Nonsense and neurodivergence

With pews emptying, finances collapsing, and the tide of the sea of faith long gone out, the Church of England’s government remains less interested in forwarding the propagation of the sound doctrine than breast-beating and dreary introspection. Typical is a paper up for discussion at this week’s Synod, on the Church’s relation with people with mental issues. Dry it may sound, but it encapsulates a great deal of what is wrong with the Church.

The essence of the paper, produced by a working group with “a range of neurodiverse lived experience”, is that the C of E is currently seen as a barrier to such people. The neurodiverse need to be seen as representing the “beautiful biodiversity that God has woven throughout the tapestry of creation” and “minority ways of processing the world”. And when it comes to clergy the Church needs to get rid of the idea of the “vicar look” and challenge the “neurotypical environment”. Instead it must recognise that neurodivergent leaders offered “prophetic wisdom for a re-imagined church” and bring in “visible neurodivergent role models in leadership”.

This all slips down nicely at first sight. It’s certainly true that people with mental issues must be no less part of the church than every other sufferer or sinner: the church is for everyone. It’s also true that priestly styles vary, and a lot of us actually prefer the retiring style of priesthood to the aggressively outgoing and evangelical: if this quietism is due to a touch of autism or aphantasia rather than personal modesty, so be it. 

Read between the lines, however, and that’s not what’s being called for in this report. Instead there is a radical agenda being put forward that is not so much un-Christian as non-Christian. 

Let’s begin with the idea of welcoming neurodivergence as “beautiful biodiversity” an idea taken (one suspects) from critical gay or gender studies. It isn’t. Mental health issues, like physical deformities, are things the subject has to put up with, and that we must help cure if we can and tolerate if we can’t: think Job and his afflictions. We don’t rejoice that someone in the congregation with, say, polio deformity or elephantiasis is demonstrating God’s beautiful biodiversity and say the church has to celebrate their difference: no more should we do so for someone with ADHD or Tourette’s.

It’s the same with priests. The C of E is a broad and welcoming sect: provided they have a genuine commitment to the doctrines of the Church and a penchant for forwarding them, by all means welcome priests with all sorts of idiosyncrasies, whether or not due to neurodiversity. If the paper had said that, well and good. But it doesn’t. It’s phrased much more in the language of DEI and equal ops: the need to avoid “stereotype and stigma”, to make sure there are “neurodivergent role models in leadership” and the need to tackle the problems of trying to “survive in a neurotypical environment”.

Seeing membership of the clergy as a benefit to be parcelled out on the principles of equity … does the church no favours

This matters. Not only is the approach wallowingly self-indulgent — like any public sector HR statement, it concentrates overwhelmingly on the importance of the comfort, concerns and self-esteem of the individual priest. But priesthood is a special vocation: what matters is clear understanding of true doctrine and the ability to minister effectively to the spiritual needs of a congregation. Some have it, and some don’t: as we read in scripture, many are called but few are chosen. Seeing membership of the clergy as a benefit to be parcelled out on the principles of equity — in this case equity between the majority and those with mental issues – does the church no favours. It is no disrespect to say to anyone that they are not fitted for this role.

Indeed, the chief difficulty with this document is that, though produced in a religious environment and making a nod to religious ideas, it is actually almost entirely secular in approach, interestingly not containing a single reference to scripture. The twenty-first century mantra Be Kind runs through it like the letters in a stick of rock; the values behind it are the twenty-first century shibboleths of equality, minority rights, identity politics and the avoidance of offence. As such it is drearily similar to other initiatives: think the twentieth-century support for liberation theology, or the recent report from the Archbishops’ Anti-Racism Task Force, “From Lament to Action”. 

Unfortunately, as the late great Edward Norman pointed out nearly fifty years ago in Christianity and World Order, this is not the way forward. As our Lord said, “My kingdom is not of this world”. We look to the church for the nourishment of the spirit and the propagation of the true faith. As soon as the church sidelines its doctrines in favour of secular fashion, people can hardly be blamed for turning away. The General Synod, when it discusses this paper this Friday, needs to keep this very much in mind.