I am reading Dan’s The Church’s Brave New Brain series at Cerulean Sanctum with considerable interest, since my mini-dissertation was on neurology and sanctification and the implications for discipleship and Christian education.

Dan may be heading in this direction eventually, but at present I detect a false dichotomy (left-brain v. right-brain) that would preclude (in my opinion, at least) the biblical resolution. The “cure” - i.e., the Christlike thinking, feeling, and behaving we all desire - is to be neither right- nor left-brained: it is to develop the ability to use our brains as God intended.

There is a fissure in our brain, of course, but we are not so sharply divided as might be imagined. The goal, therefore, is to use all of our brain all of the time. Reason needs to be tempered by compassion; passion by clear thinking.

Ultimately, it comes down to what we focus on. Focus, or consciousness, is like a flashlight: wherever the flashlight looks, there is light. The flashlight has no knowledge that the rest of the room is dark or that other things might exist in the room at the same time. As Christians, we cannot allow ourselves to think that what we are focusing on is all that there is; we must scan the totality of creation and blend the cerebral with the visceral. One to the exclusion of the other will inevitably lead to bad theology, bad praxis, or both.

Dan is correct that we have tended to view the arts too narrowly. We have essentially created a subculture of so-called art that is only rarely noticed, often to the embarrassment of many - e.g., the Left Behind series. One wonders when the Right Behind series will be released, as in left-behind eschatology v. right-behind eschatology. But perhaps I’m being asinine.

The author of the 20th Century was, after all, a Christian: J.R.R. Tolkien spent most of life - from adolescence on - to developing the incredible mythology of Middle-earth. Tolkien was a believer, whatever some narrow-minded orcs may say, and his mythology was closely patterned on the true mythology of the Bible. It was not so blatantly and simplistically allegorical as C.S. Lewis’ works, a fact that may explain why Lewis’ fiction is the darling of Christians while Tolkien’s intricate allusionary masterpiece remains suspect.

It will take the ability to utilize both the thinking and feeling parts of the brain to produce the quality of art that was dominated by Christians in the premodern era. Modernism, it seems, is all about left-brain productivity; postmodernism seems, in at least one way, to be about right-brain sensitivity.

What was Christ? Left-brained? Right-brained? The answer is obvious: both. Those of us who seek to develop the mind of Christ would do well to focus on the complementarity of both sides of the brain in our pursuit of Christlikeness.


2 Cor 1.13