What Leviticus can teach the Church about Autism

Inspired by Mike Bird’s recent article, and the podcast Autism and Theology. As someone living in a family full of neurodiversity and a daughter with a beautifully spicy brain, we are in the trenches, and so I felt compelled to write a response.

Michael F. Bird, Autism and the Image of God.

Today I am a heartbroken Dad. Yesterday, my daughter told me she doesn’t want to come to church anymore. I stood there in her room, vainly trying to convince her that coming to church is better than the Minecraft videos she was watching on YouTube. You see, my daughter lives with Autism and ADHD. She is what professionals call high functioning, which means on the surface she may be quietly reading a book, while underneath is a churning, turbulent whirlpool of terrified cats that don’t like getting wet. There are many places where a girl like my daughter fits, but for some reason, for her, church is the wrong shape. She has to bend and fold and flex and squeeze herself just to fit inside, And the strength it takes, the immense willpower, only lasts so long. At some point, as all her senses cramp from being squished into the wrong shape, her brain must inevitably uncoil, exploding out like a box of mangy cats.

Although it was many months ago, I vividly remember walking with my daughter into the child psychiatrist’s room expecting to be given an ADHD diagnosis, and walking out having been given a booklet on Autism Spectrum Disorder. From that moment I consumed everything I could find on the subject; books, youtube, podcasts, but I remember regularly being like, “wait, this is describing me, ooooh, this actually explains a lot about myself.” And then, when my wife started subtly encouraging me to try my daughter’s calming strategies for myself, I knew what she was suggesting. Like the time our extended families went on holiday together; six adults and five kids running around inside this beautiful holiday house with floor to ceiling glass windows and tiled floors, and I ended up hiding in the bedroom in tears, because, I don’t know, the noise, too many people, I couldn’t go outside because too many mosquitoes.

Why am I telling you this? Because I’m about to do something risky. I’m aware there have been times when people have taken it upon themselves to speak up for the autistic community, and have inadvertently misrepresented them. I acknowledge I can never pretend to know exactly how my daughter experiences the world, but as her father I think we share something special. And so I sat down with her and she helped me understand what a Sunday morning feels like for her, and together we wrote this:

I’m early today and that’s good because I can choose where I sit, and, well if my friends got here first there’s certain spots where they might sit, like sometimes they want to sit outside but outside is too sunny. Inside is, I don’t know, not natural, all cement and big and open and loud and too many people. I could go in the cry room but it’s for babies and I try to keep it for them. But I don’t know where else to go, like, I would go to the shade spot outside but it’s always wet. Or I’d chill upstairs where it’s quiet but I’m not allowed up there and they lock it. The service starts. I never know where to sit. Usually I just go where my friends go but my friends always go different places. Everyone is singing I should be singing I don’t like singing but I know if I don’t then people look at me. Everyone is sitting. I try to listen but I always forget what they said. It’s hard to concentrate so i draw, but when I’m drawing I need to be in a certain position and I’m always uncomfortable on the church chairs. Anyway even at the end, I kind of really don’t like the songs at the end. Because it’s the end. It’s over. But now I have to stand up and do the whole singing thing again. Anyway, I learn better when it’s smaller groups. And people that I know. Like not heaps and heaps of people. Where I can actually say something. The singing has stopped. Where’s the exit? Too many people are looking at me. The sermon is starting. Stay. Everyone is sitting down so I sit down too. Stay. Stay on this seat for the next hour and don’t move.

Believe it or not, for my daughter it’s the next part that is unbearable. Her brain is already an overwhelmed chaotic mess, and now she is expected to sit and focus and concentrate and learn and remain still and quiet for the better part of an hour.

I drag my defeated feet wearily into church, no daughter by my side. Today I notice things I’ve never seen before. The walls, the floor: all concrete and loud. The lights: white and harsh. Rows of seats, all facing a lectern like a university lecture hall. The whole room, it seems, is designed for a particular shaped person.

Today I am extra aware of who else is around me, and I wonder how they will experience the next hour. I am curious, what kind of person fits in this space, what kind of person thrives in here? As we say at home, how many have a spicy brain?

And then the sermon starts and suddenly, for the first time this space feels surreal, even alien. Who are these people with their alien brains, and obedient bodies, able to sit still and concentrate for so long? How do they process all this information so quickly? Don’t any of them need to ask a clarifying question? How are they all resisting the urge to interrupt?

I have always understood the church to be the body of Christ, and today I gaze around and wonder, who are the parts of this body? The academic and the autistic? The PhD and the kid with ADHD? The lawyer and the girl with a learning disability? The healthy and the sick? “God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted. And if they were all the same part, where would the body be?” (1 Cor 12:18-19). Surely not everyone is an eye. Surely not everyone is an ear. Surely church is made up of all shapes. But today, as I look along rows and rows of aliens, they all seem so well behaved…, so…healthy. Who did Jesus mean when He said “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick”? 

And today I can understand why people like my daughter might ask questions like: Where do I fit within the body of Christ? How do I participate? Am I needed? Or am I just a third nipple on Christ’s body?

Here is my plea:

What are we doing to make sure that church, the body of Christ, is helping people like my family thrive as a necessary part of the body of Christ?

“What if autistic people, by virtue of being autistic, show us something about the image of God that we can’t see elsewhere?”

Autism and Theology Podcast: Autism and the Image of God with Harry and lan.

How do we not just accommodate, but how do we value people like my daughter as an integral part of our body, so that if they weren’t there, we would feel like an essential part of our body, a vital organ, was missing?

And this strangely is where Leviticus helps. Although I’d been studying Leviticus and ancient sacrifice for over five years, I did not expect Leviticus to surprise me in this way. But it did. Ironically, it prompted me to look up. To lift my head out of the book. To pause the podcast. To realise that God designed a whole teaching experience for His people that incorporated all of their senses – nose, eyes, touch, tongue; that whole other half of their brain. Not just the cognitive half.

Sometimes I imagine I am an ancient Israelite. How do I know Yahweh’s desire is to live with humanity? I just have to look outside my tent flap and I know that Yahweh loves us and that He wants to live with us because right there, in the middle of the camp is the Tent where He lives. And Yahweh has provided a whole sacrificial system so that He can remain living amongst us, and so that we can draw near and visit Him.

I am an ancient Israelite. I want to express my joy and gratitude to Yahweh so I bring a faultless lamb to the entrance of Yahweh’s Tent. The priest divides my offering into portions, arranges the meat on the altar, combined with frankincense, fresh baked grain cakes soaked in oil, and a splash of wine. Heady and familiar fragrances wash over me. I watch as my offering rises up to the heavens in smoke, and I know that Yahweh has accepted my gift.

I am an ancient Israelite. I want to celebrate the blessings Yahweh has given us. I take a faultless goat as a Peace Offering to the entrance of Yahweh’s Tent. The priest divides the goat into portions. The choicest morsels are given up to Yahweh in smoke. The priests take the right thigh for their own food. The rest is given to me and I take it home for a feast with my family. I know that this feast has been blessed and accepted by Yahweh, because everyone is participating in this same meal, the priests, my family, and Yahweh.

Yahweh expressed Himself in a ton of tactile ways: the Tent positioned in the centre of the camp, inside the Tent, a tree-like lampstand giving light, described as having branches, bulbs, flowers and blossoms. The entrance faced east: the same direction Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, the way back guarded by cherubim. Thus, as a priest approached Yahweh they were walking Westwards, back towards His presence. The priests burned a special incense recipe reserved for a holy purpose, forbidden from use in the home. The high priest sewed bells and pomegranates all around the hem of his robe symbolising fruit and abundance. There was even cherubim sewn into the dividing curtain, guarding the way in. Why do you suppose the priest wore an ephod of gold with onyx stones? Well, obviously because onyx stones and gold were plentiful in the Garden in Eden (Gen 2:12, Ex 28:6,9). Everything was carefully crafted to teach Israel that Yahweh was inviting them back into an Eden-like relationship.

Every ritualistic sacrificial action was given to Israel as a tactile teaching tool. They didn’t learn by reading facts, they acted out the tutorial with their bodies. Israel’s experience of worship wasn’t confined to a cognitive sermon, they participated in the lesson.

What if the pomegranates, the candles, the incense, the frankincense, all suddenly evaporated in a puff of smoke? We Protestants don’t do bells and smells any more, so what have we replaced these worship experiences with? Why was it helpful for Israel to worship with their hands, their eyes, their noses, their tongues, but not for us Protestants today? Have our brains changed? Is our focus on cognitive teaching robbing us of experiencing God? Has a fear of ‘works based salvation’ sent us down a platonic path where we’ve elevated the cognitive mind above the body’s need for experience?

Perhaps you too are becoming aware of a palpable need: I reckon it is our responsibility to create a space where God can be experienced by everyone without the requirement for a healthy cognitive brain; to be a church family where God is experienced, not just taught.

There are obvious ways to make the space a more loving shape for those in our church family with spicy brains. Lose the bright lights. Cover the concrete walls. Offer couches and cushions. Provide a quiet space where friends can sit and participate, protected from over-stimulation.[1] There are even groups like Aspect who will visit your church and give an environmental assessment with suggestions for how to make your space more inclusive.[2] And yes, there is a need to teach. But does the teaching time in the service look more like Leviticus, or an academic lecture? Which part of the body is being taught, the ears only, or the eyes, the nose, the soul, heart, strength? How much of Christ’s body is being reached? Can we incorporate smell, touch, taste…art? Could the teaching time feel less like a university lecture, and more like a ‘hands on’ trade school? Could we allow, no, encourage people to interrupt; insist that they ask questions?

But there is another Biblical way that allows everyone to physically participate, that allows everyone, regardless of cognitive ability, to experience Christ in a real and tactile way; where the focus shifts from words, to the Word. God didn’t limit Himself to words, He entered into our humanity and walked among us. God didn’t remain as a word, the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, because God knew that words weren’t enough.

​​”And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us…and out of His fullness did we all receive”

John 1:14,16 YLT.

Jesus gave us a tactile way to not only participate, but to experience Him. He gave us a meal. He gave us His very body and blood. And Jesus intended for His body and His blood to be accessible by everyone. By our Grandparents with dementia. By our kids with Down Syndrome. By our non verbal autistic children. The sick, the healthy, the mentally unwell, the overwhelmed, the traumatised, the disabled, even those without language. Holy Communion gives those among us the ability – the ability – to physically participate, to be united with Christ. The Holy communal meal removes the requirement for a healthy cognitive brain.[3]

Why not have the Lord’s supper every week? It takes less preparation than writing a sermon.[4] Throughout the early church, where it was assumed that not everyone could read, and where literacy skills were often non-existent, Holy Communion was not only observed weekly, it was central to the church meeting, as witnessed by the Didache (AD 50-70) and Justin Martyr (AD 100-165).[5] This, by the way, is exactly what the Reformers were seeking to do: to put the bread and the wine back in the hands of the common people, not just the clergy. They sought to break down the barrier so that the common people could again participate in the service, not just the academics; not only those who could speak Latin.

From a heartbroken but hopeful Dad, to all my autistic sisters, my brothers with spicy brains, I want you to feel like if you’re not able to participate, then that church is sick. You’re not a third nipple. I don’t want you to feel pressured to fit into church, but I would love it if a church without you felt broken. I want you to experience Christ, not by sitting and listening, but because you are an essential part of His body.

“I had heard reports about You,
but now my eyes have seen You”

Job 42:5 CSB

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References

[1] Some examples of what may cause sensory overloads or shutdowns are:

• Bright lights
• Excessive noise
• Smells
• Crowds
• Queues
• Overly hot or cold environments. 

Suggestions for Autism friendly auditoriums:

• Reducing sound levels
• Changing lighting
• A relaxed attitude regarding moving in and out the auditorium
• Quiet areas away from the main areas of the venue
• Training for staff and cast to help autistic people.

More information can be found on the National Autistic Society (UK) website: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/autism-friendly-guide/accessible-environments

[2] Aspect Australia: https://www.aspect.org.au/how-can-we-help/making-australia-autism-friendly

[3] Can we reconsider if the requirement for participation is a cognitive affirmation of faith? Paul says “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord… you will be saved” (Rom 10:9). Jesus says “The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life” (John 6:54). I’m sure there is more nuance than I am allowing in those two statements, but I’m sure with wisdom we could reconsider the balance.

[4] Infrequent communion became the normal practice of the Roman Catholic Church later in the Middle Ages. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) required that the faithful partake of the sacrament only once a year. In other words, frequent communion was the practice of the early church, and infrequent communion was the later Roman Catholic innovation. It was against this background that such men as John Calvin and Martin Bucer called for a return to the apostolic Christian practice of weekly communion. See: Keith A. Mathison, Given For You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper (P & R Publishing, 2002), 291-297.

[5] Perhaps the greatest mistake which believers have made regarding the Lord’s Supper is to consider it merely or mainly as a commemoration. This is Zwinglianism. Huldreich Zwingli (1484-1531), one of the leaders of the Reformation, wrote two liturgical treatises setting forth his position with respect to the sacraments. Concerning the Lord’s Supper he wrote “The Eucharist or Communion or Lord’s Supper is nothing else than a commemoration whereby those who firmly believe they have been reconciled to the Father by the death  and blood of Christ announce this life-giving death, that is, praise it and glory in it and proclaim it.” To Zwingli the Lord’s Supper added nothing to the word which had been preached. It is not surprising that in the churches which hold this view there is little concern for the sacrament. But it is surprising that within the Reformed churches which trace their historical origins to John Calvin, who opposed Zwingli strongly on the sacraments, there are many who hold the Zwinglian position. It is true that our Lord said, “This do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). However, it must be clearly understood that for the Hebrew of Jesus’ day, to “remember” did not mean just to recall to memory a fact, to remember meant to bring into actuality a past event or a previous situation. See: Robert G. Rayburn, O Come, Let Us Worship (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2010), 256-259; John Owen, “Reformed Theologians on the Frequency of Communion: Past & Present.”

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© Phil Bray, 2024.

This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Cover Image: Provided by the author.