Faith, hope and autism: learning to love neurodiversity, by John Allister 

What does church feel like if you're autistic? And how can churches become places where autistic people truly belong? John Allister - a vicar who is also autistic - shares stories, insights, and letters to his younger self

Faith, hope and autism: learning to love neurodiversity
By John Allister
Canterbury Press
ISBN: 978-1-78622-722-5
Reviewed by: Jeannie Kendall 

I wore out a whole highlighter pen (apologies to those who think such things should never be used in a book) while I read this. I cannot remember when that last happened.

The whole area of neurodiversity is controversial in some quarters so I need to declare a bias. There is neurodiversity in our family that is having a profound impact. So I am firmly not in the ‘it is over diagnosed’ camp: quite the reverse, the process to obtain a diagnosis can be tortuous and waiting lists for children and young people are very long, leading to years of schooling without appropriate help.

John Allister is a vicar who is autistic and the founder of Neurodiverse Church. He is therefore writing from a deeply personal perspective: indeed much of the book consists of letters to his younger self, giving wisdom he wished he had growing up. There are six sections to the book which will give you a flavour of the contents: starter for 10, thinking about autism, being an autistic Christian, an autistic theology of autism, thriving with autism and becoming a neurodiverse church. Each sub-section is short and that is important as I found I wanted to think carefully about each one.

Some of the statistics he quotes are difficult ones, for example in relation to autism and PTSD, as well as figures for employment. He does not let the church off easily either: we should be the most inclusive of places yet that is so often not the case. His final top 20 tips on being a neurodivergent church should, in my opinion, be discussed by every church leadership.

No book is perfect, and I wished there was a little more about autism and ADHD since the experience for those people who are both may have particular challenges. 

Jeannie Kendall is a ‘retired’ Baptist minister, speaker, trainer and until recently a tutor in Pastoral Supervision. She is the author of four books and is currently working on a fifth, a devotional book covering the whole of Luke’s gospel