We chat with author of With All Your Mind: Autism and the Church, Erin Burnett about her personal experience and research into autism and the unique ways Christians with autism understand and experience God.
We ask her why she was initially attracted to more fundamentalist expressions of Christianity, what triggered her deconstruction, and why she’s now more at home in progressive Christian spaces.

After the interview Nomad hosts Tim Nash and Joy Brooks reflect on what neurotypical people can learn from the ways people with autism experience the world and spirituality.

Interviews starts at 13m 45s

Image used with permission

WEBSITE

Erin Burnett

BOOKS & ARTICLES

With All Your Mind: Autism and the Church

Religious, but not Spiritual: The link between Autism and Progressive Christianity

Different, not less: Pastoral Care of Autistic Adults within Christian Churches

QUOTES

“A lot of the core characteristics like social difficulties and intense interests will be relatable to almost everyone with autism, but at the same time, it’s also really important to emphasize that I can only speak about my own experience. It’s often said that, ‘If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.'”

“Some people like what’s called ‘identity first’ – which is ‘autistic person’ – because that means autism is a part of their identity; it’s who they are, it’s not something to be ashamed of. whereas ‘person first’ language – which is ‘person with autism’ – it recognize that autism is just one of the many things that can make up an individual; so, it’s part of them but doesn’t define them.”

“Whenever I try to describe precisely how I view religion, I often flip the phrase, ‘spiritual but not religious,’ and instead I say, ‘I am religious, but not spiritual.'”

“Churches that aren’t afraid to ask hard questions – that aren’t afraid to use human reason when interpreting scripture – can be a lot more freeing for autistic people.”

Disclaimer

Some of the book links on this page are affiliate links. This means that if you make a purchase, we will earn a small commission. The commission is paid by the retailer at no cost to you and will be used to maintain the website.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. Rebecca Oct 30, 2022

    I AM an autism Christian (I choose to use “am autistic” not “have autism” because I don’t suffer with autism – I suffer through lack of understanding in the world around me). I would like to access this but I can only find a podcast!
    Having some level of auditory processing delay (not uncommon among autistic people) , I cannot follow this without a transcript nor lips and subtitles to follow along with.
    I am disappointed that this is so difficult for me to access. Can you direct me to a transcript so I can read along with listening?

    • Hi Rebecca,
      Lovely to hear from you. I’m afraid we can’t offer a transcript of this episode at this time. Offering transcripts is something we’ve given a lot of thought to, but as things stand it would cost me £500 a month to pay someone to produce them, or 10+ hours of time if I produced them myself, and unfortunately neither of those options are feasible right now.
      Hopefully this will change in the future.
      Sorry about that.
      Tim

Nomad Podcast Ltd
Company Number 14503502
17 Chancery Close
Ripley, DE5 3UT
hello@nomadpodcast.co.uk