Neuroscience and Spiritual Formation
Click here to listen to a short talk on the intersection of neuroscience, spiritual formation, Mark 5 and my story.
“When we neglect right-brain development in our discipleship, we ignore the side of the brain that specializes in character formation. Left-brained discipleship emphasizes beliefs, doctrine, willpower, and strategies but neglects right-brain loving attachments, joy, emotional development, and identity. Ignoring right-brain relational development creates Christians who believe in God’s love but have difficulty experiencing it in daily life, especially during distress.”
― Jim Wilder, The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation
The only kind of love that helps the brain learn better character is attachment love. The brain functions that determine our character are most profoundly shaped by whom we love. Changing character, as far as the brain is concerned, means attaching in new and better ways.
This realization brought Dallas Willard to tears. If the quality of our human attachments creates human character, is it possible that when God speaks of love, “attachment” is what God means?
God is described over two hundred times in the Old Testament as being חסד hesed/chesed, a quality God also desires from us: “For I delight in loyalty [hesed] rather than sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6). The Hebrew word hesed is translated as “devoted,” “faithful” and “unchanging love.” Could God be speaking of an attachment love that sticks with us?
Dallas’ mind raced ahead of mine in our conversations about attachment. He wondered, “Is salvation itself a new and active attachment with God that forms and transforms our identities?” In the human brain, identity and character are formed by whom we love. Attachments are powerful and long-lasting. Ideas can be changed much more easily. Salvation through a new, loving attachment to God which changes our identities would be a very relational way to understand our salvation: We would be both saved and transformed through attachment love from, to and with God.
Renovated By Jim Wilder
“If I lack right-brain relational development, the spiritual disciplines will be less effective. Even healthy seeds will not grow well in depleted soil.”
― Jim Wilder, The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation
Discussion or Reflection Questions
What is an area of life that you have wanted to experience change but haven’t experienced it?
What is your version of ‘going to the doctor but instead of getting better you have been getting worse?’ What have you considered ‘neutral coping mechanisms’ that might not be as neutral as you thought?
What is your story? What has been hard for you that either you or someone else has invalidated in the name of ‘having perspective’?
What do you think Jesus would say to you about this suffering?
Resources
Jim Wilder
RARE Leadership
The Other Half of Church
Renovated
Curt Thompson
The Anatomy of the Soul
The Soul of Shame
The Soul of Desire
Adam Young
The Place We Find Ourselves Podcast
Nader Sahyouni
Anxiety Transformed: Prayer that Brings Enduring Change