This morning I read the Church Times article about Archbishop Sarah Mullally’s reflections on dyslexia, and one phrase immediately made me uncomfortable: “flawed by design”.

What does it mean to say that someone is deliberately created with a flaw? And what does that say about God?

The article quotes Mullally suggesting that “we have flaws, in a sense, by design, so that the light of Christ may shine out”. As someone with ADHD, I found that difficult language. It seemed to place neurodivergence within a theology where God creates particular impairments for a purpose.

Before writing anything, I listened to the full podcast. I’m glad I did, because much of the conversation sits rather differently from the way the article is framed.

Early in the interview Mullally talks about coming to understand herself as made in the image of God, “not despite dyslexia but maybe because of it”. Just before this she speaks about fragility sometimes being “by design”, and adds: “it’s not a flaw”. This resonated with my own experience of ADHD.

ADHD isn’t something separate from me. It shapes how I think, notice things, make connections and experience the world. It also makes some things much harder. I don’t need to decide that it is either a gift or a deficit before I can recognise it as part of who I am.

Mullally goes on to talk about the Church needing people who think differently. She describes adaptations which help neurodivergent people and often help others too. One of her examples is worship projected onto slides which change automatically. She finds this difficult because she can lose track of where the service is going.

Sometimes the difficulty lies partly in the way we organise spaces, worship, communication or expectations. I’ve written before about the barriers churches can unintentionally create for neurodivergent people, particularly when our ideas of participation assume neurotypical ways of behaving, communicating and paying attention.

We also need to be careful about what we mean by neurodiversity. Neurodiversity includes neurotypical people. Within ADHD/Autism communities in particular there are a lot of jokes about “neurotypical spectrum disorder” often with a focus on how terrible it would be to have a neurotypical child. The thing is neurodiversity describes a whole range of ways being and If human beings are made in the image of God, then those different ways of thinking, perceiving and experiencing the world may allow us to see something more of God together. No individual mind gives us a complete picture. Mullally connects this with the Body of Christ and our dependence upon one another, again I’ve written about that recently.

Later in the interview the language changes. When asked about neurodiversity in scripture, Mullally describes us as perhaps “fragile and flawed by design”. She uses the image of a clay pot which intentionally cracks in the kiln so that light placed inside can shine through the cracks. Perhaps, she suggests, “we have flaws in a sense by design so that the light of Christ may shine out”.

But If dyslexia is part of the diversity through which Mullally understands herself as made in the image of God, why call it a flaw?

I can recognise that ADHD sometimes disables me. Some difficulties come directly from the way my brain works. Others emerge when that way of thinking meets environments and expectations which assume something different. Neither requires me to understand myself as deliberately created flawed.

The phrase “by design” troubles me more. God being revealed in disabled and neurodivergent lives is very different from God deliberately creating disability so that something can be revealed through it. I’ve heard too many versions of the claim that suffering happens for a reason, that God sends particular struggles, or that someone’s illness or disability exists so that they or somebody else can learn something from it. I find that difficult to reconcile with the loving God I encounter in Christ.

I’m also unsure that the cracked-pot image works particularly well with 2 Corinthians. Paul writes that “we have this treasure in clay jars” and then speaks about being afflicted, perplexed, persecuted and struck down. The image already carries connotations of fragility and vulnerability and it doesn’t require the potter to deliberately damage the jar.

The Church Times hasn’t invented the phrase “flawed by design”. Mullally does use it. Yet making it the central frame for the article obscures much of the wider conversation. The podcast also contains an Archbishop speaking about being made in the image of God “because of” dyslexia, about the Church needing different ways of thinking, about practices which create barriers, and about the contribution neurodivergent people make to the Body of Christ. Earlier in the same conversation she explicitly says, “it’s not a flaw”.

My ADHD is part of who I am. It brings difficulties, some of which can be genuinely disabling, and it also shapes what I notice, how I make connections and how I think. I don’t need to believe that God deliberately created a flaw so that more of God’s glory could shine through me, or so that somebody else could learn from it.

Neurodiversity offers a richer theological possibility. Human beings think, communicate, perceive and relate in many different ways. If we are each made in the image of God, perhaps none of us can reflect that image completely on our own. Together, across the diversity of human minds and lives, perhaps we see a little more.