
or whatever, which is thething I frequently hear. But there's.
There's a secret third optionwhich is the. The experience of Christianity
is still open and available toyou, but perhaps not by these means
because of some quirk of theway that your brain is. Is built

(33:20):
to process and analyzeinformation. And so that's, that's
that. But yeah, there are allsorts of. All sorts of issues like
that.
Yeah. And it's. Thank Godthere are like, high liturgical churches
as, as options for people whodon't necessarily want to leave the
faith, because I get it.
Yeah. And so I've, I've. I'vedemonstrated and analyzed this phenomenon

(33:44):
that I call high church drift,which is you can express it in terms
of mathematical probabilitythat after the age of 22, as an autistic
person gets older, theprobability that they will end up
in a high church tradition ifthey don't leave Christianity significantly
increases as the years go on.And so most of us do end up. End

(34:07):
up in. In high churchliturgical traditions. Not all of
us, of course. You know,there's still, still, still bunches
of us in. In lower churchtraditions. But generally speaking,
the trend is migration to highchurch first for a lot of those reasons.
Yeah. So, you know, a lot oftimes when we talk to people of different

(34:27):
cultural backgrounds,especially if we get in, like, ethnicity,
like, we'll have people belike, oh, yeah. One good thing would
be for church unity would belike, just play more music from different
traditions. You know, thatkind of thing. Like, there's a lot
of focus on music. I feel likethat probably doesn't correlate as
much when we get into thesemore, you know, analytical kind of
focus stuff. Is liturgy theversion of that for, you know, people

(34:49):
on the spectrum, like, we, weneed more liturgy in our services.
We need more liturgy andsacraments. Is. Is the, the thing
that comes up a lot is, iswhen it, when it comes to these things,
the more. More, moreliturgical things, more structure
and, and more, more likephysical, tangible things that you

(35:11):
can touch and feel in termsinstead of relying on, like, you
can rely on the physical,tangible experiences of the bread
and the wine of God's literalpresence there. You know, the thing
a lot of autistic people will.Will say when, when I ask them questions

(35:32):
like, where do you see or findGod? They will say in the Eucharist.
And it's, you know, is thatbecause they've migrated to a high
church tradition, and that'sthe way that they have, they've started
to filter the way that theyunderstand these things through like
is this a post hocrationalization or is this something
else? I don't know. You know,it's probably, it's probably a little

(35:55):
bit of both. But the sort ofGod is, is something tangible that
you can touch, feel and seeand, and that you don't need to be
in a certain emotive state.You don't need to conjure up any
certain emotions in order tomeet him. You don't need to, you
don't need to think like otherpeople to meet him. You can simply
meet him because he said hewould be. There is something that

(36:19):
a lot of autistic people findvery useful or meaningful. So yeah,
I would say that's probablythe cross cultural meeting point
for us.
Yeah, interesting. I'm goingto ask you to speculate so you can
just tell me to shove it ifyou want. But I am a little curious

(36:39):
as you know, a lot of thechurch and stuff that I grew up up
in. A lot of people it feelslike it's easier for them to think
of God as like transcendent,you know, look up when they pray,
that kind of thing. And it'sharder when you start focusing on
the solid idea of like, hey,actually God's in everything. God,
you know, God's around us. Youtalk about like this focus on like
touch and feel. Do you. Wouldyou think that maybe like more people
inspecting would have aneasier time with the concept of like

(37:01):
God being in all thingscompared to maybe more neurotypical
people?
So not from what I've beenable to find, okay, the, the understanding
and conceptualization of Godand autistic people is sort of wild
and all over the place. Butgenerally speaking, the, the sort
of joke that, that gets thrownaround a lot is, you know, it's the,

(37:27):
the common phrase that youhear. It's, it's not a religion,
it's a relationship. A lot ofautistic people invert that and say
it's not a relationship, it'sa religion. And, and there's also
like a joke that, that Irecorded one of the guys saying he's
like, you know, actually Iprefer my, my abstract impersonal
relationship with God. Where,and there, there also tends to be

(37:50):
a lot more like sensoryskepticism about, about these types
of things. And generallyspeaking I find autistic people to
be quite skeptical of thingsthat they cannot immediately physically
feel, see and touch. But it's,it's when they, when they say they
are encountering God or wherethey say they encounter God. It's,

(38:12):
it's in the physical signs of,of the, the sacraments. And like
a lot of them are very, if, ifyou, so I follow lots of, of different
accounts, especially autisticwomen. If you look at autistic women
and how they post very heavyEucharist center in there in their
sort of conceptualization ofmeeting God in a way that you don't

(38:35):
really find that same emphasisin people of their same demographics
and denominations.
All right, so like you data,you have to read them all physically,
right? You've just readthousands and thousands of tweets
and blog posts and that sortof thing.
Oh, is it back? Cool. Yeah,so, so I have read thousands. Yeah,

(38:56):
so, so I've basically justread a lot of, of tweets and blogs
and posts and comment sectionsand forums and a lot of that. With,
with the advent of LLMs andlike AI and things like that, I've
been able to like, I'm acomputer engineer. I, I, I work a

(39:16):
lot with these thingsprofessionally and so I have been
able to build machine learningalgorithms to help me better sort
and classify these posts. AndI already did a lot of sorting, classifying
and tagging and so, you know,I can drop these into buckets and
then pick things from bucketsand read them. But yeah, it's, it's
basically just a lot ofreading and summarizing data from,

(39:39):
from a wide variety ofdifferent sources. And so I try to
get a good representationacross the political spectrum, across
the denominational spectrum,and across the geographical spectrum.
I'm limited to English, so Ispeak English and French, but I,
I'm not good enough atspeaking French to be able to do

(40:00):
research in French, so, so Ibasically just limit it to English,
which means it's mostly,mostly Canada, the U.S. uK and parts
of Northern Europe.
Yeah, I still, I think it's socrazy. This is not related that if
you're, you're born in Quebec,like, yeah, you're gonna speak French.
Dude, if you never leaveQuebec, you might not learn English.

(40:20):
So it is so wild.
Yeah, that is absolutely nuts.But is there anything else that you
think our listeners might wantto know about you or your work or
just how to engage with thoseon the spectrum?
Yeah, I mean like, like I'vealready said, learning is the biggest
thing. Most people simplydon't know. I, I will say you are

(40:45):
going to find a lot of weirdstuff. Like my research has gotten
me to learn about things thatI never thought I would even need
to care about that. I've hadto go in, in far more depth than
the average person would everwant to. I have especially been pulled
into a lot of discourse aroundtrans and LGBT Q Related issues.

(41:10):
For those who aren't aware,autistic people are disproportionately
trans and disproportionatelylgbtq. And I A or and a. So asexual
and gay, lesbian, bi or trans,just lots of them. A A significant
portion of our population whencompared to the majority of people.

(41:33):
And, and so those areespecially hot button issues with
the church. And so I have hadto become far more fluent in that,
in that data and the emergingresearch than most people ever have
had to to be. And those thingsare also very complicated. And I
just find the churches is veryquick to make judgments on things

(41:55):
without proper data informedbacking behind what they're saying.
And so, yeah, I would just saylearn, figure it out. I've. If you're
looking for a good place tostart, I would recommend my podcast,
but Me too. That's, you know,the first 10 episodes are me laying

(42:15):
out my research and then everyepisode after that is just me answering
my audience's questions thatthey send me. So they asked me to
do an episode on why so manyautistic people are universalists.
So I did that. And lots ofniche topics like that and monks,
nuns, lots of autistic peoplein those populations. I've talked

(42:38):
to a lot of them. People wantto know what's up with them. So I've
got an episode on that. Butyeah, that's the, the biggest, the
biggest thing to take away issort of just understand we're going
to be weird, understand we'regoing to be different. And, and don't
try to like, force people tofit your, your expectations of what
they should be. Sort of justmeet them where they are, learn about

(43:01):
who they are and, and whatthey are and, and how they interact
with, with the world, whatworks, what doesn't, and then just
sort of go from there.
Just because I'm curious.What's the weirdest thing you've
heard someone say?
Or like the weirdest thingI've heard someone say. Oh. So I,
I have to say my calibrationfor what weird is is just so wildly

(43:25):
out of pace with, with thevast majority of people because I
like I. So I, I attended a. AV. Do you know what VR chat is?
Yeah.
Yeah. So. So there's a VR chatgroup for autistic furries. Do you
know what furries are?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool.

(43:47):
So they do a Latin massvespers in VR chat. And yeah, I attended
that. That's crazy andawesome. Yeah, so. So that's not
that. That rate's probably athree on the crazy scale. That goes
all the way up to 10 ofthings. So, you know, recently had

(44:08):
had someone explain to metheir. Their conceptuality of. Of
cosmology with respect to theBride of Christ, and they themselves
were trans, and they had thisidea that actually trans women were
much better eschatologicallyprepared for the reality of becoming

(44:29):
the Bride of Christ becausethey were quite literally becoming
it through. Through exogenoushormonal intervention. And. And they
said that. And that didn'teven register to me as weird because
I had heard that about 20other times, and I only hear that
from autistic people. And so,like, that is. That is like a window
into. Into the. The level ofthings that I'm used to hearing or

(44:54):
like. So there's a. There's atheory about autism that autism is
sort of the extreme of themale brain. It's very controversial
theory within autism research.Like, just be aware of that. But.
But a lot of people have beenlike, I think this is. They sort
of say it jokingly, but sortof not. They're like, I think this

(45:15):
is probably grounds forallowing women's ordination, but
only if she has autism. Andthings like that. Just the. Some
of the most insane takes thatyou've. You've ever heard in Christianity
have probably been generatedby one of the fine people in my research.
In my research cohort. Yeah.You name an insane thing, it has

(45:35):
probably been said by one of us.
Nice. So what I'm hearing, ifnothing else, they will hear some
really interesting things ifthey go listen to your podcast.
There are many tidbits ofknowledge you might be unaware of.

(45:55):
I mean, that sounds reallyhelpful because that's not stuff
that I think I would justgenerate sitting by myself thinking,
like, what could this be like,you know?
Yeah. Yeah, it is a wild ride.And yeah, that's. That's sort of
just. Just skimming thesurface of. Of the types of takes
I'm used to seeing and reading.

(46:16):
Man, I just kind of want toset up a whole church. Vrchat Latin
Mass now. See, yeah, turnoutwould be.
Yeah, you could be furriestoo, or. Yeah, you need to. Everyone
needs to be in fursonas,though. That's. That's what makes
the Latin Mass in VR chat. TheLatin Mass of VR chat. Yes, it is.
It's the cheapest way to Be afurry on VRChat.

(46:37):
They had vestments. They hadlike digital vestments.
That's so funny over there.
That's great.
Fursonas. It was anyway.
It's pretty good.
Yeah, it was, it was, it was a thing.
At least they were serious,you know.
Yeah, no, they were veryserious, very reverent. They, they,
they took it very seriously.And, and yeah, I sort of just sat

(47:00):
there. I don't have VR so Ijust logged in with my desktop app
and just sort of hung outthere and participated with them.
But yeah, they're, they werean interesting group of people.
That's really cool.
Yeah, well, and that's where Ithink so I love all the interesting

(47:20):
and like unique takes andeverything. But that is where I think
it's important to stress likeif people are going to try to taught
and you can either back thisup or tell me I'm stupid, if you're
going to be there for morepeople on the spectrum in your community
to appreciate that they arestill being serious about this. Like,
like the thing that they weredoing with the mask there that like

(47:40):
that was actually reallymeaningful and cool. Even if you
find it really weird and itkind of makes you want to giggle,
it's like, okay, but like whatthey're doing is serious and it's
important.
I, I have a, I have a jokechart with like an X and a Y axis
and the Y axis is, is, issincerity and irony on each pole

(48:00):
and the, the other polls arereasonable and unhinged. And, and
in that, in that cross sectionof sincere and unhinged is what I
like to call the autism zone.Because that's where, that's where
you find a lot of us and very,very serious about it and very earnest
about it. But also we tend tohave some takes that, that people

(48:23):
might, might not initiallyunderstand that. That being said,
it is the, the, the people whostill practice Christianity who are
autistic are very sincere in,in their practice of Christianity
and they are probably some ofthe most serious Christians that
you will meet. Some of themost well read, some of the most

(48:47):
theologically literate andsome of the most like intellectualized
Christians that you will evermeet in, in terms of the types of
people who, who know about thedifferences between or who know about
things like the Council ofChalcedon and what was decided at

(49:07):
the Council of Calcedon iswildly overrepresented in, in people
that I study or just peoplewho have memorized thousands of Bible
verses. People like if, if theprimary method by which Autistic
people engage withChristianity is intellectualization

(49:28):
and. And intellectual analysisof. Of Christianity. And so that
is like, pretty much you. Youare going to. You are going to find
some very weird stuff, butalso it is very sincere and very
intellectually rigorous in away that you might not be prepared
for.
Yeah. When the, when the hyperfixation needle gets pointed at theology.

(49:51):
Oh, yeah, Many, many such cases.
I hope people sitting at homehave, like, have that same XY axis
chart. I hope they put ourpodcast on that. Like, serious yet
unhinged, you know, that'd be great.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But. So one thing we. We dolike to do near the end of all of

(50:14):
our shows is just to askpeople if you had a practical action,
just something that would helpthe church better engender unity
in our own times. What'ssomething that people could stop
and do right now that wouldbetter help us have more unity, even
with our diversity?
The church?
I mean, the. The boring answerthat I've said many times is just

(50:35):
learn, you know, get. Get abetter understanding of things. Get
more information.
Read a book.
Read a book.
Yeah.
Yep, that's. That's basically it.
Yeah. The real answers go toVR Chat, Latin mass.
Hell, yeah.
Yeah, clearly. But ifeveryone, you know, start doing little

(50:55):
bit of research and learnedsomething about, you know, how to
unify the church, what wouldthat look like, do you think?
I have no idea.
Yeah, conceptualize.
Yeah, so. So I. I would. Iwould say know how to win friends
and influence people, maybe.

(51:16):
Yeah.
Good reference.
Before we wrap up, we do liketo ask everyone to share a moment
where they saw God recently.We call it our God moment. And it
can be whatever. It can be ablessing, a moment of challenge,
worship, anything. I alwaysmake Josh go first to give us enough
time to think about our mostrecent God moment. So, Josh, do you

(51:39):
have a God moment for us this week?
Yeah, I didn't think you'regonna let me go first. I had a good
friend that came and visitedme just yesterday just to watch a
movie, and I feel like Ihaven't seen him in a little bit,
so it was kind of cool. Like.Oh, man. Yeah. You know, just get
to have that presence withfriends and enjoy big dinosaurs on
screen because. Dinosaurs.Cool. Yeah.

(51:59):
Yeah. I drove to almost 200miles to watch a movie.
Yeah, I had a really goodfriend do the exact same thing for
me just like yesterday.
That's so odd.
It was you.
One of the chances. Yeah.
It's wild.
So for me, my God moment isprobably gonna be my sister. Recently

(52:20):
I'm kind of getting forced togo on vacation. So the other day,
my sister takes a link to anAirbnb for October. No, September
something. I'm like, what isthis? And she's like, oh, we're getting
this Airbnb, and we're goingto a NASCAR race in Tennessee. And
I paid for your part, soyou're going. I was like, okay, cool.

(52:44):
And, you know, at least shethinks about me. That means a lot
because I'm not capable ofplanning my own vacation. It's not
possible. I cannot do it.
Yeah. The only plans I makefor your vacations are to go to podcast
places.
Yeah.
I don't think you like that as much.
Yeah. So that's what happens.That is how I get a vacation is either
Josh plans for us to go to aconference or my sister plans for

(53:07):
us to go to a NASCAR race.
Yeah. Your sister's way coolerthan me.
Praise God.
Yeah.
Yeah. Usually.
Yeah.
Comes with. Comes part of the family.
Yeah. Or not being me.
John, do you have a God momentfor us this week? And it can be literally
anything.
Yeah. So I'm gonna just selfreport that I'm one of those autistic

(53:31):
people who has very lowamounts of teleological reasoning
and is intensely skeptical anddoesn't really attribute events to.
To God. So I will. I will sayyes this Sunday when I had the Eucharist.
Hey, that's a great answer.
That is where I. I had a Godmoment, because he had. He had promised

(53:55):
to be there, and I had faith.He was when. When I took it.
Yeah. See, the differencebetween our God moment and yours
is that you can prove it.
Yeah.
You prove you were right. Soif you like this episode, please
consider sharing it with afriend. Share with you an enemy?
Share with your cousins. Threeof those options are equal in sincerity.

(54:18):
Get the merch. Check it out.
Cousins are more important,though, right?
Of course. Your cousins arethe most important thing. So check
the merch out. It's onCaptivate. It's comfy. It's cozy.
It looks decent. It'sunderstated. It's. You know, it's
there, and we're there for you.
Yeah. I don't know if we're ascomfy as the shirt, though. We're
probably not. Although TJ'svoice could be comfort for your ears,

(54:40):
perhaps.
I've not heard that ever. Not once.
Well, write us in and let usknow if you find his voice comforting.
Also, if you want to hear moreof his comforting voice, you can
go to Systematic Geekologyhe's doing a lot over there this
week and I think he might beupset at me because of it. I'm not
sure. Try to think where elseyou are. He's on the episode of Kung

(55:00):
Fu Pizza Party. So yeah. Alsocheck out Brandon Knight's Kung Fu
Pizza Party. All of theseshows are also on the same podcast
Next podcast network as thisone, the Amazon Podcast Network.
So check it out. You'll hearMore of TJ, more of me, but more
importantly, TJ's comforting voice.
Yeah.
And thank you so much, John,for your time today and thank you
audience for listening to usand John, and we hope you enjoyed

(55:22):
it. Next week we're going tobe talking with Dr. Edward Gravely
and Dr. Peter Link about theirbook, Bible 101. Then we're going
to have another roundtablediscussion. This time it's going
to be going over how churchescan best disciple people in a time
where church members spendmore time with news and media than
they do in our churches. Andthat is, I think, the record for
the longest title of one ofour episodes ever. Then we're going

(55:45):
to be speaking with Dr.Jeanette Auk about her contribution
to the New Testament and Colora multi ethnic Bible commentary.
And of course, at the end ofseason one, Francis Chan will be
on the show.
Yeah. He doesn't know though,so someone does have to tell him,
maybe force him.
Yeah. We need our people,which is you guys, to reach out.

(56:06):
Yeah.