Neural Relational Integration emerges as a pivotal theme in our discourse, underscoring how an enriched understanding of our gut and heart brains can significantly enhance communication within faith communities. In this continuation of the Whole Church Science Fair miniseries, we engage with Dr. Shaleen Kendrick, whose expertise in neuroscience and psychology offers profound insights into the intersection of faith and the human experience. Throughout the conversation, we delve into the existence of our three brains—head, heart, and gut—examining how each contributes to our relational dynamics and spiritual lives. By focusing on the intricacies of these neural networks, we endeavor to foster greater ecumenical efforts among diverse faith traditions, ultimately striving for a more unified expression of spirituality. Join us as we explore the transformative potential of understanding ourselves at both neural and spiritual levels.

The Whole Church Podcast continues its exploration of the intersection of faith and science through the lens of Neural Relational Integration, featuring an enlightening conversation with Dr. Shaleen Kendrick. In this episode, hosts Joshua Noel and TJ Blackwell delve into the intricacies of neuroscience and psychology, particularly as they pertain to the human experience of faith. Dr. Kendrick elucidates the concept of the 'three brains'—the head, heart, and gut—as integral components of understanding how individuals process spiritual experiences and engage with one another. This exploration is particularly relevant to contemporary ecumenical efforts, as it emphasizes the importance of communication informed by an awareness of our physiological and emotional responses. By examining the insights gleaned from neuroscience, the discussion highlights how recognizing our interconnectedness can foster greater unity among diverse faith communities, ultimately leading to more effective collaboration in pursuit of shared spiritual goals.

Takeaways:

• Neural Relational Integration emphasizes the interconnectedness of our three brains: the head, heart, and gut, which shape our understanding of relationships.
• Our understanding of neuroscience can enhance communication within faith communities, promoting greater unity and ecumenical efforts.
• Experiences of suffering and community support are crucial for fostering deeper connections among individuals in faith-based contexts.
• Recognizing the role of neurobiology in spiritual experiences can lead to a more holistic approach to faith, emphasizing our embodied nature and relationality.
• Contemplative practices, such as mindfulness, can facilitate personal and communal healing by promoting awareness of our emotional and physiological states.
• The integration of neuroscience with theological perspectives can help dismantle harmful doctrines, fostering a more inclusive and compassionate spiritual environment.

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https://www.shaleenkendrick.com/

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Listen to our episode discussing various Atonement Models with Tripp FUller:

https://the-whole-church-podcast.captivate.fm/episode/can-we-disagree-well-about-salvation/

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Philippians 4, 10, 14 in the Christian Standard Bible say, I rejoiced in the Lord greatly because once again you renewed your care for me. You were in fact concerned about me, but lacked the opportunity to show it.

I don't say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot in any and all circumstances.

I have learned the secret of being content, whether well fed or hungry, whether. Whether in abundance or in need, I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me. Still, you did well by partnering with me in my hardship.

In this PRICP of Scripture, St. Paul is concluding his letter to the church community at Philippi.

The letter of Philippians was written by St. Paul to thank the community for their financial support and to encourage them in their spiritual pursuits. Here he seems to be reassuring the community that he's fine and that his faith will pull him through any circumstances.

And yet he's extremely grateful for the community's willingness and to share in his suffering.

Dr. Shalene Kendrick, how do you feel or how do you think our communities today might benefit from this kind of sharing in one another's pains and burdens?

It's just hard to be human, no matter what, no matter what era, what time, space, context you were born into. The human experience is hard.

It's radically beautiful, majestic, and also filled with such suffering and horror that it's hard to hold it all at one time. So what I love about this verse is what I think Paul means by faith, which is a remembering to follow Abraham Heschel.

And what I love about this is our communities today.

We need each other now more than I think we ever have before, as we enter into hyperconnected consciousness that we would know our most basic fundamental human need is meaningful interconnection with one another above and beyond any other of our basic human needs. So this, to me, is a verse about remembering and being interconnected with one another.

Hey, guys. Welcome to the whole Church Science Fair.

We're continuing on, talking more about faith in science and trying to figure out what wrestling with these ideas can do as far as helping us with our ecumenical efforts, church unity, all of that kind of stuff. We're excited today to be having, of course, the greatest podcast host of all time, the host who defines most.

The word most exists because of the one and only TJ Tiberius Juan Blackwell. How's it going, tj? Welcome to your show.

Thanks.

We're also here with another Wonderful podcaster. You know, I think we could say genius. Anyone who owns a doctorate, I think you should be able to say genius for.

Or stupid enough to go get it.

Yeah. And the founder of the Neuro Relational Leadership Model. Nri Neural Relational Integration. A lot of big words.

I'm gonna struggle, but luckily I have TJ to say the big words better than me. Yeah. Yeah.

They say that is the only reason I'm on the show, is long words and pronouncing things. So. Reverend Dr. Shaleen Kendrick, as is her proper title, also Minister of Human Evolution. That is.

Let's just camp out right there.

That's cool.

That's her title. That's really all you need to know.

Really. Yes.

There's. There's a lot going on.

Her work is rooted in guiding values of curiosity, synergy and synthesis, which inform her research, teaching, and applied practice. She created the Neuro Relational Integration Model.

She's really made quite a name for herself and in, I would say, unconventional leadership structures. I would say that that's how I would describe them. But we're going to get into it. We're going to talk about her and us and things we all do.

But if you like this, if you like what you're listening to, check out the Onzale podcast network website links below. Shows that are like ours, shows that aren't like ours, shows we like to like and shows you might like to listen to.

And if you're interested in supporting us financially, you can support us on Fourth Wall. You can do the one time tip. There are free extras. Our merch is there. Fourth Wall.

The site's in the description for you to check that out, and we would appreciate it.

Yeah. Become an official whole church member for now. We got to start with my. My favorite form of unity, Holy sacrament of silliness.

Because you can't be divided when you're being as silly as I like to be, which is pretty darn silly sometimes. Today's simple, straightforward, to the point. We'll let TJ go first, even though his word is authoritative. So if I don't agree with him, I'm wrong.

Tj, what's better, seeds or nuts?

Seeds.

Yeah. Why?

I feel like the answer stands on its own.

Okay.

I think there are more bad nuts than there are bad seeds.

Huh. I might be a bad nut. I. I gotta. You know, for myself, I was leaning seeds. See, the thing is, like, I like to plant.

I like working in gardens, you know, that has seeds. I like pumpkin seeds. I like sunflower seeds. Overall seeds. I think on average, are better.

But as a totality, nuts include pecans, which are better than any seed. So I'm going nuts only because of how much I love one specific nut.

I think pumpkin pie is better than pecan pie, though.

No, I tolerate pumpkin pie because it's involved in my favorite holiday. I don't really like it. But also, my family's in Kentucky, so we don't really do pecan pie. We do derby pie, which is amazing.

What's the difference?

Chocolate and bourbon is in.

Oh, yeah. Chocolate into something. You're winning.

You know, I agree. Dr. Kendrick, use your PhD. Well, tell us. Seeds or nuts?

Seeds or nuts? I mean, gosh, you know what? I'm going to go quantum on you, and I'm going to say both. Both at the same time.

And so it's like the ultimate trail mix. Sunflower seed and a little bit of.

Yes. I just got into making trail mix. Like, I was at this health and someone had a trail mix bar, and I thought it was so creative.

They had, like, gone to Trader Joe's and gotten, like, all their favorite seeds and nuts. You like what I did there instead of. Or I replaced it with an and. And I like putting seeds and nuts together.

Throw some dried fruit, coconut in there. I. It was like I literally came home inspired. And I am never culinary inspired. I'm a culinary disaster.

But I can mix up a mean bag of seeds and nuts, man.

Now I want to try also. Perfect segue to us talking about faith in science instead of faith or science.

I like what you did there.

I like what you did there.

So your work is particularly interesting in this conversation of faith and science. Lots of Christians remain skeptical of a lot of neuroscience therapy, just in general.

They think it's an attempt to explain away the spiritual experience, that kind of regressive thinking.

Not to insult anyone listening, but how did your personal faith journey shape the way that you understand the integration of the body, mind, and spirit leading to the work that you do today?

Well, I actually was one of those many Christians skeptical of science. I've always been a deep lover of theology, and I have failed every math class I ever took.

And I just decided in my mind somewhere along the way that science and math were a place that Shalene Kendrick should never be anywhere near, along with the kitchen. Science, math, and the kitchen are three places that I should just avoid at all costs. Theology, I like to say, is like my first language.

It's just been the way it is, the way my brain works and the way my brain thinks ever Since I was really little. So for me, I was one of those cryptians who grew up with science and math separated. I specifically grew up in a type of Christianity.

We were young Earthers, if you will. So I went to the. I went to the.

I don't know, it was something our church held where I remember being 12, and it was like, oh, this was the only science thing. I went to the science of how the earth is only 10,000 years old. That was like, I've been to those. I was here for that.

Obviously, evolution was of the devil, which is why I take such joy in being a minister to human evolution now, having been a minister my whole life, to have watched it evolved has been beautiful.

So I came from that world of dichotomies, the world of it's this or it's that, where things are pitted against each other and are directly not only opposed, but there's a lot of friction between them. And my personal faith journey is actually what reconciled them to being not only faith and science. But I'm going to hopefully blow your minds here.

I am a neurotheologian. No theology happens without your neurology, and no neurology is happening much without your theology. And so they are interconnected already.

And to pretend that they're separate is really an act of just ignorance and. Or bypassing or disassociation. There's a lot of things we can say for that, and here's. I'm going to get into that.

So I'm going to make that thesis on the front end that all theology is rooted in your neurobiology, and hopefully I can expand on that as we go on my personal journey. I really appreciate. I almost. I might. Yep. I'm going to cry, definitely. Okay, we'll see how long I hang on here.

So this verse in Philippian, interestingly, is one of the many things that shaped. That really shaped me and radically, radically changed me, evolved me, if you will. And so I. We.

When we had our third daughter, Layla, I had two little boys. I was. I was in my early 30s. And when Layla was born, she. She didn't eat even, like, right from the jump.

So it was like feeding a tiny baby bird with a. It was like feeding a little bird with an eyedropper. And within two weeks, she was not eating at all. And her.

Her little body went very, very still, and I couldn't get her to eat anything. I mean, nothing.

And so after hours, like, 12 hours went by and I'm freaking out, so I finally call the emergency room or I call the doctors and I'm like, it's almost going on 24 hours. She won't eat anything, won't take anything at two weeks. And they told me to rush her to the er. So we did at Phoenix Children's Hospital.

And we never really left.

For the next five years, we lived in and out of children's hospitals in Phoenix, and we moved to Virginia for Virginia's Children's Hospital for a stint of time. And she was put. She was put on a feeding tube that day in the hospital and never. She didn't come off it for 3ish years later.

And we had thought she would probably have to stay on it her whole life. It went from a feeding tube in the nose to one in her belly. It's called a J tube or G tube. And so I navigated this.

I was on Young Life staff at Arizona State University at the time. I started Young Life College, both at Arizona State, but then also helped start it nationally back then, at that stage of my life.

And even though I had started, what we didn't have language for it then, way back then, the deconstructing language. So even though I happened to be. I was asking a lot of questions about my faith, my white evangelical faith before this happened with our daughter.

And then I would say not. I would say, this is exactly what happened, Layla going into the hospital. You know, my white evangelical God just didn't show up.

Didn't show up in the way I really needed, quote, unquote, him to show up. Because God was very male for me back then. And I remember, Ling, this verse is why this was so important.

Because of this line, in any and all circumstances, I've learned the secret of being content, whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or need. And that became visceral when your baby's not eating, and not only is she not well fed, she's literally starving. And.

And I couldn't figure out what is the damn secret, right? Like, just tell me what the secret is, Paul. Um, I just. I was so torn back then, and I was so. I was in. So. I mean, watching.

Anytime you have a sick loved one, especially an infant, it. Or. And. Or child, it's just. It'll. It'll eviscerate you. Um, and so I was so desperate to know what the secret of being content is.

How do you be content when your baby is starving? How do you be content? What does that even mean? I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me. Gosh, it's so funny.

To see how what I thought back then to what I thought now. So I'm going to take you on this journey here.

I thought back then that there was a secret that is God's plan, God's will that would make me content until I got to heaven.

Because back then in my belief, the human experience was something to endure, not something to celebrate the human condition, if you will, original sin, all of that I was in deep on. And so I. And then able to do all things.

Yeah, Coming from a very white patriarchal world, it was all about strength, like how I needed to be stronger. Right. So it was about finding secrets to make my suffering stop and getting stronger. And I was desperate for both those things back then, then.

So I fast forward what I did during those years.

I laid on the floor every day, anywhere from five minutes a day to sometimes I'd hire a babysitter to watch the boys for me and I would hire a babysitter for three hours and I would lay on the floor. There's this place in my bed, like between my bed and the wall, and I could just lay on the floor.

And it was, you know, if you're a yoga, you would call it corpse pose. I like the good evangelical I was back then, of course, stayed away from yoga as well as mysticism and all things witchery.

So I didn't want to say that I was doing corpse pose, but man, I felt like a corpse back then. Like going in and living in and out of children's hospitals, trying to raise three kids, working on young life. It just, it was an epic disaster.

And so I'd lay on my floor five minutes to three hours a day, every day. And I ended up doing that for five years. And the white evangelical God that I needed to save me didn't show up in the way I needed them to.

And I really appreciate. This is where I become an open and relational theologian that if God could, God should.

So like, if God could stop the suffering of a small infant, God should. So the idea of this being all the, all the Christianese fell apart. This is God's plan. Okay, well, this is a really bad plan then.

If God, like this is, you know, greater things, mysteries, none of those answers were working for me. None of them were bringing satisfaction or what I would now call coherence. They weren't sitting well within me. So I laid on the floo floor.

All those years, divorced my evangelical God in many ways because it just, it, it didn't. It hurt to think and I didn't realize I didn't know what contemplative prayer was, so I didn't even know I was doing contemplative prayer. But I had.

I was no longer thinking about the God I had grown up with and had worshiped during young life. But I would picture myself like a broken baby sparrow being held by these two gigantic hands of love.

And even though I divorced what I would call my religion, it's like that think of deconstruction like a Jenga tower. You pull out the fundamental blocks and the whole thing comes tumbling down. So I would lay there, but I couldn't divorce my spirituality.

So I think it's so interesting that your question here is about religion and science, of how science might make things less religious, where interestingly, I have found the opposite to be true. I have found neuroscience specifically to make spirituality that much more visceral and tangible. And.

And so laying on the floor all those years, I tried to go back on Young Life staff. Not because I believed in God the way I used to, but because I just missed it. I missed my friends and my job and that was all I knew.

But I couldn't sign the statement of faith. It read like a foreign document, like it was truly like I was reading in a totally different language.

And so I couldn't go back to my old job and my old life. So I went forward. And that's what launched me on the neurotheology journey of I was on a mission to figure out what happened to me.

Why am I so different? Why couldn't I go back to this faith that was mine?

And lo and behold, the short answer is, and I'm going to tell you this, you can ask me questions now is I restructured my brain without realizing it.

Now that we know having fmris knowing what we now know about contemplative prayer, we're knowing now know what happens to our brain when we believe and or worship authoritarian images of God.

What I can surmise, looking back using the science, the neuroscientific research I have now is, is that the secret of being content surprise is remembrance when your faith is about remembering the parts of yourselves. And I would call that multiple brain integration.

So when my three brains came back together and when I started to experience salvation as wholeness making on that floor, it rewired my neural networks, both the network in my head brain, my heart brain, and also my gut brain. And so it restructured my brain.

And when your brain is restructured vis a vis neuroplasticity, it creates a new structure and a new structure Creates new functions and new functions of the brain, create new realities, totally new perspectives. And we would call this theologically becoming, made new, becoming born again. Like, there's so many.

Like, once we see how neuroscience underpins so much of theology, specifically theology outside authoritarian systems, it becomes actual good news for all humankind across all time and space. So that's how science became very visceral to me.

And that's where we play the doctor.

Who in my neurobiology. And my neurobiology changed because my theology changed.

So what made you want to pursue a doctorate?

You know what? I was trying to find the answers that I needed. So I went to. I got my master's at M. Div. And I did the open M. Div.

Through Christian Theological Seminary. And that introduced me to deep, deep scholars from the margins. From feminist scholars, womanist scholars, liberation scholars, queer scholars.

Having only gone to Fuller Seminary prior to that for mat learning the Bible from the margins radically changes how the Bible reads. I'm also severely neurodiverse. So I was reading all of the theology books and by the liberation scholars from all different walks of liberation.

But I kept finding the answers that I was looking for, actually. First in places like Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence.

But then if you rabbit trail that, you realize that all emotions are social and emotional intelligence is a subset of social intelligence. And then you rabbit trail that.

And then the new neuroscience on spirituality came out, that your spirituality is innate to your neurobiology, meaning it's similar to your emotions. It is located inside, and it's an innate part of human physicality and human neurobiology. And that was mind blowing to me. It was so fascinating.

So that's what got me down the neurotheology train.

And then the more that I dug into it, the more I realized putting neuroscience in conversation with the polyvagal theory, which is our body, in conversation with interpersonal neurobiology, in conversation with liberation theology.

My wildly beautiful neurodiverse, ADD Brain was reading five books at a time and seeing it like the net that it was like, oh my gosh, all of these are the same thing.

My favorite neuroscientist talks about your felt sense of power is directly connected to your felt sense of wholeness, which is connected to your felt sense of value. This is just straight neuroscience. Well, that obliterates right there. There goes original sin, right? Like if your felt sense of.

Like if what it means to be saved is actually connected to our sense of value and wholeness, now that we have all the neuroscience of what shame does and what fear is and how that works in the body. We.

There's so much now that we can look at our doctrines and go, yeah, that's a bad doctrine that the doctrine of original sin actually causes more neurobiological relational harm then it causes healing.

So if we're going to call salvation being and becoming made whole, which is that word sozo in the Bible, then going to go with, you're not going to find it in original sin or penal substitution atonement theory.

So a lot of our doctrines are actually at odds with the neuroscience because a lot of the neuroscience and neurobiology can now essentially quote, unquote, prove that those doctrines are more hurtful than they are healing.

So, sorry, I have a few thoughts. I want to try to. To say things.

Well, mainly I want to ask you about the three mind thing, but I am going to backpedal a little bit too, because I know we do have a lot of listeners who are Southern Baptists who are, you know, different churches who maybe are more conservative who fall in line with authoritative things. Hey, I agree more with Dr. Kendrick than I do the Southern Baptist, but I'm not sure I'm quite open in relational theology.

Like, I'm close enough that Dr. Tom or that I can call myself that. Definitely not quite process though, so. So, like, I don't know where I am. Like, I'm a mess.

Yeah, you don't need to be either those things.

I'm not a scientist as much as like there's some science.

I'm really like, I really enjoy like chemistry and stuff, but like this kind of neuroscience and for some reason physics, my brain just can't comprehend those things. I don't know what it is. It's just like, it all sounds like craziness to me. Chemistry makes sense because it's basically math. I love math.

That's why it's the most annoying. Science.

Yeah. And anyway, philosophy, I love philosophy. So for me it's like phenomenology. It sounds very similar to kind of what you're talking about a little bit.

And I just want to see how this ties in because Aaron Simmons is the one who taught me this and made me feel like I'm not just a crazy person, which is great. I love him.

He.

He's been on the show a few times. Also, since you mentioned atonement theory, we do have an episode about that.

Hopefully Joshua remembers to put that in the show description so you guys can see if you don't know what she's talking about. With atonement theory. I'll use last year as an example. Right after theology, beer camp, my dog was shot in the face. A bullet skinned my wife's arm.

There was this whole thing, and I was in Denver, Colorado, waiting on an airplane, and it was impossible for me to get home. I had to wait a day to be there. And it was driving me insane.

And I just remember, and I'm still wrestling with some of it, how mad I was at the version of God that the old church used to would have given me.

I actually was mad at the version of God that Tom Ward says because it's like, well, if he's open and relational and he's open anybody, you're telling me there's nobody who was close enough to God that he could have done something. And that made me mad. And all these different versions of God, radical theology, even, I'm like, all of it kind of made me mad a little bit.

And none of them actually satisfied me. And I think it's just because I was angry. So any answer that I tried to give myself, I was just going to be angry at.

Yeah.

And I kind of ended up, in a weird way, more going to Dr. Who for comfort than anything. Instead of having this idea of, like, maybe it's a shared narrative.

And instead of like, hey, I want the bad guys to be punished, it's like, okay, they're part of the story.

And I can either write that next part of the story as me retaliating and adding more bad to the story, or writing forgiveness and writing love, you know, whatever. And I don't know, Aaron, to me, because I changed a lot since just in the last year because of that event.

And I was like, I feel bad because I feel like I'm just doing this because of my emotions and stuff. And he was like, no, it's phenomenology. You're reacting to the phenomena that happened to you. That is what we should do.

Rather than letting the moment skip by, you are finding a way to use it constructively.

How does that kind of thing, phenomenology, this kind of reacting to the event in real time to form my beliefs, how does that relate to kind of what you were talking about? And can you explain the three brains thing? Because a little bit, and it's probably because I don't understand science, sounds like, you know, like.

Like the mumbo jumbo stuff that I'm like, huh? Three brains. I thought I'd just, you know, up here.

Yeah, okay, let me TJ Anything you want to add to that? I want to make sure you have space and. No, okay, no, I'm open up.

Well, phenomenology is a lot like affect theory also, meaning everything that happens, affects you. Surprise. So you are in. Your neurobiology is directly connected to your relationality.

So when I say the word, I always say neurobiological, relational at all times. You are a neurobiological relational being. That's what all humans are until we evolve into something else.

And we are in symbiotic relationships with our environment. So phenomenology is absolutely true, meaning you will be shaped at neurobiological, relational levels by everything that you. You experience.

So in neuroscience, we would say experience is biology. So the experience that you had in phenomenology is going to.

How you react and how you navigate that experience is going to shape you on cellular levels and relational levels. And it will shape the people around you as well. So it is. You are very much interconnected with your environment and responsive to it. It's very, very.

I love phenomenology and I think it's fabulous and fantastic to think about it in that way. Did that answer that question? Like that event shaped you on every level, theologically also.

Yeah, I'm following now. Now I'm at the three. Three brains or three mindsets.

And I aren't the three brains. Okay, no, this is not. It is not pseudoscience, although I can totally get it. So we have 86 billion neurons that guide our storytelling.

Think of your head brain like your storyteller. The mind demands a narrative. It's analytical meaning making, language, all the things that we know about the head.

Is there a difference in mind and brain for this discussion?

Yes, yes. And now listen. Now we're getting into the study of consciousness as well. No, no, no. So think of it like this.

I think of your mind a lot like your consciousness, and it arises from the functions that happen in the brain. So your consciousness is rooted in your brain, and your consciousness arises as part of that. So think of brain as the organ.

Mind is the consciousness, the ability to think about your thinking like that. But there's. I mean, you could go deep into the science of consciousness here because they're interconnected. It's not just one thing. It's not.

They're not separate. So think of your head brain. I correlate head brain with the mind, the consciousness, and I correlate it with storyteller. Or think of iq. Right.

So your head brain is collecting intellectual data. It's jaw. Your mind is your jobs. Your mind's job is to make sense of the world, Hence iq. What's going on? The second brain you have.

And you can even read this, and you can pick up the book. The Second Brain. It's your.

You have anywhere from 168 to 500 million neurons in your gut brain, including your gut brain access, which is the superhighway between your gut brain and your head brain.

Now, does that look like a brain in my stomach?

Well, yes, actually, it does.

So you, in the sense that you have a significant conglomeration of neurological activity right around it's in your enteric nervous system, which also includes your central nervous system. So think of, like, head brain, 86 billion neurons guiding storytelling. Your gut brain, including your central nervous system. Yep.

And the superhighway gut brain axis. Your gut brain is an independent thinking brain. It has its own memory, its own. So think of, like the body keeps the score even in a way.

It has its own language. Your gut brain speaks the language of neuroception, which.

Think of it like your gut brain sends signals out into every environment that you walk into, and it's looking for signals back that are instinctive. So think of your gut brain like your survival assessor, below the level of consciousness.

So below your conscious awareness, your gut brain, interdependent from your head brain, your mind is reading the room somatically reading the room for signals of threat or safety. Am I in danger or am I safe?

So it's a brain that doesn't have anything to do with my conscious thought at all, but it's like another brain.

Okay, well, it has a lot to do with your conscious thought, and here's why. Your gut brain sends more neurological signals to your head brain than your head brain sends to your gut brain. So here's.

I was actually just talking with someone who said, and I'll tell you about the third brain in a second. But they said, well, if God gave us a head brain with more neurons, why not just listen to that? And I'm like, I totally get that.

But here, here's the thing. They're interdependent, mutually influencing.

So your gut brain, your autonomic nervous system, where you're at on your autonomic ladder, whether you're at the top of your ladder in a place of what we'd call ventral vagal safety. Rest. Curious. Hopefully, right now, listeners are not activated listening to me, and they're in a state of rest.

Unless you are, like, really upset that I came up against a doctrine of original sin, in which case, pay attention. You might find Your body, you might find your heart rate beating. You might suddenly dislike me.

Your body below the level of consciousness would read what I said. Theologically, it would register as a threat in the body and it would, what we call, activate the body. It would mobilize.

Your sympathetic nervous system would mobilize.

It would see me as dangerous and it would either want to fight the danger, which is why I typically have specifically mostly men coming after me pretty intensely when we get into these theological discussions. And they're coming from an activated place, which is coming from the gut brain, which is shaping the mind stories. So think of it like this.

Your head brain is never separate from your gut brain. So when you're in an activated state, fight, flight, or fawn, it is shaping the neurological activity that's happening in the head brain.

And it's shaping the way that your mind is telling that story. Is that making sense so far?

Yeah. So thinking Futurama where, like we had severed heads and jars and like, they can just exist. That would never work.

Well, look, they are trying to slice brains up right now, micro thin. And trying to upload our consciousness to AI.

Okay, AI might be able to replace me, but not my head in a jar.

Right?

Okay, so we have two brains, upload.

Your consciousness, but at the moment, your consciousness is not separate from your embodiment. So you can't upload your consciousness because your consciousness is shaped also by your neuroception, like your neuroceptive activity. Right.

So I need a full Android body for the store.

Or you would just need to be human. Or I have an idea. It wouldn't be human anymore. Right. Like we're asking the question, what does it mean to be human?

I mean, I don't know how y' all are answering that, but based on the research that I have at this moment, what it means to be human is to be an organic, self organizing living system that is adaptive to our environments, reactive to our context. And we are neurobiological, relational beings at all times in relationship with ourselves, each other and all the earth all at the same time.

Yeah, okay, I'm tracking. Where does the third brain come?

Third brain. This is my most favorite brain. It's the newest one to be found. It's the heart, brain, cardiac, nervous system.

You have 40,000 neurons gathered around the actual organ that is the heart. And these neurons, this brain has also its own sense of memory, its own stored memory, its own way of seeing the world. Think of your heart brain.

I nicknamed it your relational attuner. And I'm fully just Making up the word a tuner. It doesn't exist, but it's fine. Boys make up words all the time. So I'm like, I'm gonna make up a word.

So think of your heart brain. Like, it does two things. It's tuning in and it's a tuning. So think of, like, old school antennas on a tv.

You know, how you had to, like, actively move them around to get the picture. And if you were really smart in your head brain and you're a great problem solver, you went and you got tin foil to, like, increase it, Right.

And you're like, making, like, alien tinfoil things around the. Yeah, around the TV antennas. Think of your heart brain like, having these antennas that are so your heart brain.

The electromagnetic activity from your heart brain extends a hundred times more from your physical body than the actual neural activity of your head brain. So you can feel another human's heartbeat, including the emotional frequency that's happening with them in your own heart.

So it's like, you know, you think of the story my mind's telling me yes, and my, you know, my body's telling me no.

Well, you also have this third heart brain that is added to the conversation, and it is your human capacity for social, emotional, and I would also say spiritual capacity. All three of those are innately relational.

So you have this heart brain that is at all times looking and wanting to be felt connected and also attuned to what's happening and who you're in relationship with.

So that's my least active brain. I think that's one I struggle with.

Most of us bypass the heart. Most of us have learned to distrust it. You know, I grew up being told that emotions are fickle and you can't ever trust them. When.

Now that I understand the neuroscience, your emotions are not actually good, bad, right, or wrong. They're signals of what is going on. They're. They're emotional. They're. They're electromagnetic energy, and they are telling you something.

So a really a better question is not whether or not you trust your emotions, but do you. Do you speak the language of your emotions? Do you understand what they're signaling to you?

Nope. Sure don't. Oh, man.

It's true. I've known him for a long time.

Yeah, I don't think I've ever understood that.

Well, go look up heart coherence. Go look up something called heart coherence. I think you might be fascinated by it.

I'll have to. I'll have to.

So we're going to take a brief Step away from this. We'll be back.

But for the next five minutes, we have a whole church science fair specific, you know, segment, and I'm gonna ask you a rapid series of science adjacent questions, alternating between four different categories, which are biblical, religious, everyday and mythical. And for the next five minutes, we're gonna see how many of these you can answer. But, you know, no pressure. You don't have to try and answer them all.

If you want to spend five minutes on the first question I ask you, that's fine.

So, also entertaining. Yeah, also entertaining.

Usually.

Do we get to play?

No, just you. You have to listen to ours on two separate episodes. The intro and the outro is when I'm on intro.

He's on outro. Yeah, yeah. His answer is the final.

Yeah, I get the. The final say.

But which micro and macronutrients would manna have to have had to have had for the Israelites to survive on it alone for 40 years, as described in the Biblical Difficult Tail? And how many calories would they need to consume of the mana per day? Big question.

That's a very good question.

It was like a real nutritionist question.

I failed that course in college. It had a lot of math in it.

Surprisingly difficult course in college.

I was a senior and I was like, this is gonna be so easy. It's gonna teach me how to eat better. And I was like, no, I don't. What are. What are all these math problems you're giving me?

I got A's in all the classes everyone else failed, and I failed all the classes everyone else did well in.

Yeah.

Per usual.

But if we want to go on, would there be any way to test scientifically whether or not one religious tradition's prayers were more effective than others?

Oh, that's a really good question.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you. Can you answer that question?

Yeah, I think there. I don't know that they have, but there's quite a few with fmris and electromagnetic detectors.

We can actually now test and actually see how healing energy operates, how it's moved and what it does. It's fascinating. There's this amazing study in Hawaii. Remind me to tell you about it.

All right, we absolutely will. If the Sasquatch is out there, should we most expect him to be from the bear or the ape family? What do you think? It's science adjacent.

Science adjacent.

Yeah.

Okay. Honestly, I think. Are you. Am I allowed to answer these questions?

Yeah, you're supposed to.

Okay, great. Making sure. Okay, listen, I actually think.

Did you know that humans, Homo sapiens, are not direct descendants from Neanderthals, but rather, we are two. We're cousins to each other, and we interbred. So what we now have as Homo sapiens are.

Actually, a lot of the interbreeding happened between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. So I think the Sasquatch is interbreeding. I'm going to take my evolutionary cues in that case.

Should we expect him in West Virginia or Kentucky?

Ooh, I'm not Josh.

Maybe don't answer.

So I don't think I know enough about your area to answer that.

Good answer. Why do some people swear by baking soda for cleaning, while others find vinegar works better?

Oh, that's such a good question. I think they do different things, so I. I've used both, actually for cleaning.

I think baking soda does a really great job getting up because it has that grainy thing, which vinegar doesn't. So if there's something you have to scrub, and it does great with smell. But I think vinegar actually sanitizes in a different way than baking.

Baking soda does, if. I know. But we'll have to ask chemistry over here, Josh, our chemist.

Yeah, we'll have to.

My answer truly is. I think it just depends on what you end up having to clean more often. That's what I both just do different things on a chemical level.

So if you happen to be cleaning certain kinds of messes more frequently, you'll think one works better than the other.

I clean my counters of baking soda, but my bathtub with vinegar.

Yeah.

And maybe. I don't know why I do that, why that makes sense to me.

Also, the smell probably is a factor for some people, like, subconsciously, you know, maybe that's it.

Right. So if a Muslim call to prayer were broadcast from the International Space Station, how would they know which way to face Mecca?

Oh, which way is east? I guess. If it's from a space station. Yeah.

Which way is east?

If you're not on Earth, Actually, is there not northeast, south, or west in space? Like, is it. Are there no directions in space? I. I don't know. I don't know much about other than the fact that I really hope.

I mean, an alien in my lifetime, I know very little about space.

As far as I'm concerned, it's just forwards, backwards, up and down in space.

Forwards, backs, up and down, because, you.

Know, the cardinal directions are based on the Earth's core.

Oh, okay. I have a question.

Magnificent.

If the call came from space, is the prayer, the prayer still on Earth? In which case, are they also in space? Now everyone's in space.

I think my problem with this question that I wrote that he is they also have to face down.

It's a great question.

Theoretically, there already would be, you know, like it already would be down. You can't face down twice.

So really I just need a Muslim ISS worker to like email us and tell us what they do when they. On the iss.

Yeah, you would have to have someone who is in that tradition to tell you what their answers answer would be.

Yeah.

Is there like a prayer rug on the wall for them? I don't know. I would love to know, but.

Me too.

Reverend Dr. Kendrick, is there anything Icarus could have done that would have kept his wax wings from melting as he got closer to the sun?

Yeah, I have an idea. Listen to your dad. Who told you not to fly too high or fly too low, literally. I use Icarus as a parenting strategy regularly.

It's true. That's the. I think that's the main lesson.

I mean, the dad very clearly said fly. Here's your margins. Don't go too high. Don't go too low. If you do, for the record, here's what will happen. Surprise.

Non fully formed teenage brains had to figure it out for themselves, which is honestly the human experience. Experience is biology. And he. He wanted that experience.

Right. So one more.

And it torched his biology. That was. That was a sad thing.

Yeah, but one more, then we're done with this. But what is the best way to save money on utilities?

What is that saving? Well, we have the saving things, like if you don't run your laundry before certain times or dishwasher after certain times. Do you guys have that?

You have that thing?

I've never. In South Carolina.

You guys don't have that. I don't know what it's called, but we have these things in Arizona where like if you run your laundry like after 7pm or your.

So there's all different ways here in Arizona that we have figured out. It's like certain amounts of times that you can run your air or your laundry or like big ticket, very expensive items like electricity.

Weather's also just insane in Arizona. So I feel like it's probably a.

Little bit different, right? So I don't know how y' all are gonna do it in your part of the woods, but ours is on time. You have to get on the.

Whatever the cheaper time is to run things.

But there is still the final question, the ultimate science question.

Oh, my gosh. Give it to me.

What's with the beach in lagoon and spongebob. They're already under the water. What's going on?

A coral reef. Think of it like a coral reef.

I just. I don't know, man.

Sponge is hiding something.

Please tell me. I really want to know the answer specifically to the mana one. I think it had both macro and micronutrient, but I'm.

If you know the answer to that, I really want to know.

We don't. Or maybe I don't know the answer to any of the series. Who knows?

Wait, you don't have the answer to any of these questions you just asked me.

You're just going to have to wait until the end of the series, and then I'll answer them all.

The whole point is I was trying to come up with questions that didn't have solid answers until TJ gave them solid answers. See, my thought is it would have to have all macronutrients in some micro for it to work. That's what I think my thought was.

It had to be, like, somewhere between bread and pork, because pigs actually contain most micronutrients you need in their fat. And then TJ pointed out the biological consistency of pork back then would be wildly different than their genetic structure today.

Right.

So my answer didn't work. So we're waiting for TJ's answer on that one.

My episode is probably going to come out on, like, yeah, when?

I'm gonna need to know when it. When.

Say, January something. I don't know.

I have to wait till January.

Mm.

Well, this might be coming out in January. I'm not really sure. I think this is coming out, guys.

That is so mean.

Yeah.

Yeah. Unfortunately, our listeners think so, too.

I don't think I'm gonna take it. I'm gonna have to. I'm gonna have to be Googling some of these answers.

I mean, afterwards, DJ might just tell you, but yes, for now.

Look at him shake his head. No.

Okay, for now. Earlier, we mentioned that some faith communities view neuroscience or psychology with suspicion.

Do you think there's a way that we can maybe reframe some of these disciplines or questions as gifts for the church, rather than, like, how so many people think of them as, like, challenges or, like, oh, you're trying to explain away demons. Is there a way that maybe we could reframe the conversation so that it's easier for people in some of these circles to accept?

I'm going to do the best I know how to do to enter into this next part of the conversation very gently and mindfully. Here's my experience, and I Can only. I hope all of you who are listening can hear this as a my experience thing.

Please pick up the book, How God Changes yous Brain. It's by my favorite neurotheologian. He's also like the godfather of neurotheology, Andrew Newberg. And in this is a test from Baylor.

I mean, it's a brilliant, brilliant book. Easy to access, by the way.

But there's been this test from Baylor that helps you understand how worshiping different images of God activates different parts of your brain. And that would basically predetermine a lot of our behavior as well. So the question, why would some people of faith be. How did you say it?

Hesitant or reticent to engage neuroscience and psychology?

Yeah.

Right. Hesitant.

They tend to.

Yeah.

Okay. Here's why I think most people would be the traditional.

I'm just going to use my own tradition and my own experience because I'm going to try really not to make a lot of people angry right now. In my own experience, in my own tradition, growing up in a very specific type of evangelical context, which stems, you know, in.

In my dissertation, I talk about it as conventional Christianity. So think about all the Christianity we inherited from Augustine, Constantine on forward through time. I think of that as conventional theology.

They would be hesitant and reticent in a lot of ways. The same reason that Galileo was put on trial for heresy. It's the same thing when. And I would. I'm going to tell you this very gently.

It's also rooted in authoritarianism.

So when you are told and when you are convinced that your salvation and your relationship with God specifically your salvation is located outside of your body in something else, like a doctrine, a specific church tradition. Fill in the blank. What becomes very. Okay, I'm gonna try to say it like this.

When we worship authoritarian gods and God images, it actually activates the part of our brain that primes our brain for violence and binaries. So when we.

When our doctrines are challenged, especially very ancient old doctrines that we have been taught, if we hold this doctrine, then we have salvation. So think of salvation like a noun. Doug Padgett taught me this. It was so helpful.

So when you think of salvation like this cup, like it's a noun, it's something you hold, you have to hold on to the right doctrine to have the thing that is salvation. There's a lot about science that neuroscience specifically, that would dispel that. Right.

And so it does make people very hesitant about the relationship between neuroscience and spirituality, because in my experience, it does bump up against Quite a few authoritarian doctrines. And that makes people very nervous. It would activate the body's nervous system as a. It would signal as threat.

However, that's if we think of salvation being found in doctrine. But if we were to allow science to help, knowing that it's already a part of our neurobiology, like it's not separate from there.

So the more we understand about our neurobiology, the more we understand about theology.

And so when we start to understand salvation as wholeness making, or salvation as experiences of wholeness making, science and therapy and psychology start to become very interesting.

Because when you start thinking about salvation as being and becoming made whole as opposed to holding on to the right doctrines, you're going to ask different questions. How's that for an answer? Do you think I made too many people too many mad? Or where are you feeling? Where are you feeling that in your body?

Where do you feel that? Answer that question. In your body is what your therapist would say.

Hopefully the head brain.

But what have been the most impactful discoveries you've made so far about unity and difference in your studies of how relationships work at the neural and spiritual levels?

Okay, one quick study. They did this study about pain, okay?

And they hooked up all these people to all these different machines and they would show a picture of a hand being like stabbed, not like bloody knife, but like they would show an image of somebody being in pain. And so say I was like watching TJ get stabbed with something, right?

And there would be a bunch of series of like, bunch of pictures and you would just see a hand being stabbed. And there would be one word. Christian, Muslim, Jewish, heterosexual, homosexual, male, female, black, white, Hispanic. Just one label.

What they saw in our neural activity is that the more the person identified with the person being hurt, the more the part of their brain where empathy and social awareness live would light up the anterior cingulate cortex.

So when somebody from your quote unquote in group is experiencing pain, you physiologically have a greater capacity to feel their pain than when you don't see them as a part of your in group.

What radically is so fascinating to me about that is that our different images of God are the ones that help us see people as part of our in group or not, right? What if all humankind is part of your in group? What if your religion is about being and becoming made whole as a human collective?

That ideology, that religious belief system, that spiritual image of God would actually change the activity within your brain and you would be exponentially made more able to feel the pain of another when you're worshiping a God image like that, as opposed to what we now know about when we worship authoritarian gods of how that primes our brain for violence, activates the amygdala, and actually further embeds us versus them, dichotomies and binaries.

I want to do one of those logical fallacy questions where I know that this is wrong, but I still want to ask it.

We have a friend, Christian Ashley, whom we love, and he has a podcast on the network who is Southern Baptist, who follows this authoritative thing that I think you're talking about. I think he might be the most gentle, kind, nicest person I know. So why isn't he violent? That's what I want to know.

Well, it's funny you say that. The same would be true about Wayne Grudem. Do you know who Wayne Grudem is?

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, he's a family friend of mine, grows up. He lives in Arizona here. Wayne Grudem. If you don't know who Wayne Grudem is, he's basically, he helped write the ESV Bible.

He is the go to systematic theology. He is the architect of most every Protestant pastor.

You know, if you go to a Protestant, like if you grew up evangelical college, you're going to read his systematic theology book.

That's exactly right. He is one of the most gentle, kindest. Also, he's very soft spoken. He's genuinely very, very, very kind.

And I can tell you without question my experience of growing up in the community that he, his theology specifically was shaped by the church I went to. Women are not to teach a man, and I use man in quotes in case you're wondering.

Over the age of 13, meaning myself with a doctorate in open and relational theology, a feminist scholar with a focus in applied neuroscience, am not qualified to teach a 13 year old boy on the sole basis of my femininity. According to Grudem, this is not only ungodly, it's dangerous.

If you really read what he says about women, his rhetoric on women, having grown up inside the culture that Grudem shaped, without question, the telomeres on my cells are now shortened because of the system, the violent patriarchal system of dominance that I grew up in with a bunch of really gentle, kind, sweet men. So violence doesn't have to be violent. Violent, good. White, racist. Right. Very good.

Kind, loving white people are also enactors and actors of violence. So I think it's interesting that you equated gentleness as not being violent.

When our ideologies and our rhetoric and the way we live, we can be very gentle in our countenance and incredibly violent in our ideologies.

So then what do you mean by violent? I guess that would help.

Ooh, that is a great question. Do you know. Do you read Kathryn Keller?

A little.

Okay. I think that's a beautiful question. And I think that is one of the things that we all have to wrestle with and should wrestle with.

What I mean by violence is. And I'm not going to say this eloquently, I'm going to keep it as simple as possible.

And I know this isn't exactly the Hippocratic oath, but I actually really love it. But first, do no harm. And when I first got my second degree, my M. Div. One of my great friends, Laura Beth, she does.

What is it when you engrave things on a wood art?

Wood burner.

Wood burner, yes. Thank you. She did this most incredible piece of art with a cross and she put the Latin words there. But first, do no harm.

And she kept saying to me, what if all of us who are ministers of the gospel took sought as our most important thing as ministers to first do no harm? And I think. I'll tell you what, Wayne Gruden wasn't all that interested in that question.

Meaning he's not interested in whether or not his ideology and theology is actively harming women. Because for him, it's godly and it is the equivalent of God's will.

And he will prioritize what he sees and interprets as God's will over the now indisputable irrefutable harm that patriarchy causes women and systems of dominance. So I'm gonna go with violent on that one.

Okay, I see. Yeah, I think that's just the disconnect. I probably would define violence a little different, but I haven't really thought about it.

But hearing you say that, that makes a lot of sense. I think the reason I would put it different is from what I know of Christian, because I don't know. Wayne Grudem is.

He is the kind of person who wants you to hold your beliefs.

He's willing to have a conversation if you ask him, he might challenge you, but otherwise he wants everyone to flourish, wants everyone to do well, even though he and I disagree a lot on some of these patriarchal systems. But. Yeah, I see what you're saying. That makes perfect sense. I just. That helps me understand the disconnect a little bit, I think.

Well, and here's why a lot of people.

Back to your point of why people don't want to put neuroscience in conversation with theology because now we can prove that those things actually are causing harm.

There's like the Grudem and the authoritarian religious teachers are very invested in us not understanding that an authoritarian God image is actively priming the brain for violence. Right. So there's a reason that they're not wanting you to look at it.

Yeah.

You always have to question who benefits? That's what any liberation scholar, as a feminist scholar, I always ask the question, who benefits and who's not represented?

Whose voice do you not see who's disappearing from the narrative? What is the subtext? What are the power dynamics?

And those are questions that most authoritarian leaders like Grudem are not asking and are not interested in, because once you start asking those questions, it will disrupt the very ideology and theology that he has built his career on.

Right. So are there any ways that your neuro relational leadership model might reshape our understanding of pastoral care and discipleship?

Yeah, I think back to that. Open the eyes of my heart, God, that I may see you.

There's this place in our brain called the acc, and neuroscientists call it the heart of our brain. And Paul, there's this beautiful verse in Ephesians with Paul is talking about that.

I pray for you regularly that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you would know the hope to which you were called. And if we think about that through the lens of neuroscience, there's certain images of God that you worship that actually we now know with fmris.

It redirects neurological activity away from the amygdala, which is priming the brain for violence.

And it actually strengthens the neural circuitry around the anterior cingulate cortex, the heart of your brain, physiologically expanding and increasing your capacity for empathy, compassion, social awareness, and relational attunement.

So when we think about pastoral care, let's do that, but let's help people physiologically, neurologically increase the heart of their brain, that they would see and know the hope to which we have all been called. I think that sounds like good news.

Does sound like good news. Do you believe it'd be possible that a.

Or do you believe it true that a more ecumenical understanding of faith might help us recover a more holistic view of human nature when that would unite our intellect, emotion, and embodiment like you advocate for?

Yes. I don't even. I mean, you said that you're like a magician with words.

I don't know if you wrote that down or what, but I don't have anything to add to that. Yes, I see.

He's God Almighty.

He is. I see that. I see why you have TJ the rhetorician on. I do. I do think an ecumenical. I think paying attention to power dynamics might actually.

I think actually caring about power dynamics and caring about causing harm, if that's what we mean by ecumenical, I think that might change the world.

I. I'm a needle a little bit on it.

Get it? Go for it.

Let's go with the Wayne Grudem then.

If we're saying that his stuff is violent and we're talking about ecumenicism and, you know, working together, whatever, what does it look like, given your understanding of relational embodiment, given your understanding of open and relational theology, given your actually knowing him? What does it look like to have ecumenicism when there are so many people like Wayne Grudem in churches?

You know what? My family, through Wayne Grudem and Tim Kimmel, we have this definition of love that I grew up with. And it's. Love is a commitment.

I'm going to cry of my will to your needs and best interests, regardless of the cost. And I think an ecumenical view would be when we see salvation as wholeness making.

I think when we love human beings so much that we are willing to commit our will to human beings needs and best interests, knowing that it might cost us some of our religious and possibly authoritarian doctrines. I think that's part of salvation as wholeness making. What is the cost? It's cost. Let me tell you. Wholeness making is costly.

Salvation as wholeness making will come at a cost. And a lot of you listening have already paid that cost.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I don't think salvation is just a personal thing. It's a community, a relational thing, becoming together the whole.

There's no such thing as an individual surprise.

Yeah.

Dr. Dalio says. Iliadalio, she's my scholarly crush. She says that there's no such thing as an individual. We are all interconnected parts of the whole.

Say the word entangled for will.

What?

I just gotta say the word entangled for Will.

Yes, entangled.

He loves that word.

Let's go with entangled, not enmeshed. I've been enmeshed. That is not. I've been in a lot of therapy for that one.

I. Yeah, yeah. I like what you say there. It calls back, harkens back to me to earlier this morning.

I had to do a lot of driving today and thus means a lot of podcast. Caitlin Chess, part of the Holy Post Group a lot more conservative than myself. And Chalene, probably pretty close to her teacher, that I'm not sure.

But Caitlin chefs was. She does this podcast that's curiously Kate and. And they're addressing children's questions at children's church.

Really, really seriously, like getting scholars on and like we're gonna actually just answer these questions like kids aren't stupid.

The question today, brilliant idea.

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's so much fun too because like, anyway, the question today was some children asking, does God love Satan?

And I loved her answer because the thing was, if you follow the biblical literature scholarship that says Satan is actually just symbolic, it's a stand in for the corruption of God's thing, then yeah, no, God doesn't love the corruption of his creation. But if we're going to say it is a being, something that he created, then yeah, of course he loves Satan.

He just doesn't necessarily love how he has corrupted things. And I think that would be that wholeness making question.

How they're articulating God's love towards Satan if he is a created being would be the answer. Like, yeah, I still want to love. I still want to embrace people, even if they come from traditions that I'm like, that tradition hurt me.

Yeah, I still want that wholeness. So I know I have to find a way to work through that.

It's hard. It's hard for me to stay. It's really hard.

I mean, I come from a tradition that was incredibly dehumanizing and hurtful to me that masqueraded as holiness and God's will that has cut me to the core. And now I know what it's done to both my cells and my neurobiology, and I am not happy about it.

And how do I love Wayne Grudem, Tim Kimmel, my dad, all the men I grew up with that have actively caused me harm in the name of God and still do. What does love look like there? And it doesn't always look like relational intimacy. I'll tell you what I mean. I have really had to learn how not to.

How to engage in relationships with the men around me and women around me in ways that contribute to my own wholeness making and also the wholeness making of our community. And love and intimate relationships aren't necessarily the same thing.

Mm.

I'm actually gonna follow up on that in our God moment segment a little later on.

For now though, we do like to ask everyone who's on our show, no matter who they are, if you had to provide a Single tangible action, something practical that our listeners could go do. And I feel like you could probably give the most, like you study this, you probably could give a really bright, practical answer.

What's something physical that people could go do embodied to promote church unity, to promote some of that wholeness in our communities. Yeah.

I think one of the most powerful things that we can physically do is two things. And the first is contemplative prayer, corpse pose. Whatever tradition you're from, you can find, you'll find this in your tradition somewhere.

So I'd really encourage that. And then I would really encourage actually starting to cultivate relationships with people that are outside your religious system.

And I mean far outside. So I would really encourage you. The most tangible thing you could do is a both.

And so what would change in the world around us if everyone did that?

If we all started participating in, let's say, integration as who we are and what we do on a daily basis. And if we truly cared about causing no harm and truly cared about cultivating relationships with people that were totally, you know, I think it's.

Brene Brown says that it's hard to hate someone up close. Right. Experiences biology and your experience of the other will change your biology and maybe they will become. And a beloved another.

That's where I think Dr. King talks about beloved community so much. And I think beloved community is about relationships with people that are categorically different than who you are. And that's hard.

It's hard to do that. It actually goes against a lot of our survival instincts to do that.

Yeah, yeah. So he shouted out earlier, but we always end, you know, our show with the God moment. We just talk about where we've seen God in our lives recently.

Whether that be a blessing challenged mode of worship. Whatever it is, whatever God's been doing to you, that's what we talk about.

And we always make Josh go first so the rest of us have enough time to think about our God moment. So, Josh, do you have a God moment for us this week?

Yeah. It involves a former guest on the show for those who have listened, like since the beginning, basically, which is probably not that many.

I've barely, barely kept that up. TJ hasn't kept that up.

I sure haven't. I've missed a couple.

But yeah, yeah. So shout out Lance Skipper. Start there. And he is a pastor from a tradition that I left and I shared something ironically from the Holy Post.

Man, a lot of ties and tie ins today. Yeah, I just shared something on Instagram story or something. And he Responded being like, I don't agree with that because blah, blah.

And this is where I'm going to tie it back to Dr. Kendrick's thing. I actually did feel it in my body a little bit.

When I saw someone responded to a story and it was from that tradition, I was like, oh, God, what's it going to be? And I felt physical tension towards it. But then I was like, wait a minute. I know Lance. Even though he's still from that tradition.

What I know about Lance is that he is one of the most loving people I know. He means the best for me and cares about me.

Even though some things we disagree on, even though probably some of his theology I would find harmful, I know that he genuinely does care for me. So I opened that message and I responded back and forth to him really honestly and genuinely. And we.

I changed the topic and I was like, you know what?

It's just nice for me to remember there are so many good people who genuinely want the best for me from traditions that I have left, from the logical structures that I might not agree with. And I'm like, man, I am so glad to be reminded to remember in my body that those people exist.

Yeah. So that's Skipper.

Yeah.

I spent is many, many hours in a car with Lance.

He's my pastor crutch.

Yeah, sorry. I want to be him when I grow up.

But for me, my God moment, my roommate, recently, he's gotten to the point where, you know, we grew up, like, super, super poor, remarkably destitute, if you would. But now we both have jobs and stuff and make some decent money.

So the other day he comes home and he spent like $400 at American Eagle, and it was 50% off. So he actually spent almost $900 at American Eagle.

Did he have some sweet clothes?

Oh, great.

On what clothes?

Some people buy clothes, Josh.

That's so much money. Even when I worked at America, it is a lot. Sorry. That is crazy, crazy amount of money.

But he also brought home, like, six new pillows. Just what he just, you know, just the things that people who are remarkably poor do when they have too much money is spend it all.

So the next day I go to work, I come back home, he's just sitting there on the couch with three people that I. Well, one person I know and two people I've never seen before in my life. I'm like, hey, what's up? Why aren't you at work?

Because I would be getting home before him. Usually he's like, oh, I fractured my spine. But he Wasn't that mad about it. You know what? Yeah, he fractured his spine.

How? Oh, my gosh.

Woke up like that, huh? So don't buy new pillows in the night.

Yeah. Apparently he fractured his spine sleeping.

Apparently so. Well, he was a Marine.

Oh.

So when he got out.

That's incredible.

He probably fractured his spine, you know, a couple of days before he woke up.

That's horrible. Awful, but also incredible. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, it is. But he's so strong. He's just. He went to work today. This was last week. I come home and he's fractured his spine.

But the God part is really all of it, but also the person. Two people that I'd never met drove up here from Georgia to take him to the hospital.

Oh.

Which is crazy. I guess his entire family was busy or something. But they drove three hours to take him to the hospital, get him home, and then drove back.

Another shout out to a guest who hasn't been on for like at least 100 episodes. Remember that one time that David Pizarro drove from the beach all the way to the Tennessee mountains because me and Matt got stranded?

Great guy.

That's amazing.

Yeah, Love it.

Great guy. So, Chalene, do you have a God moment for us?

Yeah, I'll make that quick since I've been a big talker. Last night going to bed. My cr. Senior in high school, he got home. It's basketball tryouts. He's injured.

He's the senior captain, and his coach was angry at him for having been injured, yada, yada. So he comes home, he's super pissed. He's. His coach had just lit him up. He's yelling.

My husband and I are just listening like, oh, my gosh, this is going bad. And it's like the first day of tryouts, right? And he leaves. Activate. Like, just angry.

And my God moment was our youngest, who's 12, she happened to be in the room and she goes, you know, the way I see it, just the way coach talked to Mason, Mason was just activated. And so she's using neurobiology right now to talk about how she is interpreting and watching her brother's experience.

And she goes, and I think Mason was activated and he was activating the coach and the coach was activating him. Which is exactly what happens with neuroception is our bodies talk below the level of consciousness. And my God moment was, oh, my gosh.

My 12 year old knows what a nervous system is. And we talk all the time about regulating your nervous system as an act of worship in Our house.

And so she was like, I think he just needs to re regulate. And that was innately deep in our home. That is a spiritual act of worship. That. And I just.

So it was such this beautiful God moment of regulating your nervous system as spirituality. And it was so simple. A 12 year old, she brought it up. I mean I just was most stressed. I was so stressed.

And to see her very simply just talk Sam and I through how to regulate our bodies and why we need to do that was such a holy moment.

All right, that's wonderful. It is funny kids just absorbing what their parents say. That's what resulted in me talking about Dale Earnhardt at beer camp on a panel.

Love when that happens. But if you like this episode, please consider sharing with a friend. Share with an enemy. Share with your cousins. Especially your cousins.

Yeah, especially cousins.

Sorry.

And Will just texted me.

Yeah, well, you know, he loves about.

Chalene's friend Jill, actually.

Oh, I love Jill.

They were recording the same time.

Jill's my best friend. You can ask her anything about neuro relational integration and she'll be able to talk. Talk it and weave it in.

And she's a way better storyteller than I am, so.

Right.

Because I love the science, she loves the stories.

You guys do desert voices together, right?

Yeah, we had. Yes, she was on that. And we're actually starting a new podcast together called the NRI Lab Lab.

We're going to talk about all things neurorelational integration in spirituality in places of faith and also the workplace.

So if you're interested in that, check that out. Don't forget to rate and view our show on podchaser Apple Podcast, Spotify. Whatever you use, rate us there. That'll be super helpful. And free.

Yeah.

And free.

And free.

Yeah.

Free is the important part, I think. Speaking of free things, you can also follow the Anazole Podcast network on Spotify. Apple Podcast, other things, I'm sure captivate any.

Anyway, follow the network, you get all of our.

What's the network? What is the network? What is the Asano Podcast network?

It's like a net of podcasts.

Yeah, it's a bunch of different podcasts that are all on one channel. On Apple Podcast you can get all in one feed if you want on Spotify. If you want to just follow all of it instead of just each show separate.

My gosh, that's so cool.

Website. There's a bunch of things I'm supposed to shout out one of them. Well, I'll do two because we mentioned Christian Ashley.

He does go through the Bible and let nothing move you. That's a podcast on the network.

And maybe by the time this comes out or maybe after, because I, I don't know how time works and scheduling, I don't know why I have the position I do in this network.

But anyway, in collaboration with the elca, Will Rose and Pastor Thomas Johnston is doing your matter, matter matters, which is why we're doing this current series. And at the after this series, we do have an episode we are recorded with them about your matter matters. So check that out.

It will be on the network and again, it's in collaboration with the elca. So if you like Lutheran stuff, you like science, and you like Will, it's pretty much the perfect combination.

There you go.

And we hope you enjoyed the show.

Coming up, we'll be speaking with in the series, we'll be speaking with Dr. Jamie Probin, an applied mathematics and theoretical physics expert who teaches cosmology at Charleston Southern University. He's about the Big Bang and apologetics at an SBC university.

After that, we'll have one more episode with just Joshua and myself to reflect on the series.

And then we'll be interviewing Pastor Will Rose and Pastor Thomas Johnson about their upcoming educational podcast in association with the ELCA and on podcast network.

So your matter matters. You guys are in deep on this matter. I love that.

Yeah, it's your matter. Yeah, my matter matters too.

Your matter does matter.

At the end of season one, Francis Chan will be on the show.

Maybe, probably. If someone tells him about it and.

If he ever gets invited on the show.

Yeah, because we're not gonna do it. That's a lot of work. But if somebody else does it, we'll talk to him once he shows up, you know, unless he shows up when we're not recording.

When you invite him, make sure to tell him Tuesdays at 4:30 and give him the link for us. Yeah.