Disabled church – disabled society
Mandy Lawrence reviews a moving story of autism
John Gillibrand is an Anglican priest and father of Adam, a teenager on the autistic spectrum. Disabled church, disabled society is an ambitious book in which he discusses the implications of autism for state, society and church. I found his work moving, thoughtful and thought-provoking. The personal becomes not only political, but theological and philosophical.
This is not a cosy story. John describes the trauma of living with his profoundly disabled son – the unpredictability, the energy and the incessant destructiveness – ‘there are no words to describe the sheer physicality of living with Adam.’ He uses Gerard Manley Hopkins to express his times of despair: ‘No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief.’
Through his grief, he questions and finds no easy answers. He is certain that Adam, and autism, is not ‘a problem’ to be cured, dealt with, or explained away: ‘Those with autism and their carers may well have had quite enough of being seen as a problem, cosmic or otherwise.’ For John, these outlooks are a rejection of his son. Adam’s autism is part of his identity. But John struggles for a philosophy that can credibly encompass the autistic experience and to understand how autism fits into Christian theology.
Platonic ideals of perfect forms or Carthusian theories of rationalism have little space for Adam and those like him. Much Western philosophy celebrates the individual yet autism has been described as ‘a failure to develop a sense of experiencing self.’ Rather, John finds relevance in post-structuralism and post-modernism: the profundity of Derrida, who recognises ‘language does not work.’
John states that God is ‘a social god’: this is inherent in the Covenant theology of both Old and New Testament. Yet Adam, child of God, has limited inter-action with his fellows. Language is central to the Christian tradition: ‘In the Beginning was the Word.’ Yet Adam is non verbal. He cannot access the Bible nor learn about his religious heritage.
Theologically, his father concludes, Adam’s autism is inexplicable. Attempts to explain using human logic will fail. Rather, we should learn from Adam’s way of being to gain spiritual insight. We cannot comprehend the mystery that is God and in the tradition of mysticism, we should not try. ‘I should not, Adam cannot. In different ways, we are letting God be God.’
John discusses healing as part of the Christian tradition and suggests that Christ developed an understanding of impairment that reached its height in the passion narrative when the Saviour took on disability for himself. He looks at the way in which his church has responded to people who are ‘different’ and finds it wanting: he has a sense of fellowship with those who have been excluded due to their sexuality.
There is much in this book that will appeal to Quakers, not least the reflections on silence. John, who has such a skill with words, finds language is ultimately inadequate.
‘My reliance is upon silence… I find that in silence I am living most in solidarity with Adam… That is where I want to be, where I long to be…’
Disabled church – disabled society: the implications of autism for philosophy, theology and politics by John Gillibrand.
Jessica Kingsley. ISBN: 978 1 84310 968 6 . £22.50.
