Month: July 2025

disability, faith, Mental health, neurodivergence, resources

Progressive Christianity and neurodivergence

jennadewitt

Justin, Ell, and I hosted a gathering for neurodivergent progressive Christians for Disability Pride Month 2025. Though this year’s event was not specifically for asexual and aromantic people, there is significant overlap with these communities, which was reflected in this discussion. (See our previous conversations about the a-spec Christian intersection here.)  

Discussion questions:

  1. How has your neurodivergence affected your experience of Christianity? 
  1. How has your faith affected your experience of being neurodivergent?
  1. How have you been supported by your community?
  1. What challenges have you encountered in your communities?
  1. How can the Christian community as a whole better support and uplift neurodivergent people? What can Christianity learn from neurodivergent people and their lived experience?
  1. What encouragement/words of affirmation can you share with other neurodivergent Christians?
  2. What spiritual practices, resources or supports have helped you with your neurodivergence and faith?

allyship, essays

If it’s not for all of us, I don’t want it

jennadewitt

Collective liberation is not found in violent revenge and dreams of becoming oppressors. Collective liberation is not about demanding fealty and enemies bowing at your feet. Collective liberation is refusing to accept such and rejection of oppressive systems.

It is an invitation with an expectation: No dehumanization allowed. It does ask something of us, a dress code of sorts, that we bring love, real love, to the party. We come with the understanding and shared value that no one is an acceptable casualty of liberation.

Civil rights march on Washington, D.C
Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

Sometimes we must remember the long road. We must take the closest imperfect bus to our destination when it doesn’t go all the way and march our way down the road, generation after generation. Passing along what we have gained and refusing to go back.

Collective liberation doesn’t see my freedom as your continued harm. If you are freed, I cannot be your new target to get the acceptance of oppressors. Exclusion is the thing we exclude. Vitally, we do have one thing we must agree on, that we are tyrants for: No more tyrants.

a group of people walking down a street holding a banner that says Equality without exemptions
Photo by Nikolas Gannon on Unsplash

From Cone to Kendi, from Stonewall to Sherronda J. Brown and Judith Butler and my friends on social media, from the earliest church to the women of modern books, Substacks, podcasts still resisting a patriarchal faith, we learn the only liberation worth having is collective.

If our gospel leads to death for some, it isn’t the Words of Life for any. If our work is only legitimized by those we leave out of it, it isn’t the work of Christ. We start imperfectly and evolve continually to be better. If we uphold the harm, we cannot liberate from it.

Signs saying Boys will be held accountable
Photo by Michelle Ding on Unsplash

Mental health, Poetry

Fury of the righteous

jennadewitt

You’re right, of course.
We should be raging.

Every minute of every day
That a person goes hungry
That a hospital is bombed
That slavery is and has been

That the planet is burning
With hate and fear and pride
But mostly as a sacrifice
To the ravenous god Mammon
Who demands a child die
For each dollar it grants the wicked

You’re totally right.
We should be unable to breathe
To sleep, to have peace
Until each war is ended forever

Until violence is mutinied
And bullets no longer rain
on the schools and churches
And cities and countries

Until all are free from the demons
In the legislature
and in their minds
In the pulpit
and in their homes

You’re right. We are complicit.
You’re right.

We live in abundance
while others starve
And freeze and lie ill
or scream of anguish
On our very streets

We pass by and we scroll on
We can’t take another headline
We ask in despair if anything matters
And wonder that anyone has survived this long

This cruel planet,
and its stupid inhabitants
Destroying it as fast as possible
In our worship to our golden god

You’re right.
It should make us boil in rage.
You’re right.
We have no excuse to stay silent.

And our bodies are also right.
We cannot take constant grief and rage.
We are not built for this 24/7 world.
We need rest and hope and humor

We need to hold so much in our hearts
Not just the anger fire
But the still waters
Not just the injustice
But praise of the good

The birds of the air
And the palm trees that line my street
Know something I don’t
And they don’t know what I know

So I learn from their wisdom
And ground myself to the earth
That will be here long after we die
Welcoming us back to the dirt

I can feel and do and be
And speak from
My full self
Unashamed

Unwavering in righteous anger
Rooted in peace within
Committed to what is mine to do
Rejoicing with those who rejoice
Taking pleasure in the ephemeral and savoring transcendence

Holding in tension
Multidimensional
Loving and raging and
fighting and calming
Hosting and giving
And resting and creating

So that my body,
mind and heart
Survive long enough
to turn my grief
Into a legacy.

There has yet to be
peace on the Earth
But don’t stop seeking
Until it’s born.