When pursuing church leadership as an autistic person, the most crucial concern is always the effect this may have on the neurotypical population. From a business standpoint, it makes sense. The neurotypical population forms the majority of the church population, provides the majority of the funding and it is the neurotypical experience that forms the cornerstone of our doctrine and practice as a community. The most secure business model is one that caters to the majority and prioritizes their position within the company. Because of this, any marginalized person seeking leadership is judged by their ability to speak the language of the majority. From a ministry standpoint, this concept of running the church like a business may seem contradictory to Jesus’s own ministry, one that spoke everyone but consistently centered around marginalized inclusion. After all, no neurotypical person has ever had to prove their ability to minister to neurodivergent people to be seen as a qualified leader. Yet the question remains: am I qualified to adeptly lead this church community where I am not a member of the majority population?
The answer is an obvious yes, or at least obvious to any marginalized leader within the same context in which they were raised. The reason that neurotypical leaders are not expected to be able to minister to neurodivergent populations is because that has always been an “elective,” an optional and niche focus within ministry. No neurotypical leader has ever been required to learn this language. This is not the case for autistic leaders. While the autistic language of communicating has always been my “native language,” neurotypical communication was always the first language I was taught. From birth, I was immersed into neurotypical culture, expected to present as a neurotypical in order to be deemed successful from preschool through seminary. Most every text I read for school was written by neurotypical authors for neurotypical readers and every test was structured around the skillset of being able to think like a neurotypical. Every core, required class in college and seminary was built around the majority perspective, with most marginalized experiences being sidelined to elective classes, although not even these electives offered a focus outside of the neurotypical perspective within my education. Whether I was studying scripts and communication in theater classes or analyzing rhetoric in literature or processing the neurotypical-written doctrine of the church, I have studied neurotypical history, communication, and culture since birth because that is simply what has always been required of me to survive.
What level of experience do we require of someone to consider them “qualified?” For a neurotypical person, autistic experience can quickly be claimed by asserting that they have worked with autistic students in a school setting. Yet I have worked with neurotypical students and teachers alike in every single school setting in which I have attended. A neurotypical person is seen as experienced if they have an autistic child or sibling. I could claim the same experience of neurotypicals with every member of my family. A neurotypical person could study autism as part of a psychology degree or read about autism, even if those texts are still written by neurotypical voices, while studying special education and then be hired to work with autistic patients or students after just a few classes or texts. Every single text I have read in school and even the majority of my degree in psychology has still revolved around neurotypical communication and expression.
The experience necessary for a neurotypical person to be considered an expert around autistic populations in the most professional of settings is still miniscule compared to the experience of an autistic person merely surviving through the public school system. This is to be expected however given that a neurotypical will rarely be asked of their experience unless intentionally pursuing that field. In most any field, a devotion towards a subject marked by 24/7 cultural immersion, intense academic study and testing, and practical application for 26 years would be considered beyond exemplary. In fact, many assert that one is considered an expert after 10,000 hours of practice. I have assuredly reached this mark many times over. However, is it enough for an autistic leader when concerning the priority-level status of the neurotypical church population? In the majority of cases, yes. Because of my expertise in neurotypical culture, I am typically as skilled at communicating with neurotypical than a neurotypical candidate would be. There are some cases in which I might not understand the indirect communications and body language unique to neurotypical culture. However, there are just as many cases where my ability exceeds even that of neurotypicals because of how intensely I have studied that which comes naturally to them. In this sense, I am as qualified as any neurotypical leader to minister to the neurotypical population. The one question that remains to be asked is if I am as skilled at communicating with neurotypicals as neurotypicals are at communicating with autistic people. But does that question even need to be asked?
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