Episode 4 - Why Autistics Leave the church : Part 2 - Relational Doctrine 

41:50 this part is really important. It’s been a difficult struggle to discern what is innate vs. learned, after 40 years of pretty effective masking. Am I mildly autistic? Or am I severely autistic and experienced at hiding the signs?

The discussion of imago dei was interesting to me because I have been thinking about it a lot recently, oddly enough unrelated to autism but instead because of the idea of psychopathy/sociopathy. Although I don't think I had gotten this from any theologian or other official source, I had always conceptualized the image of god must be the ability to be a moral agent, since that seemed to me the most categorical difference one might be able to draw between animals and humans. I became deeply disturbed on the introspection that there are people who functionally cannot interact with morality on the level of empathy, or that perhaps they operate solely on their own self interest, and have no ability to care about others beyond this. Would this mean that they were left out of communion with god simply by nature of their being? How is it that they would ever recognize their sin if the difference between us was that they literally could not feel convicted of such things? I'll admit to not being a psychological expert and that I could have mischaracterized the conditions, but the particular example doesn't necessarily have to be correct to get the concern across. As demonstrated with how similar issues can be leveled using autism here. And the more disturbing part is to look one layer beyond any of these theologies. It's easy to be upset and say that the theology carves a group of people out simply due to their nature, and to claim that as unfair (which it is). But any theology that puts any requirement on people, or categorizes anything as good or bad, will do the same thing. People, by their natures, will be disposed to some things. Anyone disposed to what you consider bad is going to be excluded by your theology, or going to essentially be told that they must deny their nature to be good. We all likely feel quite comfortable calling murder something that is inherently bad. But is it fair to call a murderer bad? Someone who becomes a murderer is likely to have done so because of a disposition in their nature. Did they have any control at all in what they did? If they did, did they have any control over the odds being skewed against them when they did get the choice? Or did they have any control over the situations they were placed in? At the very least, the reasons why we might get offended that someone antagonizes autistic traits (namely that we had no control over them, or that this is simply the way we are) may well be parallel defenses to be made for things we find much more immoral. Then one begins to wonder about the nature of morality itself, and if perhaps it is simply a practical pursuit rather than an objective one. Anyways, I may have oversold this or made mistakes somewhere... but I do wonder if this concept of being unable to judge something as good or bad (because the thing being judged is simply that way by nature) eventually eats the idea of moral good and bad as a whole. And I think that's why many theologies have to describe things like mental disorders more as a choice or as free will, because otherwise it's quite unfair for god to judge those things. Mental disorders just being more obvious manifestations, but with everyone in fact having things that are inscribed into them by nature which they have no control over.

RANTY AMY!

I didn’t find reading a book and one sided conversations a relationship. So I could never relate to having a personal relationship with Jesus