At a 2015 conference for Nazarene leaders, I attended a workshop aimed at preparing churches to be better equipped at welcoming families and children with special needs. Being both a pastor and a parent of a child with Autism and a rare genetic abnormality, the workshop piqued my interest. Maybe it is the borderline cynic in me, but I left that workshop intensely frustrated.
The three presenters were counseling professionals with the additional perspective of being moms to special needs children. From the beginning, I was reminded that “Special Needs” is a large umbrella. Two presenters have sons with ADHD and the third mom defined her son as having “high-functioning Autism.” I am not among those who would say ADHD isn’t a real thing, or that high-functioning Autism is code for “severe introvert.” Both are real, both are challenging. But with all due respect, the presenters did not speak for me. Their anecdotal experiences are just that—anecdotes. And I don’t wish to minimize their experiences, but someone should have told them they see “special needs” through a very narrow and rosy lens.
During the workshop, I heard statements like, “They’re not disabled, they’re ‘differently abled’.” “Our God is too creative to make all normal kids. And what is ‘Normal’ anyway?” “God doesn’t make cookie cutters.” “There is nothing wrong. They’re not broken.”
Speak for yourself.
I will be the first to say that a diagnosis of Autism or ADHD does not necessarily imply "disabled." Again, “special needs” is a large umbrella. I will also give the benefit of the doubt to these moms, that their hearts are right, and they were doing their best to help families and churches. However, I can’t help but think that their comments are not only narrow, they also bear unintended theological implications.
It’s easy to say your kid isn’t broken, just “differently abled,” when he is learning violin and building masterpiece architecture out of Legos, but most kids with an Autism diagnosis are not “savants.” “Not disabled, just differently-abled,” is not only unrealistic, it stands in direct contradiction to the many parents I have met who describe their children as severely disabled. For me, when my son was 6 and his then 3-year-old sister was far more advanced with fine motor skills, I simply can’t agree that he is just “differently abled.” Or when his younger brother was 3 and could use a spoon better than he could at the age of 8, to say “there’s nothing wrong with him” is not the reality. Even now at 12, he still struggles with normal everyday tasks most 7th graders take for granted. I have to admit that while I wouldn’t trade him for the world, I would sell a vital organ for him to fall within the range of “normal.” The difference between my son and a neurotypical peer is nine genes. That’s not normal. You have no idea how many nights I pray that God would give him those missing genes.
Many kids with mid- to low-functioning Autism—to say nothing of the wide gamut of other “special needs”—are, in many ways, very broken. Try telling the parents of a non-verbal child—parents who will never hear “I love you”—that God is too creative to make all normal, “cookie-cutter” kids. Try telling the parents of a child bound to a wheelchair for the rest of her life “She’s not disabled, she’s differently-abled.” Try telling the parents of an adult child who they are leaving at a group home for the first time, “There is nothing wrong with him, he’s not broken.” Try telling any of this to an overextended mom whose weeks are consumed with therapies, fights with a school district, or visits to one of the myriad of medical specialists she hopes the health insurance plan will cover.
This thinking leaves us with some very uncomfortable theological implications as well. In the New Testament, part of Jesus’ ministry included healing the sick, blind, mute, and crippled. John 9 is my go-to case study to talk about my own son; it is where Jesus meets a man who was born blind. Perhaps some well-intentioned first-century Jewish mother told this poor child’s mother, “Yahweh is too creative to make all kids seeing; he’s just ‘differently abled.’” Jesus charitably disagrees. His response was to heal him of his blindness, restoring his sight. If God is too creative to make all “normal” kids, what right does Jesus have giving sight to the blind? Or if a lame man was born lame, does Jesus have the right to give him working legs? Why would the divine incarnate Son step in and undo what the eternal Father wanted done in the first place? And why all the promises that in the world to come, God will wipe away every tear and heal every sickness and disease? Is “Special Needs” not included in the promise?
Jesus, throughout the gospels, routinely noticed people’s problems, but he did not brush them aside with hollow phrases like, “Well, he’s just differently-abled. The Godhead is too creative to make all kids ….” No, for Jesus, blindness, deafness, paralysis, leprosy, and you name it—it is a disability, and there is no shame in calling it what it is. There may be, however, great shame in minimizing them, or pretending something like “low-functioning Autism” isn’t all that bad anyway.
What’s more, “There’s nothing wrong with them” is a statement even the presenters didn’t believe. While saying “God is too creative to make all kids ‘normal,’” they also deliberately took time in their presentation to recommend when pastors should seek professional help for kids and families. If they’re just “differently abled,” what on earth would they need professional help for?
I should be clear; these moms are not the enemy. In fact, I genuinely appreciate what they tried to do. First, neurotypical children, do not have value and dignity because they fall under some vague definition of “normal.” At the same time, children who are “disabled,” missing nine genes, and in other ways “abnormal” do not lack value and dignity because they have a diagnosis. Our value, from the greatest to the least, comes from being created in the image of God, regardless of our level of ability, function, or any other benchmark we use.
Second, if that is all true, children and adults of all ages and abilities are entitled to know God, grow in grace, and serve in the church in whatever capacity they are able. Unfortunately, most churches are ill-equipped to do that for the special-needs community, and an already lonely existence for parents like us gets colder when we find out there is no place for our children, who do not lack the image of God in spite of their diagnosis. These moms only want that for their own children to the same degree I want that for mine.
We will not get to the place of true welcome by minimizing the experience of families touched by a difficult reality, by coloring “special-needs” in brighter hues, or by speaking in hollow platitudes. Dignity does not arrive by ignoring reality. Churches and church leaders need to know just how hard life can be for a special-needs family, how lonely it is to live in these trenches, how desperate we are for genuine fellowship. Then, churches and leaders need to be willing to do the hard—and I mean hard—work of joining families on their own journey, making it a part of their own.
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