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Religious Education: The

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Brain Matters: A Journey With

Neuroscience and Religious
Education
Dean G. Blevins

Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City,

Missouri, USA
Published online: 09 Jun 2011.

To cite this article: Dean G. Blevins (2011) Brain Matters: A Journey With
Neuroscience and Religious Education, Religious Education: The official journal of the
Religious Education Association, 106:3, 246-251, DOI: 10.1080/00344087.2011.569562
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BRAIN MATTERS: A JOURNEY WITH NEUROSCIENCE

AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Dean G. Blevins
Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri, USA

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(THE) BRAIN MATTERS: A JOURNEY BEGINS

It is amazing how many prophetic conversations begin over a
meal. Spring of 1991 I was leaving Nazarene Theological Seminary
(NTS) to begin my doctoral studies. A member of my Sunday School
class invited me to lunch to follow up a discussion concerning religious transformation and moral decision making. The class member
worked as a neuroscientist and remained intrigued by the possibility
that religious experience could literally change people. He posited
that neuroscientists, with the right treatment, could also eliminate or
redirect a specific behavior much like someone going through a spiritual transformation. When pressed if the treatment could generate a
specific, targeted, change, my friend hedged. He indicated the change
might diminish or enhance a basic drive. However, considering neurosciences growing understanding of the brain, one could only imagine
what might be understood and accomplished. The meal and the conversation ended. A month later I was traveling westward to begin my
doctoral studies and the thought of neuroscience vanished in the rear
view mirror. I should have known better.
I enjoyed a great education, engaging in a range of studies in
religious education including alternative pedagogies, various models
of theology, and different issues within culture studies. My teaching
career at the undergraduate level focused on the basics of religious education within my tradition. Fifteen years later I returned to my alma
mater at NTS a seasoned teacher. However, the echoes of that earlier
dinner conversation soon asserted themselves and I discovered that
new insights in neuroscience challenged my assumptions concerning
the nature of persons and Gods actions in the world.
The brain matters, more than I had realized. Explorations over the
last five years confirm that revelation. Neuroscience continues to enjoy
a renaissance of study and a range of responses, both in explorations of
religious experience and in educational practice. My colleague, Don
Whitlock, started me along this pilgrimage soon after arriving at NTS.
Religious Education
Vol. 106 No. 3 MayJune

246

C The Religious Education Association

Copyright

ISSN: 0034-4087 print
DOI: 10.1080/00344087.2011.569562

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DEAN G. BLEVINS

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My membership in a small society dedicated to psychology and theology brought me into the orbit of Warren Brown and Nancey Murphys
efforts to overcome both dualistic and reductionist readings of will,
conscience, and soul (Brown 1998; Murphy 2006; Murphy and Brown
2009). I soon found myself in an intense study group exploring various
aspects of science and religion (Oord 2009), including my own interests in the relationship between the brain and religious experience.
Over time, a number of interactions with psychologists, theologians,
philosophers, educators, administrators, and my students fueled the
journey.

BRAIN(S) MATTER: NEUROSCIENCE

In light of recent media coverage, you would think neuroscience
was a relatively new field. However, beginning in the 17th century,
neuroscientists inaugurated their craft by dissecting and crafting intricate drawings of the brain (Zimmer 2005). Other scientists observed the living behavior of people with damaged brains, like the
famous Phineas Gage, whose damaged frontal lobe yielded remarkable changes in personality (Damasio 2005). Recently neuroscientists
applied direct stimulation to various parts of the brain to find correlates in behavior and memory. Ultimately non-invasive processes, using new technologies like the electroencephalogram (EEG) or Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), provided neuroscientists
with a view of the brain in action, charting blood flow and the myriad
electric firings between neurons through the brain. Aided by computer models, the new technology yields fascinating images of the
brain in action. Neuroscience, as an interdisciplinary field, attained a
new ascendancy at the end of the 20th century, known as the decade
of the brain (Quartz and Sejnowski 2003). New insights continue
to influence education and public policy, in the following ten years
(Tokuhama-Espinosa 2010).
Teaching these insights from neuroscience proves challenging
when working with graduate students who lacked extensive biology
or anatomy backgrounds. My teenage daughter studies anatomy and
physiology in her junior year of high school while I also struggle
through the basics of neuro-anatomy. Each portion of the brain reveals
something new, something crucial, about the human appropriation
and processing of experience through the brain stem, hippocampus,
amygdala, temporal lobes, frontal cortex, corpus callosum, and a host

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BRAIN MATTERS

of other parts. I remember standing in a hotel conference room with

fifty professional educators as we stared in fascination at a cadaver
brain and listened to a professor of neuroscience address us as patiently as my daughters high school teacher. The memory reassures
me that collectively we religious educators are in new territory.
I begin teaching in the classroom with the very basics of neurons
and synapses, but often move quickly to the larger implications of
recent neurological insights in social interaction and religious experience. To be honest it is easier to introduce larger insights that have
already filtered into the public domain: the connection between brain
development and adolescent risk taking, the interweaving of emotion
and cognition in persons, the controversy over the role of the brain
in religious experience, and the power of mirror neurons in shaping
group behavior. Often popular texts and media venues capture these
big picture issues well, leaving readers, and viewers, fascinated,
amazed, and curious for more information. However, each large issue
finds root at the synaptic level, in the exchange of electrochemical
energy from one neuron to the next. Moment by moment millions
of neurons fire in particular patterns, forming electrical circuits in
various parts of the brain, shaping and being shaped by experience.
Joseph LeDoux (2003) reminds us that who we are as thinking and
feeling beings, begins at our synaptic level. Our brains matter because
they often provide the seat of our emotions, our learning, and our
relational capabilities.

BRAIN MATTERS: CREATIVITY AND DIVERSITY

The explosion of neuroscientific insights offers numerous opportunities to religious educators, inviting ongoing creativity in the midst
of diverse issues and opportunities. This observation became quite
evident as I sat in a conference center with over a thousand attentive
educators, administrators, and specialists, listening to researchers issue an appeal for creative encounters between science research and
educational practice. Neuroscientists often echo the appeal of William
James (1899) a century ago when James acknowledged the need for
artistic, inventive, educators to take and test the possibilities of psychological research in educational practice (89). Religious educators
need to be in the middle of the same creative exploration and application in religious settings where formation and instruction operate along
similar-yet-different environs. I recently enjoyed a conversation with

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Mariale Hardiman, co-director of the neuro-education initiative at

Johns Hopkins University and founder of the Brain-Targeted Teaching approach (Hardiman 2003). I commented to Dr. Hardiman that
many of the educational strategies suggested by neuroscience seemed
anchored in sound, constructivist, education. She agreed, but noted
that anchoring these practices in neuroscience provided a powerful
framework for acceptance and implementation (in light of current
assessment driven models) as well as opened doors for additional insights. In addition, neuroscientists and educators have taken seriously
the role of creativity in the development of the whole person, producing powerful research on the necessity and importance of aesthetically
informed pedagogy (Asbury and Rich 2008; Zull 2002). Religious educators can benefit from these insights, and contribute as well, since
our contexts and varied religious traditions deepen the conversation.
Issues continue to surface in relation to neuroscience and religious expression. Barbara Bradley Haggertys (2009) popular survey
of the relationship between religious experience and science documents a wide array of issues both in the defense of religion but also in
the need for religious discernment and practice. Whether anchored
in Buddhist meditation, monastic prayers, or Pentecostal fervor, our
minds are powerfully affected by religious experiences and the subsequent expressions of spirituality. Religious educators face new tasks
in discerning the power of these experiences and in explaining their
spiritual efficacy in light of the discovery of physical, often neurological, correlates to those spiritual moments. In my own classes we have
sought to find appropriate theological language to understand Gods
act in and through the brain, a challenge others have faced in the
science and religion debate, but one that demands fresh attention in
light of neurosciences contributions (Markham 2007).
Religious educators will find themselves in one other major arena,
the ethical application of neuro-scientific insights. Bioethical issues
surface in the use of psychogenic drugs for personal improvement
instead of healing therapy (Kass 2003). How will ministers guide parents in deciding to use neuroenhancing drugs with their children?
How will religious educators articulate and endorse social policies
that allow for equal access for children regardless of income or social status? Religious traditions that call for accountability, confession,
moral decision making, will soon find themselves responding to the
presence of beta-blocking drugs. These neurologically framed treatments not only alleviate posttraumatic stress but also allow people
to behave immorally without sense of guilt or shame (Johnson 2005,

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201, 232). How will ministers call their constituency to both personal
and social accountability in a chemically conditioned environment?
In class discussions my students have noted how many discoveries in
neuroscience yields additional ethical issues for ministers and educators. Learning to respond to these issues creatively and respectfully
offers one additional challenge.
The brain matters, brains matter, brain matters, each of these
themes resonate with that prophetic meal and conversation twenty
years ago. I doubt anyone could have anticipated all these issues in
1991, nor solve them in 2011. To be honest, I suspect our responses
will also only be a beginning. Over time, we may find many of our
cherished practices challenged, and refined, in this engagement. Yet a
horizon is now set for our diverse constituency of religious education
professors, researchers, and practitioners, one that invites us to the
table with neuroscience for an ongoing, creative, conversation.

Dean G. Blevins is Professor of Christian Education and Director of the

Master of Arts in Christian Education at Nazarene Theological Seminary in
Kansas City, MO. E-mail: dgblevins@nts.edu

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