Praying by the Rules
What Autistic People Teach the Church about Prayer
Praying by the Rules
What Autistic People Teach the Church about Prayer
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Publisher: SCM Press
ISBN: 9780334067221
Number of Pages: 192
Published: 01/04/2026
Width: 15.6 cm
Height: 23.4 cm
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 one’s prayer life is not ‘good enough’ and how shame arises when one’s practice of prayer does not match the ideals embodied by the Church’s 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 Church’s 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 Church’s discourse around prayer.
Introduction
1 Anxiety, empathy and shame
2 What if I don’t pray every day?
3 What should prayer sound like?
4 What can I really pray for?
Conclusion: Praying by the “rules”
When faith practices are approached through the lens of autism, their underlying theologies may need to change, as well as the practices themselves. In Praying by the Rules, Helena Cundill takes one of the core faith practices – prayer – and searches for answers why prayer is often not a solution but a source of anxiety for autistic people. Rooted in the lived experiences of her autistic research participants and rigorously researched, Cundill offers a salutary and liberating critique of prayer. This profound discussion will not only benefit autistic people but every person of prayer – including those who have long given up on prayer because of the anxiety or shame or feelings of ‘praying not good enough’ that prayer has caused them.
-- Armand Léon van Ommen
In Praying by the Rules, Helena Cundill searches for why prayer is often not a solution but a source of anxiety for autistic people. Rooted in the lived experiences of her autistic research participants and rigorously researched, this profound discussion will not only benefit autistic people but every person of prayer – including those who have long given up because of anxiety or shame.
-- Armand Léon van Ommen
Praying by the Rules is a remarkable blend of participatory research and critically-nuanced theology. Sensitive to her own positionality, Cundill is careful to represent autistic voices faithfully (in every sense of the word). The result is an important study of prayer and spirituality that should be read by any who believe that autistic people truly belong within the church.
-- Grant Macaskill
