Autism awareness isn't 'demonic,' despite what this Christian school pastor says

I’d like to extend a personal note of thanks to the pastor of Trinity Christian Academy in Lake Worth for raising autism awareness to new heights at his school, the rest of Palm Beach County and beyond.

Pastor Matt Baker may be an accidental hero but as some people like to say, “God works in mysterious ways.”

So, I look at Pastor Matt as an unwitting vessel of enlightenment who was touched by divine provenance when he took a cruel stand against recognizing Autism Awareness Week at his school.

Bless his heart.

“If Jesus Christ led Trinity, would HE have an Autism Awareness Week? Of course not!” Pastor Matt wrote in an email to parents.

“Why? Because anything that exalts itself above the name of Christ should be brought down,” he continued. “Also, anything that teaches our children to have their identity in anything other than Christ is idolatry and demonic.”

First of all, I love these guys who imagine themselves as self-appointed spokesmen of divine beings.

Second of all, does this mean that National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day in April is out? I hope not. A good grilled cheese sandwich is heavenly.

By taking a stand against the simple recognition and understanding of those among us who learn to function with a challenging mental makeup, Pastor Matt has staked out some new territory in theological quackery.

At least, that’s the way I see it. That’s because I take a long lens view of things.

Planet Earth is part of a universe that is more than 13 billion years old. And we’re not in the center of it, either.

We’re way off to the side as part of a Milky Way galaxy, where our sun is one of as many as 400 billion stars in this celestial cul-de-sac.

And in terms of the universe, our Milky Way neighborhood holds an unimpressive number of stars. Scientists say that there are about 300 sextillion stars in the whole universe

What’s a sextillion? It’s a 1 with 21 zeros after it. So our sun is one of about 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe.

As for our lives on our little planet, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking described us as “just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies.”

If you subscribe to Pastor Matt’s inside info, he imagines that the creator of this vast universe — who, lucky us, just paid a visit to our little planet about two thousand years ago — is offended by gestures of kindness and understanding among Earthlings trying to live their best lives in one of the schools in the ninth biggest city of the third most populous county in the third-largest state in the third most populous country on the planet.

That’s a lot of micromanaging for the creator of 21 sextillion stars.

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“The world in its rejection and hatred of Christ, often devises program such as Autism Awareness (and cultural figures like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, etc.) to get the benefits of His teachings (compassion, kindness, feeling love, and self-worth) without acknowledging Jesus as the ultimate authority and the source of all life,” his email to parents said.

Hatred of Christ? Pastor Matt makes Jesus sound like an emotionally unstable deity with a personality disorder, an authority figure who requires constant praise from underlings and views anything other than worship of himself as an evil threat.

It’s almost as if Pastor Matt thinks Jesus is a cosmic version of Donald Trump. Now that’s demonic.

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Nevertheless, by taking a stand against otherwise non-controversial autism awareness events at his school, Pastor Matt has spread compassion for those with autism around the world.

“Godawful Pastor Cancels ‘Demonic’ Autism Awareness Week” was the headline on the story for readers in Singapore.

Looking ahead, National Richter Scale Day is coming up on April 26.

Pastor Matt might want to start generating some tremors of outrage against celebrating the measurement of Satan-triggered earthquakes.

Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, part of the Gannett Newspapers chain.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida Christian school pastor calls Autism Awareness demonic. What?