Reframing Liturgical Theology Through the Lens of Autism: A Qualitative Study of Autistic Experiences of Worship

Abstract

The way autistic people experience worship services is typically different from the majority, non-autistic church population. These autistic ways of experiencing worship, however, are mostly disregarded in practical and in liturgical theology. This leads not only to exclusion of autistic people from the worshiping congregation, but both the church and liturgical scholarship miss out on the opportunity to enrich its worship practices and theology through the diversity offered by autistic participants. This article presents the results of a qualitative study involving thirteen in-depth interviews with autistic people, summed up in three main themes: the experience of worship, community, and encountering God. The ensuing theological reflection on these themes argues that the indispensability of autistic worshipers to the body of Christ, and the theological evaluation of the “normalcy,” are key principles for reframing liturgical theology through the lens of autism.

Speaking with Us, Not for Us: Neurodiversity, Theology and Justice

“…Like other autism research (Botha & Cage, 2022;Luterman, 2019), theology of autism is beginning to respond to autistic people's critiques. Academic theologians are beginning to ask autistic people about their own experiences of church, faith and spirituality (Burnett, 2021;Rapley, 2021;Tam, 2021;van Ommen & Endress, 2002). 22 A few theologians are challenging theology's own history of dehumanising us (Leidenhag, 2021(Leidenhag, , 2022, questioning deficit-based paradigms of autism (Macaskill, 2019) and responding to autistic people who have been harmed or marginalized by churches, challenging the church to do better (Macaskill, 2019;van Ommen & Endress, 2002).…”

“…Pastoral theology focuses on the care of autistic people (Brock, 2019;Burnett, 2021;Tam, 2021), but has less to say about barriers to belonging in churches (Waldock, 2023). When theology distances autism from disability (Leidenhag, 2021;van Ommen & Endress, 2002), 24 and rejects disability theory as irrelevant to churches (Brock, 2019;Edmonds, 2011;Evers, 2017;Swinton, 2011), it becomes harder for neurodivergent people to represent ourselves differently. 25 Second-hand stories about relationships with autistic people are common in theology (e.g.…”