If I Confess with My Mouth: Boundary Markers, Conversion Narratives and Autistic Belief Practices

Abstract

This article considers evangelical conversion and the practices that are associated with it. Evangelicals use the giving of oral testimony as a method of illustrating the change that occurs at conversion. This becomes, the authors argue, a boundary marker that cannot be bridged by autistic people who do not communicate using speech. Making use of Acts 15 as a hermeneutical tool to address the lived experience of people who have otherwise not been included, we argue that the example of the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ cloak is a model for proxemics as a declaration of faith. The evangelical belief in conversionism is maintained, but a non-speaking autistic person is able to demonstrate this in other ways, following the haemorrhaging woman’s example.

1. Introduction

At the beginning of Acts 15, the nascent church gathers to consider a new issue that has arisen amongst them. The people are perplexed and of no agreement concerning the ways in which new members of The Way are to join in and become participants. Gentiles, unfamiliar with the customs of Judea, are hearing about Jesus and converting but doing so without the boundary marker of circumcision. Much confusion reigns, and the new leaders gather to discern amongst themselves and with the Spirit the next course of action—to circumcise to indicate conversion or not (v6). Peter stands amidst the council and says,

My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us, and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.

(vv. 7–11 NRSV)

Peter highlights practices of belonging that exclude the Gentiles from The Way. Thus, he suggests that this practice of circumcision creates an obstacle for new believers, implying their salvation is not only by grace but also by associated practices.

A call to describe contemporary evangelical means of demonstrating understanding of God is replete with description, language and words. The boundary markers of word-based epistemologies signal belonging and participation via speech and correct articulation (Macchia 2022; Wenk 2022). These individualised, public practices confer identity and formation within this tradition. In my recent publication ‘Peculiar Discipleship’, I, Claire Williams, write of the normative voice in churches that excludes and fails to account for autistic people (Williams 2023, p. 5). Other sociological and theological publications suggest that autistic people are excluded from churches for a variety of reasons, and this can include the emphasis that churches place on word-based practices, expecting people to (for example) take part in liturgy, demonstrate glossolalia, perform speech acts such as confession or testimony-giving or speak publicly in the form of extempore prayer (Waldock and Forrester-Jones 2020; Van Ommen and Endress 2022). Autism has a cluster of characteristics that relate to communication and social behaviour (Macaskill 2021, p. 18). One feature of this is an intermittent relationship with speech; indeed, some individuals will not audibly speak at all. This paper will argue that word-based practices of testimony giving can function as exclusionary boundary markers, whereas a renewed attention to Biblical texts allows for a broader definition of what it means to testify to the presence of the Holy Spirit within (as per Acts 15:8, above). In this paper, we will argue firstly that speech-based practices of testimony giving can function as boundary markers. We will then demonstrate how this can serve to exclude some autistic people, who use spoken language differently or not at all. We will then reconsider the conversion narrative, not as a simple act of speaking, but more significantly as an act of hermeneutical agency, one that can be communicated through both regular and irregular practices of speech. We deepen this argument by considering Biblical texts that point to a broader understanding of what it means to testify to the presence of the Holy Spirit within; in particular, we reflect on the testimony giving of the haemorrhaging woman whom Jesus encounters. We conclude by reflecting on the role of the community in interpreting acts of testimony giving, including those acts that employ forms of communication other than speech.

Overall, whilst we determine to keep the conversionism emphasis in evangelical lived religion as a core tenet of the transformed life, we argue that the church needs to critically appraise its relationship to word-based practices, in the same way that the early church critically appraised its understanding of the role of circumcision, including the interrogation of scripture to determine what was required to demonstrate participation in the converted life. This includes paying attention to the role of the community in interpreting communicative acts and allowing individual believers to communicate in appropriate styles. We determine that maintaining the conversionism emphasis in evangelical lived religion is a necessary core tenet of the transformed life. But, we also argue that the church should critically appraise its relationship to words-based practices, in a way that resonates with how the early church critically appraised its understanding of the role of circumcision, interrogating scripture to determine what was required.

Acts 15 not only illustrates the question of membership in Christian communities for the purposes of this paper; it also provides a methodological framework which helps the exploration. This paper will follow the suggested process of John Christopher Thomas (J. Thomas 1994) who writes, from a Pentecostal perspective, of a practice and pneumatological process that offers a hermeneutical method for reading scripture in light of lived experience. Following such listening to the new or the different in the lived experience, there proceeds a ‘theological redescription’ (Swinton 2017, p. 17) where the new perspective is brought into conversation with the previously held convictions. All this is undertaken with the belief and faith commitment that the interpretation of scripture occurs in correspondence with the work of the Holy Spirit. Andrew Thomas notes that the role scripture has in evangelical communities, that of it being authoritative, is beholden to the interpreters of the text. He notes the possibility of damaging practices that follow from such interpretation. Thus, he argues, comes the abuse of power from holding authoritative interpretation privileges (A. Thomas 2022, p. 30). Incorporating lived experience into an interpretative process for reading scripture is part of a process that continually adds to the voices in the interpreting community. John Christopher Thomas argues that, in the example of Acts 15.1–29, a new understanding of the lived faith community was brought to bear upon previous interpretations. Paul and Barnabas strike out into the Gentile communities and discover that there is a requirement for a new interpretation that includes the Gentile community. Scriptural instruction is reread in light of a new story that is being told and in light of previously unheard voices. In Acts 15, these are the voices of the new Gentile believers, and, for this paper, it is the voices of non-speaking autistics that allow for this fresh understanding (J. Thomas 1994, p. 45). Thus, a process of hearing voices—in this case, drawn from research concerning autistic lives—and continuing the process of interpretation with these voices are necessary for orthopraxis. This is, therefore, an appropriate method for allowing the autistic voice of experience to be incorporated when it is often marginalised and excluded from interpretative discussions. This paper takes these two methodological ideas about interpretation and the authoritative power of the current interpretative understanding and suggests this as a process by which we can theologise. The interpretative community of evangelicalism can attend to new experiences, those of autistic people, and allow their experiences to re-interpret the text. This does not necessarily reduce previous interpretations but facilitates a ‘hermeneutical paradigm’ that understands the text as always being interpreted in light of the faith community and their experiences in the Spirit of God (J. Thomas 1994, p. 49).

Autism theology is a small but growing field, and, at present, is a distinctly British phenomenon. Almost all the major publications currently available in this area are authored by British writers or by writers working in British universities. In addition, the vast majority of the content of these published works takes its impetus from the experience of autistic Christians attending British churches, encompassing a range of denominations and styles.

It should be noted that research into (and theological reflection on) the faith lives of non-speaking autistic Christians is extremely sparse, largely due to the complexity involved in gathering and interpreting data (Van Ommen and Cundill 2024). But, of the small amount of scholarship available, the majority stems from those conducting research at the University of Aberdeen, UK, which is home to both the Centre for Autism and Theology and the Centre for Spirituality, Health and Disability. I, Helena Cundill, am a post-doctoral researcher in the Centre and have undertaken research on autism and prayer. I, Claire Williams, am a researcher associated with the Centre, and I am autistic.

2. Evangelicals and Words as Boundaries

Acts 15 describes the early Christians deciding the requirements for identifying new members of the Christian community. The community discover members that they were not anticipating, namely, Gentiles who do not know the socio-religious behaviours of the Jewish Christians that formed the original core of believers. The question becomes, for the Jerusalem council, what is necessary and how do we discern it?

The fundamental element for evangelicals that denotes membership into faith communities is conversion. Timothy George and Alister McGrath note that evangelicals are particularly known for their emphasis upon conversion and that David Bebbington’s famous definition identifies the requirement for an individual to ‘make a decision for Christ’ (George 2003, p. 3). Bruce Hindmarsh, describing one Sampson Staniforth’s experience of conversion in the eighteenth century, notes ‘everything that preceded his conversion was prologue; everything that followed was epilogue’ (Hindmarsh 2008, p. 1). This story, told with a ‘before’ and an ‘after’, captures something of the fundamental personhood definition and the transformational nature of evangelical conversion, both then and now. Bebbington’s description of conversion includes the call to hear the Gospel, turn from sins, repent and accept Christ by faith (Bebbington 2005, p. 5). Accounts of such conversion often include a process of ‘agony, guilt and immense relief’ (Bebbington 2005, p. 5). Conversion, for the evangelical, is theologically necessary because of soteriological commitments. No action of the human can be sufficient to win favour with God; the person is only justified by faith in God (Bebbington 2005, p. 6). For the evangelical, conversion is the way into the community; it allows for all who wish to come to enter without reference to any other requirements. It is the answer to the question that is posed in the Jerusalem council, a life-changing belief in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and a commitment for one’s life to be transformed from this moment (or series of moments) onwards. The associated practices that surround conversion and illustrate it for the benefit of others are the subject of this paper and its analysis. The resonance between the decision of the Jerusalem council and the practice of communicating conversion narratives is that they are both non-essential for the process of salvation but considered signifiers of membership in the faith community.

Evangelical conversionism is associated with the practice of accounting for the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of ‘the great change’ (Bebbington 2021, p. 167). Typically, this has been achieved by audibly narrating the series of experiences that surround the conversion. During the period of c.1740–c.1850, it was common to read obituaries of evangelical Christians that testified to the process of a change. It was also common to understand the change as happening at a fixed point in time, to the extent that one William Stranger, written about in 1822, could not identify a fixed point in time for his conversion and thus deferred baptism believing himself unqualified (Bebbington 2021, p. 173). To be able to identify the fixed point in time when conversion was said to occur illustrates not only the belief that the before and after times are clearly delineated by a crisis moment but also that such a crisis moment should be accounted for as part of the authentication process. David Kling similarly emphasises the identity constructive elements of conversion narratives:

Autobiographical narratives such as Augustine’s are acts of reconstruction and interpretation (a type of “fiction” or self-representation), reflections on an experience of divine encounter that reorients one’s life. Throughout Christian history, thousands of conversion narratives have been written, though nearly all date from the modern period.

(Kling 2014, p. 605)

Kling finds that such narrations are products of the modern era, dependent upon a literate and introspective society, and that their place as common is in contrast to their rarity in Christian history (Kling 2014, p. 605). The necessity of a fixed point in time, before which a person is not ‘saved’ and after which they are considered redeemed, has developed since Stranger’s anxieties of the 1800s. It is complexified by the emergence of ‘second-generation’ evangelical children who did not experience a crisis moment or a discernible ‘before’ period (Anizor et al. 2021, p. 116). However, despite this development—also in the prescriptive practices of evangelical theologians (see Smith 2010; Abraham 1989)—there persists an secondary practice of giving narrative descriptions or testifying as a way of verifying the existence of conversion. Alongside this are the word-based practices that lead towards the possibility of conversion, for example, praying the sinner’s prayer or verbally accepting Christ (Anizor et al. 2021, p. 113). In T. M. Luhrmann’s book, When God Talks Back, she dedicates her first chapter to the responses that individuals make to ‘the invitation’ to faith (Luhrmann 2012, pp. 3–39). Lurhmann notes the predominance of conversion narratives: ‘for a while I attended an evangelical church in southern California in which everyone told conversion stories of self-destructive addiction’. (Luhrmann 2012, p. 7). Despite the research taking place in America, this form of spiritual autobiography emerged in part in the eighteenth-century evangelical revival in England (Hindmarsh 2008, p. 321). This occurred to the extent that conversion narratives could be described as ‘routine’ by the 1740s and constituted a ‘tradition’ thereafter. Indeed, Hindmarsh describes how ‘Over time it became more possible to appeal to a tradition of conversion or to offer a rational account of conversion...’ which then developed into a way, not to describe one moment in time, but to establish a narrative of meaning ‘of one’s life from beginning to end’ (Hindmarsh 2008, pp. 321–22).

The conversion narrative has a universalising scope. Hindmarsh notes that it allowed women to speak and speak with authority in ways that had previously been prevented in the eighteenth century (Hindmarsh 2008, p. 324). This corresponds to the Charismatic/Pentecostal practice of giving testimony in the present day which also removes many barriers to participation, so that even (according to Pentecostal theologian Cheryl Bridge Johns) a child can teach (Johns 2010, p. 89). Charismatic theologian Helen Collins similarly notes that testifying in the Charismatic tradition is ‘their primary way of expressing their experiential knowledge and wisdom of God in Christ’ (Collins 2023, p. 99). This universality reflects the purposes of the Jerusalem council who, following Peter, agreed that ‘we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will’ (Acts 15.11). Conversion, and the accounts that accompany it, are evangelical acts that demonstrate that all who are willing—just like the Gentiles—are allowed to be converted, by God’s grace.

What, then, do conversion narratives achieve? Kling writes of ‘an inherited tradition’ and a ‘pre-set script from the evangelical subculture’ that is employed within conversion accounts. These scripts and discourses are used in constructive social ways:

This coded vocabulary and impetus to spread the gospel defined authentic conversion for evangelicals and ipso facto raised questions about the kind of church to which the converted should belong. Because this common vocabulary was not shared within the Orthodox and Catholic traditions (or, if used, was not invested with the same meaning), evangelicals often judged these traditions deficient in their understanding of authentic conversion.

(Kling 2014, p. 606)

The necessity for a correct form of conversion accounts, as Kling illustrates, serves to create boundaries of participation around an evangelical community and align such participation with a personal sense of identity. Conversion narratives achieve both a narrative for the self in this situation but also for others to recognise ‘proper’ membership. The conversion narratives also offer a way to describe the self, where the self has hermeneutical authority to illustrate their proper relationship with God and to map their lives onto the soteriological story provided in scripture and in the community (Hindmarsh 2008, pp. 6–7). Thus, conversion narratives are applied in particular contexts and have values associated with their contextual deployment. Older evangelical histories account for written conversion narratives, individual accounts or second-person narratives found in obituaries (Bebbington 2021, pp. 167–91). Bebbington writes that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, candidates for ministry were asked to account for their conversion and that this was a development from the narratives he presented from the 1740s–1850s (Bebbington 2021, p. 191). Although George and McGrath note that salvation by faith requires action on the part of the divine, not simply a cognitive decision on the part of the individual, the emphasis remains, for them, upon the communication of such a decision (George 2003, p. 4). In McGrath’s opening chapter of his book, he proceeds to critique the ‘arid evangelical rationalism’ that prioritises theological certitude over a link to the ‘heart’. However, throughout this critique, the right knowledge is still foundational to evangelical spirituality: ‘theology is thus understood to concern knowledge, reflection, and speculation’ (McGrath 2003, p. 15). Therefore, we can argue that evangelical spirituality is always subsequent to evangelical right belief. Evangelical conversionism appears to have a set of beliefs associated with it that are necessary for conversion to be fully realised. The purpose and context of evangelical conversion narratives coalesce in the necessity for membership boundaries that are governed by theological convictions. The evangelical does not believe in baptismal regeneration (Holmes 2015, p. 28) because baptism is one of the ‘ordinances that have no saving value’ (Kling 2014, p. 604). The impact of this belief about the ordinances in evangelical theology (and illustrated in Kling’s account of his father’s conversion) is that markers such as baptism are insufficient to illustrate conversion (baptism might have occurred as a child or at a time before or a long time after conversion), yet the soteriological requirement of conversionism in evangelicalism still requires an accompanying marker. Believer’s baptism is used to accommodate the requirement for conversion, but this is typically accompanied with testimony given either prior to or during the course of the baptismal experience. If baptism cannot fill this role because it is not tied tightly enough to the experience of conversion, then it is dependent upon accounts of conversion to indicate that it has indeed occurred. Luhrmann’s experiences of attending a US Vineyard church illustrates this tendency, despite being across the sea from our main point of focus. In this account, she tells of the stories recalled by individuals in the churches about coming to God:

Like many evangelicals, Arnold [a member of the congregation] tells the story of a crisis, a sharp confrontation with humiliation or despair, and a turning point at which he consciously chose Christ. These stories are told again and again in evangelical churches, and often they acquire a local sameness, so that any church seems dense with the same kinds of personal struggles.

(Luhrmann 2012, p. 7)

What Luhrmann recognises in these testimonies is the rhythm and connection with the community that occurs when these accounts of conversion are given. The process is validated by those who hear the words and the same-ness that comprises the stories; it connects the convert with those around them. Evangelical faith is entered by conversion, one of the four key points in Bebbington’s quadrilateral and the way in which lived theological conviction is expressed in this part of the Christian faith. Conversion, however, as a way to enter a community that is founded on an interior and individual experience, requires (or at the very least is accompanied by) a public and visible account of the change in a person. Much remains from the earliest days of evangelical history of written testimonials of conversions, and this has continued into the present as public spoken accounts of the change in people’s lives that illustrate their entry into the faith. These accounts tell those who hear them that they have changed their lives, accepted the offer of salvation made by God through Christ and in the power of the Spirit, and aligned themselves with the faith community. Conversion narratives are practices of the soteriological emphasis in the evangelical community that create boundaries around the said community. This boundary is porous, all are welcome and offered the opportunity to convert, and, subsequently, they tell others about it.

3. Autism and Non-Speaking Communication

As discussed above, communication differences are a key diagnostic feature of autism. It is estimated that between 25 and 30% of autistic people can be described as ‘non-speaking’ or ‘minimally speaking’ (Rose et al. 2016). The term ‘nonverbal’ is often also used to describe these autistic people. However, many of these individuals do fully understand other people’s spoken language, albeit they are unable to produce intentional directed speech in return. Therefore, it is argued that the term ’non-speaking’ (rather than nonverbal) better captures their experience of words and language, and this term is generally preferred by autistic people (Zisk and Konyn n.d.).

In place of speech, non-speaking autistic people develop various ways to communicate needs and wishes, as well as to build relationships and even to tell stories. For example, Amy Sequenzia uses an augmentative communication device and writes of the frustration she feels when neurotypical people assume that, because she is non-speaking, she is of restricted intellectual ability, or does not have ideas and opinions (Sequenzia 2012b). The misconception that people who do not speak also do not think is a common and frustrating one. As Sequenzia writes,

There is still a misconception that if you don’t speak you can’t understand, think or even hear. People talk about you, not to you; they ask questions not to you, but direct the conversation towards a third person, even when you can communicate through signs or other augmentative communication devices.

(Sequenzia 2012a, p. 349)

Not all non-speakers can use the kind of device that assists Sequenzia, yet all non-speakers find ways to communicate. One way to conceptualise this is to describe it as each autistic person having their own ‘language’ which non-autistic people can learn to understand.

Practitioner Phoebe Caldwell shows how we can learn the ‘language’ of non-speakers, including amongst those with significant intellectual and other disabilities, using a process that she calls Intensive Interaction (Caldwell 2006). She begins by identifying how the non-speaking disabled person ‘talks’ to themselves, for example, by repeatedly tapping or touching surfaces to communicate with themselves and gain information about the environment around them. (This kind of practice is often described as ‘stimming’ or ‘self-stimulatory’ behaviour). After observing how an individual ‘stims’, Caldwell then copies the sound or sensation that they habitually produce—in other words, she imitates their ‘language’. This is in much the same way that a caregiver will imitate the early sounds made by a very young infant, establishing the back-and-forth turn-taking pattern that is the first building block of learning to speak. Caldwell’s imitation usually succeeds in getting the attention of the non-speaking person, and a back-and-forth dialogue ensues:

A child comes into a sensory centre. Normally she either wanders around looking at the lights or lies on a waterbed next to the entrance with a pillow over her head. She does not engage with support staff. When I come she is on the mattress with her head at the far end under the cushion. I stand outside the door and watch. She kicks the mattress and I tap the same rhythm on the wall. She then sweeps her feet across the mattress which makes a different sound. I make a similar sound by rubbing the wall. She alternates one sound with another which builds into a fast interactive game. Gradually she lifts her pillow and her head comes round to see what I am doing. We can see that she is smiling.

(Caldwell 2006, p. 105)

A key feature of Caldwell’s approach is that she does not seek to impose societal norms of communication onto the non-speaking person, but she also does not limit the communication to what the non-speaker is already doing in terms of self-stimulatory behaviour. Instead, by gently introducing novelty into the dialogue, Caldwell creates a “between” place, where the non-speaking person is drawn out of extreme introversion and given the opportunity to realise themselves as someone who exists in the view of another.

[A child who is blind, deaf and autistic.] He holds a piece of sheet foam in his hands with circular holes cut into it and runs his fingers round the holes. This is how he talks to himself, giving himself tactile feedback, the pattern of which is a circle. Each time he makes a sound, I make a circular movement on his arm. He starts to laugh, especially when I reverse the direction, feeding in the circle pattern he recognises but containing the element of surprise, anticlockwise to his clockwise.

(Caldwell 2006, p. 109)

Caldwell’s work demonstrates how communicating is intrinsically linked to self-consciousness. Even self-stimulatory behaviours are communicative; they are the non-speaking person communicating with themselves about the environment around them and their agency within it. This self-talk can then be developed into dialogue when it is effectively captured and used for the purpose of communicating that there are other agents in the environment. The non-speaking disabled person, even if both deaf and blind, can then come to understand these agents as separate beings, ones who can observe them, communicate with them, and (as is testified to by the laughter in the examples above) even bring them joy.

One further point should be noted in relation to autistic communication, which is that even autistic people who can and do learn to speak may not find speech to be their most natural and authentic means of communication. Many autistic people report feeling that their relationship to spoken language is idiosyncratic, compared to non-autistic norms. Paul Deary, for example, describes how, for him (and he presumes for many other autistic people), words are very material things in and of themselves, things which resist pointing to meanings that lie beyond the simple materiality of sound (Dearey 2009, pp. 44–45). Ruth Dunster describes this autistic trait in a positive light, as an ability for ‘cherishing the thisness of things’ (Dunster 2022, p. 140). This is a different, rather than inferior, experience of what spoken language is, but it is one which may mean that expressing spiritual experiences and encounters through the medium of words has a disconcerting feel to it. We might liken it to the notion of “watching” a ballet by closing your eyes and having it described to you—there is a significant sense of a gulf between what is experienced and what can be described. Whilst this may be true to a certain extent for any attempt to describe spiritual encounters in words (by an autistic or non-autistic person), the sense that a spoken testimony is distant from, or poorly descriptive of, the spiritual encounter that actually occurred may be more significantly distressing for an autistic person. Autistic theologian Stewart Rapley describes how both autistic and non-autistic Christians often have the same struggles, but, for an autistic person, it can be harder not to worry about those struggles and any sense of inauthenticity that they create (Rapley 2021, p. 41).

Drawing together this examination of autistic communication, there are certain points which should be emphasised and considered in relation to the evangelical tradition of conversionism and the giving of testimony. Firstly, it is incorrect to assume that non-speaking people cannot understand language and therefore cannot understand the Christian message. Additional disabilities such as dyspraxia will mean that some non-speakers will not be able to use an assistive device such as the one used by Sequenzia, and some non-speakers will not be able to direct their eye gaze, bodily movements or facial expressions to show understanding. However, it should never be assumed that this means these individuals are either not listening or not understanding words spoken to or around them.

Secondly, it is incorrect to assume that even those with multiple disabilities (such as the example above of the child who is autistic, blind and deaf) are not or cannot be conscious of themselves (Haslam 2012).1 Repetitive movements or actions, including sounds (echolalia), whether produced voluntarily or involuntarily, all provide the individual with information about themselves in the environment around them and can be used to provide information about other ‘selves’ who are present, providing attention and loving care. The ability to conceive of oneself as separate from other people and things in this way is significant, as it creates the possibility of intending to respond to and to communicate with them (even if that intention cannot be actualised due to disability). Molly Haslam describes this intentional state as “yearning” or “expressive longing” for relationship, and she explores the possibility that this yearning can be directed towards encounters with God just as much as towards people and things (Haslam 2012, p. 104).

Lastly, even where testimony can be given by means of words, either spoken or written with an assistive device, this may not be the most authentic way for an autistic person to express interior and individual experience. This pushes us to consider whose convenience is primary in the communicative act of giving testimony. Whilst a spoken or written testimony is likely to be the readily understood form of communication for a predominantly neurotypical congregation, it may feel inauthentic to the autistic person who must perform this communicative act to testify to their conversion. When it comes to the means of determining who is within the boundary of the community, should the community’s norms be put ahead of what is meaningful to the individual? It is noticeable that, in Acts 15, whilst circumcision was the accepted practice, it came to be re-evaluated following an interrogation of scripture. This led to pragmatic choices being made (e.g., Acts 15:20) as to which customs of the community could be observed by all members (including those with female bodies, although this point is not stated in the text) to demonstrate the shared identity of the community. As such, whilst the demonstration of a shared identity was deemed necessary, the new community needed to theologise the requirements and boundaries at the heart of the matter, and it was the fact of that demonstration, rather than the means of it, that proved to be the question at stake.

4. Autistic Hermeneutical Agency

The conversion narrative is an act of hermeneutics. It tells the story of a life with autobiographical interpretation (Hindmarsh 2008, p. 6). Theologian and occupational therapist Sarah Jean Barton highlights the significance of normalcy in disability studies and the manner that a ‘normal’ person is a socially constructed individual to whom people wish to conform behaviourally (Barton 2022, p. 6). Her work seeks to understand the practices of the church, such as baptism, and their relationships with disabled people (Barton 2022, p. 24). We address similar concerns by interrogating the conversion narrative practice used frequently in evangelical communities. The question that Barton asks is ‘what constitutive practices sit at the heart of Christian discipleship?’ (Barton 2022, p. 24). In relationship to conversion, we suggest that it is the story that one gives and the account one provides as evidence of the converted life that indicates a desire for membership in the faith community. This has two facets: the first is oral and literary, that of a spoken or written autobiographical account, and the second is hermeneutical, the ability to interpret one’s own life and find a converted centre that is orientated towards the evangelical emphasis on Christ. We argue that the first facet is necessarily subsumed beneath the second—the core practice is the hermeneutical agency. The manner and power of telling the story of conversion needs to be suitable to the individual and their preferred communication style. Evangelical practices associated with conversion require a core of reflection, of self-understanding and of movement from before to after. Whether that is narrated in a particular style or manner is less important than the conversion experience. Thus, following Miranda Fricker (Fricker 2011), hermeneutical agency is compromised in autistic believers if their manner of communication is restricted by practices that are not actually constitutive of Christian discipleship. For Fricker, hermeneutical injustice is the ‘unfair advantage in structuring collective social understanding’ (Fricker 2011, p. 147). This relates to social meanings, she argues, and is significant for this paper. Conversion experience, and testimony about it, are ridden with social meanings; it is the way in which membership is understood and determines whether the ‘good news’ (as articulated in the opening verses from Acts) is understood to have been received. By requiring the conversion experience to be narratable in words either written or spoken, there may be an obstacle that prohibits the free expression of a spiritual conversion for the autistic person, leading them to believe ‘I don’t have a testimony’ (see above). Furthermore, it is similar to Fricker’s other category of epistemological injustice, testimonial injustice (Fricker 2011, pp. 9–29). Fundamentally, the autistic testimony that is neither speaking nor writing about conversion is not received as authentic, and, thus, the autistic person is subjected to injustice and their experience not received as valid. Yet, the ability to speak and give an account is not the primary issue at hand for evangelicals. Rather, testimony-giving is a practice that has developed around the focus on conversionism, and it has become related to a need to authenticate the experience of conversion. As we have observed above, in evangelicalism, baptism itself is not an ordinance that constitutes the authentication of conversion, as baptism may have taken place in infancy, before conversion, or may, for a variety of reasons, not take place until some time after a conversion experience. In light of this, narrating the experience of conversion has slipped into the role of boundary-marking one’s entry into the community of faith. This could have the unfortunate consequence of leaving those who cannot narrate their conversion experience on the outside of the faith community’s boundary, with no way to ‘speak’ their way in.

5. God Disclosed in Irregular Speech: Practices of Conversion

The evangelical conversion narrative, according to Hindmarsh, constructs a self-understanding by drawing an individual into a larger narrative. It achieves this by a narrative act of location. Evangelical conversion narratives answer the question ‘who?’ by way of this locative association. This ‘who?’ refers to the individual self-identity of the narrator in the conversion narratives. For many evangelicals, the answer to the question ‘who?’ is not, however, ‘me’ but actually ‘Jesus Christ’. The narrative self-understanding of an evangelical conversion narrative is to locate the individual as no longer only telling their own story but aligning their story, superseding their story, with the story of another. This places the practice of giving an account of the transformation of a life as a practice that is concerned with locating that person in the story of Jesus Christ. Indeed, Kling claims they are ‘attempts to explain the experience [of conversion] by answering the fundamental questions of identity: Who am I? To whom do I belong? What does life mean?’ (Kling 2014, p. 605). In the Gospels, one does not have to look far before finding examples of testimony that occur without the use of spoken words. Even in the opening sequence of the Gospel of Luke, the unborn infant John the Baptist is depicted as leaping in the womb of Elizabeth, testifying that child carried by Mary was the coming saviour (Luke 1:39–45). This event is taken up by Martin Luther, who uses it to argue that infants are able to have faith and should therefore be eligible for baptism (Luther 1958, p. 242). Luther’s discussion is then taken further by Kevin O’Farrell, who uses it as part of his proposal that baptism should neither be withheld from non-speaking people who cannot make a declaration of faith. O’Farrell observes Luther’s conviction that it was not the baptismal act itself, but the ongoing behaviour of the church towards the baptised, treating them as members of the community, that daily confirmed their status as baptised people (O’Farrell 2019).

John Swinton argues that non-speaking people are not so much limited in their ability to communicate their own story, so much as ‘…they are limited by the communicational contexts within which they are embedded’ (Swinton et al. 2011, p. 6). By this, he means either that the stories of such individuals are often the (sometimes untrue) stories told about them by other people, or that they need the assistance of other people to tell their own stories. Sometimes these stories can be powerful counternarratives, ones which transform the way that disabled people are perceived and valued by those with whom they have encounters. Swinton gives the example of a disabled person, Brian, who does not use any known system of communication. Despite his significantly limiting disabilities, Brian’s mother describes him as ‘a good person’. Swinton comments on the way this challenges what people perceive about Brian:

Cultural narratives may commonly position Brian as disabled, unable to communicate; a tragic figure; his mother linguistically positions him as “a good person” and in so doing offers a simple but powerful counternarrative that gives Brian a quite different story.

(Swinton et al. 2011, p. 8)

One of the ways in which we become able to tell these different stories is to observe an ‘embodied counterstory’ which is embedded in the life of the non-speaking person (Swinton et al. 2011, p. 11). As an example, Swinton recounts the behaviour of Mary, who has continual muscle spasms and cannot speak but makes sounds—noisy shouts and long wails. However, since her infancy, Mary has been taken to Quaker meetings by her caregivers, and, when the community moves into periods of silence, Mary too becomes silent. It is not known, nor can it ever be known, whether Mary understands why the community observes silence, whether Mary ‘prays’ in any conventional sense or not. But, as Swinton points out, in Matthew 25, Jesus describes how he has been ministered to without the ministers even realising it—as Matthew 25:37 states, ‘…Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?’ ‘That being so’, concludes Swinton, ‘…it would appear that knowing Jesus is a relational concept and not merely an intellectual one’. The significant point is that Mary’s silence is recognised and held by the community with whom she worships as a communicative act of spirituality. In this way, not only does the community confirm and sustain Mary’s spirituality by treating her as a member, but Mary’s spirituality also confirms that of the community in return (Swinton et al. 2011, p. 16).

6. Non-Speaking Testimony

We argue not on the premise that non-speaking people cannot make a spoken declaration of faith but, rather, that all non-speakers communicate somehow. This may be only in the experience of yearning and expressive longing, which is met by the receptiveness of (rather than the evaluative judgement of) a community of faith—one that is willing to make the disabled individual’s story of faith part of their own. If the question of conversion is ‘To whom do I belong?’ then, where a community is prepared to pay careful attention to how a non-speaking person communicates their yearning to be part of that community, the answer can be shown to be ‘I belong to Christ and His church’—with or without the adornment of spoken testimony.

Léon van Ommen, a theologian whose work has a focus on understanding the faith lives of non-speaking autistic people, recounts an encounter which took place at a church where he was undertaking some fieldwork. A non-speaking autistic person, See Huan, came up to van Ommen after the church service and stood near to him. See Huan did not speak or return van Ommen’s greeting:

…he just stood next to me—showing his attentiveness. […] …and after a while he went somewhere else. To many, this may seem like a brief and insignificant exchange, but afterwards the pastor, who had also been present at the interview, commented that this was a remarkable and a very significant act on See Huan’s part, as he would not usually approach someone like that.”

(Van Ommen and Cundill 2024)

See Huan used proxemics, the choice of where to place his body within the room, to communicate his interest in, or perhaps his sense of relationship to van Ommen. It may seem like a small act to those who can freely converse with new friends or people with whom they wish to become better acquainted, but, according to the Pastor’s interpretation, this was a highly communicative and meaningful act on the part of See Huan. Our suggestion is that there are many such communicative acts which take place, but which run the risk of being overlooked by those who focus too readily on normative styles of communication.

Turning to scripture, this type of behaviour (i.e., communicating through the choice of where to place one’s body) can also be seen in the actions of the haemorrhaging woman who presses through the crowd to touch the garment of Jesus. The events of this encounter are recorded in Matthew 9:20, Mark 5:25–34 and Luke 8:43–48. In each case, the action of the woman is one that leads to sózó—which is often interpreted as indicating the woman’s physical healing (which it likely includes) but also the word used throughout the New Testament to indicate salvation in terms of deliverance from the power of sin (e.g., John 3:16).

In the Matthew account, the woman is described as thinking (literally, elegen gar en heautē—‘for she was saying to herself’) that touching the garment of Jesus would save her (sōthēsomai—‘I will be saved’). She is not recorded as saying anything else, and, as such, she does not publicly communicate the intended meaning of her act, either before or after, yet it is presented in Matthew’s Gospel as sufficiently communicative in and of itself.

In Mark, she is recorded as saying these words, but it is not clear who the audience is or if anybody hears her (elegen gar hoti—‘for she was saying’). It is notable that, after the woman comes forward to identify herself as the one who had touched Jesus’ cloak, she is described as telling Jesus the truth. Jesus then makes a two-fold response. Firstly, he says that her act of faith has saved her (sesōken—‘saved’; the perfect tense indicating a completed action) and, secondly, she is then given the imperative to go and be healed of the disease from which she suffers. This appears to indicate that, although the physical healing has not yet come about, her salvation has been made complete by her act of faith. Notably, it is not the gathered crowd who judge her telling of the truth, but Christ himself, and he accounts her act of faith as sufficient for the salvific moment, prior to her subsequent confession.

In his version of events, Luke recounts that the haemorrhaging does stop in the instant that the woman touches the cloak of Jesus (Luke 8:44). Luke also records the woman subsequently declaring (apēngeilen) to everyone present that she has been ‘healed’—using the verb iaomai (to heal) rather than sózó (to be saved). When Jesus responds to her testimony, however, he appears to correct her understanding by reverting back to sózó, saying, hē pistis sou sesōken—‘your faith has saved you.’

In the Acts 15 passage with which we began this article, we proposed a method to assess hermeneutical processes in light of previously unheard experiences. It is notable that Peter accepts the Gentiles placing themselves within the community of faith as making him aware that the Holy Spirit had been gifted to them and that a new understanding and interpretation might be necessary. Their behaviour seemed to show the yearning and expressive longing of faith, a communicative act in response to the question ‘To whom do I belong?’ This is observable in the woman who touches Jesus’ garment, whose communicative act is not even seen but only felt by Jesus, even before (or regardless of whether) a word has been spoken. Indeed, even in Luke’s Gospel, where the woman is subsequently recorded as giving a verbal account, she does not seem to succeed in authentically putting into words the magnitude of the spiritual experience that she has had. Knowing her intimately, Jesus corrects her understanding and speaks her testimony for her, telling a different story.

Returning to See Huan—he was not able to explain to van Ommen the meaning of his act, but the Pastor who knows See Huan more intimately was able to explain the communicative significance of what had occurred. See Huan is embedded in a Christian community that pays careful attention to the ways that he communicates and, as such, is able to assist him in narrating the story that is embedded in his life. This becomes possible when the ‘collective social understanding’ (as described in Fricker’s account of hermeneutical injustice) is not carelessly structured towards able-bodied norms but is deliberately reorientated towards being attentive to the communicative style of each individual.

Jesus’s behaviour to the woman, seen in light of the research conducted by Caldwell, Swinton, van Ommen and others, indicates that there are ways of authenticating a turn to faith that do not require narration. Where narration does occur, for example, in the Lukan account discussed above, it is for the purpose of the bystanders’ understanding and is not essential to the act of being saved in and of itself. This serves to affirm the role of testimony as something which is good and beneficial to the faith of others, but, at the same time, Jesus’ declaration—‘your faith has saved you’—also clearly demonstrates that it was the act of approaching Jesus (and not the subsequent testimony about it) that was sufficient to demonstrate the woman’s faith.

There are many possible means by which a non-speaking autistic person might wish to demonstrate their faith. For some, communicative media such as artwork, photography or dance may be possible. For others, communication may come in the form of proximal acts (such as with See Huan), an observance of the community’s ritual of silence (Mary), or the sense of ‘To whom do I belong?’ may be communicated only through regular attendance. What matters is not so much the means of communication, but the community’s willingness to pay attention to it and to understand that the story being told is not just that of the non-speaking person but is also part of their own.

There is scope too, for believers who do speak, to also think about the story being told by what they do not say. It is not only non-speakers who communicate their feelings and intentions through where they place themselves in a room or in a group, or by who they do or do not approach and pay attention to. Van Ommen et al. record how one of their research participants, Philip, a non-speaking autistic man who communicated his thoughts via a spelling board, felt frustrated that members of his church never tried to converse with him, even though this was possible by means of his assistive communication device. Communicating this way was a little more effortful and time-consuming, and, as a result, people did not try. As Philip commented, ‘We abandon people when they have trouble with conversation.’ It is striking that the church members had (albeit perhaps unwittingly) communicated their ‘abandonment’ of Philip, even when he continued to choose week by week to place himself within the community where he wished to belong. This abandonment not only impoverished Philip, limiting his sense of belonging in the faith community, but it also impoverished those who chose to ignore him, because they missed out on hearing and growing through what Philip could testify, in terms of how God was at work in his life (Van Ommen and Cundill 2024).

7. Conclusions

Conversion is a core tenet of evangelical lived religion. It is the primary way in which the new life that is offered by the Gospel is experienced. The focus in Acts 15 is on the ways in which those who are new to the community can demonstrate their allegiance to the community and to the transformative power of a new life in Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit. The agency and narrative control that has been afforded to all types of people, those in power and those on the fringes, via the act of giving an account of their conversion is not disputed. However, we have argued in this article that the understanding of agency should be further expanded to include non-speaking members of congregations and to receive their accounts as authentic and validating. The narrative agency that requires people to account for their own conversion experience has hermeneutical force. Their own experience is interpreted via their own understanding. This is a powerful equaliser for all who seek to show the power of God in their lives. It functions as a soteriological marker and, as such other methods of boundary marking should be incorporated, any that can illustrate the belief and personal decision making necessary to be in line with evangelical conversionism. We have suggested in this article that embodied behaviours speak volumes—that, both in scripture and in current experiences, the use of proxemics and other forms of physical communication are both valid and suitable when they are the primary forms of communication and self-narration for an individual. This embodied signification should be received, as all conversion narratives are, contextually within the faith community and with the power of the Spirit to aid in the hermeneutical reception for those who witness it. The pragmatic consideration in Acts 15.20 demonstrates the necessity of both removing unnecessary acts of conformity and of finding suitable and appropriate ways for conversion to be illustrated in new or evolving contexts. Thus, evangelicals today can refuse a ‘yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear’ (Act 15 v 10).