[Alex Murphy]

I am curious however. It seems lately there have been several threads with similar focus on autism. Is there any particular reason?

It's a topic that has fascinated me for several decades, specifically the question "how does a 'low-functioning' person receive God's forgiveness and grace, if they cannot make known their profession of faith?" The correllary question is similar:"how does a 'low-functioning' person worship God corporately and "not forsake to meet together", if they cannot meet the congregation's standards of appearance/behavior?"

The came-at-it-sideways answer that I found comes from Matthew 5:22b:

...whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire

I asked myself why calling someone a "fool" is worse than insulting them? Why would the name-caller be liable to Hell, for what appears to be just another insult? As I explored the verse, I found that accusing someone of being a fool was to pronounce them incapable of being regenerate and incapable of making the decision to follow Christ. In other words, calling someone a "fool" was making an eternal judgment against them: declaring that there is some minimum physical/mental condition that a person must possess and exercise in order to be forgiven/saved.

My interest was piqued further by the thread The Hardest Place for Us to Take Our Special Needs Child? Our Church, and more specifically by the good Pastor Books' post that he wanted to start a church for special-needs people. And following that, I had learned of a fellow FReeper's experiences with their autistic son and various churches. The convergence of all of these ideas led to these threads on the subject of autism and church.

[Tax-chick]

In other words, calling someone a "fool" was making an eternal judgment against them: declaring that there is some minimum physical/mental condition that a person must possess and exercise in order to be forgiven/saved.

That's an extremely interesting point!

[PastorBooks]

Thank you again for the ping! I love the fact that the need for churches to reach out to the disabled is getting exposure.

[PastorBooks]

“The convergence of all of these ideas led to these threads on the subject of autism and church.”

The latest statistics say that 1 out of 68 births now is on the Autism spectrum. One in 68!

Pastors and priests need to learn, now, how to reach out to these people and their families.

Jesus said, “To the extent that you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did it to Me.” These precious human beings are the “least of these.”