The Courage to Be Otherwise: A Neurodivergent Theology of Liberation and Survival

“There is a place for neurodivergent people within the Christian story of fall, redemption, and grace. ”

Team Members/Contributors

Elizabeth Cable University of Virginia Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

My dissertation project is a liberationist theology that explores concerns that existentially grip neurodivergent people. It explores these concerns in relation to traditional loci of Christian theology, and does so in a way that privileges the subject of human liberation from oppression. The category “neurodivergence” includes people with cognitive, social, and emotional disabilities. It covers disabilities like autism and Down syndrome, as well as what is commonly called “mental illness” (like depression, or Bipolar I and II). I focus primarily on neurodivergence as expressed in “mental illnesses,” given the scandalous dearth of liberation-minded theological scholarship in that area. With the goal of contributing to neurodivergent liberation and survival in the United States, I construct a theology that makes a place for neurodivergent people within the Christian story of fall, redemption, and grace. The common neurodivergent concerns of social stigmatization, self-harm, anxiety and depression, and trauma are brought into mutually illuminating relationship with the doctrines of the Church, Christ, divine providence, and the Spirit and Trinity, respectively. In each case I offer first a theological analysis of common existential questions of neurodivergent people, before turning to offer a theological “answer” grounded in Christian doctrine. My project’s goals include the more vigorous affirmation of the dignity and worth of neurodivergent people in the Church and U.S. culture, integration of the political principles of the Disability Rights Movement into disability theology, and a much-needed critique of social institutions like mass media, government, and the Church in relation to aesthetic representations and ethical mistreatment of neurodivergent people historically and into the present day.