The eCrozier

Two separate social science studies caught my attention this week. The first looked at the connection between people’s spiritual experiences and their brain activity. It concluded that whether it’s a connection to God, the wonders of nature, or a strong loyalty to a college football team (Go Dawgs!), people feel a sense of spiritual connection to something beyond themselves, but one that’s still very much connected to their lived experience. Among their findings, the study’s researchers found that when research subjects recounted their spiritual experiences, the parietal cortex lit up. The parietal cortex is the part of the brain responsible for our awareness of ourselves and others.

The other study was published in the journal “Social Forces.” Researchers conducted three separate studies designed to gauge white Americans’ attitudes toward race and welfare programs. In the first, the researchers analyzed the last 10 years of national data on the subject. They found opposition to welfare rose among all Americans, but more markedly among whites. Correlation, however, doesn’t mean causation. The researchers had to do two additional studies to find causation: One where they asked people about welfare recipients after seeing data on demographic changes and another that sought people’s opinions after being told that minorities benefit more from welfare (which isn’t true since white Americans are larger beneficiaries of Medicaid and SNAP programs). These additional findings suggest that racial anxiety is a more powerful driver to cut welfare programs than white people’s political convictions. As one lead researcher concluded: “We find evidence that these shifts are specifically directed at programs (white) people see as benefiting minorities instead of whites.”

These separate studies confirm what we’ve known for some time. People have a deep sense of connection to their lived experience beyond what can be explained purely by rational means. And they describe that connection spiritually. Is it any wonder then that the great cathedrals of modern America are now more often places like Athens’ Sanford Stadium rather than New York’s St. John the Divine or the Grand Canyon? Our sense of spirituality is connected to what we know and experience and thus is evidenced in our tribal loyalties. That probably explains much of the persistent racism shown by the other study. It’s not that white people are born racists. We grow into it as part of the familiar loyalties of our lives. And when we perceive our loyalties are being challenged, we react deeply (and no doubt subconsciously) from the parietal cortex.

That’s why as Christians we need to be proactive in having experiences that take us out of only what’s familiar, so we might broaden our spiritual capacity beyond our tribal loyalties. When we’re baptized, we’re grafted on to a spiritual vine that knows no race, gender, or nationality (“in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” – Galatians 3:26-28). And yet, we must still recognize the strong headwind we face demonstrated by the neuro-science data. It’s a spiritual challenge to tend the functioning experience of our parietal cortex.

+Scott