WTS 2025 Symposium on Disability and Ministry Missing Voices in Theology
Nathan Buhl
The Main Idea is when working with someone with non-speaking autism, you must adjust your approach to be more inclusive.
Introduction / Background
Much Chaos
Dear barn animals are always making noise, having the perfect kind of speech to speak to one another. We think it is just noise. The distinct sounds are not intelligible to us humans. My feeble analogy perfectly describes my world sometimes. The messy mind prevents me from clear thinking and distinguishing the meaningful from the peripheral, leaving the brain feeling over stimulated. Bored sometimes and perfectly stretched others, I waver between the two extremes. Having autism, you must power through the chaos.
Today I am going to talk about some of my experiences having autism and how God turns trials into triumph. Great speeches familiarize the audience with the material first like movie previews. My presentation will be highly personal, saving the favorite holy moments for last.
Much Trial
Before I explain the way in which God rescued me out of my chaos, let me tell you more about my descent into the closet of autism. When ink just was drying on my birth certificate, the beginning of a bankrupt sense of my new life which had darkened my light. Can you imagine before you say your first clear sentence that speech is thwarted from coming out of your mouth? Thinking that they are helpful, people pity you and consider you broken. Am I really further gone than I think? The future seemed plain that now “broken” would be my label.
But my maker God had other plans. “Be perfectly content in weakness,” he said. “Wonderful, amazing happenings and miracles await you.” And they did! My ashes have been turned to beautiful creative acts of grace, manifold in number. In those days, a cancer of nameless big and terrifying fears plagued me for the capital of my waking moments. My confusion was a lost realm in the universe of my existence.
The life inside my autism is a ball and chain life. The things I want to do I can’t but the behaviors I don’t want to do, I amazingly do. Can I control my impulses? Perfectly no. But I can make progress. Because school was learning about preschool concepts, I was incredibly bored and peeved that I could not learn more age appropriate curriculum.
Much Taming of Despair
Because family life was filled with answers from God’s Word, the truth of Jesus broke through. Like a scaled down game of charades, they helped me understand little by little the meaning of gospel hope. God’s free gift powerfully, daily transformed my life. And with new life, a desire to preach God’s incredible gospel was born! The scandalous realized that the sanctifying work of heart change was necessary and accomplished by the sacrifice of blood on the cross.
God loves me. And even though I scroll wanting to find satisfaction, the great comfort is that the disease of sin is defeated like a powerful medicine. The living hope of the only savior Jesus makes me whole not disabled spiritually but fully alive and complete in him!
Some Wanderings
The world of autism uses the knowledge gained through sensory experiences to determine what helps our comfort. Feeling safe is a particularly strong determining factor. Just like when you want to get free from a chaotic circumstance, the awakened fight or flight response kicks in. Starting after my cool relief of my communication desert experience, my mind developed a clear understanding of the cost of executive functioning. The toll of having to think to order my behavior was high. The greater my learning the greater my awareness. That would change my very simple life into a new quest for significance. Having awareness is both a blessing and a curse.
Some Wise Words: Family Love
Smart people always saturate the atmosphere with a lot of conversation about how people who are non-speaking are not engaged. That is not true. I want to convince you that families often know best. Great mothers work to try communication methods so that children might learn to make beautiful words. Rapid prompting method is the approach that worked for me. This method develops communication by teaching the person how little taps on a board can say what you have in your mind. The ability to communicate with RPM has changed my life!
God always knew every struggle in my past would finally pay off. All along calamity was clearing a path for a freak of nature to become a force to be reckoned with. Sharing my experiences provides a loving call to save autistics from a gamut of problems. The inability to communicate causes worlds of pain. Therefore, we need to never give up the fight to find a way to connect with those who are non-verbal. The people who can’t speak are voices that may richly impact schools of thought. We should make sure we are listening to the back of the room. Some of those with no voice have the most to say!
Some Words of Admonition
When we plan love-based approaches to only address communication deficits, we are decorating for a party without the guest of honor! When we demand robots that speak, not people who are image-bearers of God, we lose sight of the goal. The first priority is the salvation of the soul. We need to cherish the lives that Jesus wants to rescue, according to his will. What does perfect speech matter if we don’t love Jesus? Because salvation is what really matters. The scripture says, “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?”
The Word Preached
I want to freely say that having heard the Gospel was the best thing that could happen to me. Please thank my parents for me placing my faith in Jesus, dear accomplices in the work of my salvation. When we have the opportunity to share the salvation story with the specially- abled, try to deliver truth in love proportionally to their understanding.
The Perfect Naive Question
When working with someone with autism, a close special relationship should be formed. Schedule frequent walks or time to just be together, time designed that will free them to be well regulated and relaxed. Desire to get to know what they like. Deep friendship forms when true trust is forged over time and space for several meaningful connections. What better way to love than spend time relating as friends? Relational connections develop growth in the brain. So, love is the answer to the question: how can I reach my friend with autism?
Smart Answer to a Fair Question.
Some people wonder why God allowed me to have autism. God’s schedule of healing is not the same as ours. We want instant gratification. The wonderful same God who makes the sunshine will make it rain too. I am learning that autism makes me depend perfectly on saving grace; which is where I want to be, molded into the likeness of Christ. Depending upon the Lord brings freedom, saving the pages of my story for lessons on bringing glory to Jesus! Without autism in my life, I may not have become an instrument of grace but remained a self-reliant sinner.
Question of Waiting
The answer to why closing a door to healing is better than a wonder drug is that full healing won’t come until heaven. God realizes that new exciting delights appear when we yield to his better plans. Fearful, yet hopeful, living with love in my heart for God, now there is more hope in the waiting. Waiting we rely on reasonable quests for answers simply by the solutions in God’s Word. Trust in the fact that pleasures unending await those who anticipate their Savior! A defective body is better than a lost soul.
My Missing Voice
My Calling
Having the share of my slopes and plateaus; the love of God was acrimoniously challenging me to sort through the next thing he wanted for me. Waves of fear screamed out, “what does God think I can do?” About giving up, the Holy Spirit declared to me that revealed truth would make his plans known. The calling Jesus conveyed to my restless heart, “believe in me, that is just all I want of you.”
I think my calling is to exhort and teach people who share my life experience with disabilities. That means that I want to question people about their scriptural understanding and encourage real life change that follows. By speaking and by writing, I hope to scripturally influence special dear followers who live with particular disabilities.
Missing Voices
I want to say that sometimes my feeble communication skills act like deterrents in my yearning to express my insights. The realm of theology depends on expressing deep thoughts that describe the character of God. Therefore, words are heady and patently very profound. I am not able to speak my words. The method I utilize to communicate is the use of a letter board to spell words. God, having made me fully intelligent but without a means to express myself, had a tremendous ministry for me. Looking on the outside, it appears I don’t know what is going on around me. But that knowledge of my disability now shows you otherwise. When I sorrowfully could not communicate, people assumed I had nothing to contribute. Conversations were limited by only responding to yes and no questions. Great theological discussions were not possible.
Asking me to focus on expressive communication 24 by 7 is a stretch, sapping me of strength. But I can overcome my struggles for a certain length of time. Can you, in your spirit, respond with gratitude when you are limited? I want to encourage you to be content with your weakness. The same power that raised Jesus from the grave, limitless power, lives in the followers of his gospel.
A Voice Heard
The prayer of my heart is that good theology will meaningfully drive good doctrine. My gifts barely scratch the surface of bringing new aspects of thinking to the church. Somehow after sparking interest in the non-verbal community, the church will hopefully reach the limited with unlimited grace.