Autism in the church
A post at Floating Axehead about an autistic child and trouble in a church really stirred me up this morning. (added: news article here) There are so many troubling issues here.
On the church’s side:
- The child DOES seem to be a danger. The article mentions that “after one service Adam got into another family’s car, started it and revved up the engine while there were people in front of the vehicle.”
- The family has a separate study room in their home so that he is not disruptive to the other family members and their things. The family should be receptive to the church’s attempts to work out a solution.
On the family’s side:
- Kids fight. hitting another kid (who may also be large) may not be a big deal.
- Lack of control over his bodily functions, or panicing and racing from the church are not things that are wrong or that he should be punished for.
- Do the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) restrictions on discrimination apply?
On the Misc side:
I laughed (nervously) at the part about comparing watching a video feed in another room being similar to everyone staying home and watching the service on TV. I think (hope) this is a case of arguing the extreme; Just because some things are necessary, expedient, appropriate, or efficient for some, does not mean that they are for all. The extreme of “everyone staying home and watching the service on TV” is Isaac Asimov’s society of the Solarians, where nobody ever came into the same building together, but always “screened” one another. As someone who works from home and likes to shop online, I’m already a little sensitive on this subject.
Another blog quoted Luke, saying: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them.” I’m not sure this is REALLY ripping out of context, or a valid point. He’s not a LITTLE child, and that was a specific statement in a specific situation, and generalizing it should be done with caution. Still, Especially from a Catholic perspective, this is “coming to Him”, and the restraining order is a classic “hinder”.
This issue highlights how difficult it is to trust anything you hear these days. I am sure that many will only hear “church obtains restraining order against disabled child”. The opposite story “church diciplines family for being unloving to other churchgoers” might be just as wrong. It makes me feel at the mercy of the media (which I don’t trust) because there is no way to gather the correct amount of information about the things I hear. Because I know that the slightest subtleties of wording can influence people in polls, I even have some concern that I have not “neutralized” the title on this blog post, and people scanning RSS feeds will get only those four words about the problem and form a conclusion. Maybe I should have stolen Floating Axhead’s title “Between the Rock and a hard place”