Praying by the Rules (Paperback)

Paperback. What makes prayer difficult for autistic people, and what can autistic people teach the Church about this? Working with 18 autistic Christians to build a phenomenological account of why autistic people can feel anxious about their prayer lives, Helena Cundill places their experiences in dialogue with the existing corpus of theological work on prayer. By examining autistic accounts of prayer, she explores the anxiety that can arise from feeling that ones prayer life is not good enough and how shame arises when ones practice of prayer does not match the ideals embodied by the Churchs teaching, theological writings on prayer, and traditions.Three particular ideals of prayer are discussed, including the ideal of praying every day and the (sometimes competing) ideals around prayers of intercession. Autistic accounts of prayer can reveal the Churchs latent assumptions, and autistic and non-autistic members alike will benefit from understanding autistic experience in this area, hearing from those willing to share about the difficulties that they have with praying and the creative solutions that many have found.Cundill invites Christians to be more open and honest with each other about what forms the rules in churches and Christian communities, reflecting on how the raw honesty and lived wisdom of autistic people can enrich the Churchs discourse around prayer. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. …