Friday, May 27, 2011
New Study Suggests “Born Again Christians” Have Smaller Brains?
Thank you to Brannon Howse for his show today which discusses a newly released study that makes the startling claim that born again Christians have “smaller brains” than their Protestant counterparts who do not claim to have had this spiritual experience. The study, which was conducted by Duke University Medical Center, ruled out depression as a contributing factor and assessed 268 adults over an 11-year period. According to the USA Today article which ran this story on 5/27/11, the study:
“found an association between participants’ professed religious affiliation and the physical structure of their brain. Specifically, those identified as Protestant who did not have a religious conversion or born-again experience — more common among their evangelical brethren — had a bigger hippocampus.”
Christians today seem to be the last group that it is acceptable to demonize, but articles such as the one cited above are not new strategies. Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood, widely known for championing women’s rights, was also a racist who advocated that blacks ought to be sterilized for the “purity” of the Caucasion race. Hitler despised the Jewish race to the extent that he came up with the “Final Solution” which he implemented in his attempt to exterminate them from the earth.”
MY REPLY: So, let’s say my brain’s smaller than my Protestant counterparts. Does it just make Him more precious as He uses the humble to confound the wise? I love the quote by Jim Eliot, “He is no fool who gives what he can not keep, to gain what he …can not lose.” Or the aft quoted statement “If I’m God’s fool, who’s fool are you?” When I think of all this brain measurement stuff, I often think of how the Dalai Lama and his group are specifically becoming increasingly engaged in mind sciences. Mind control. I think of secular teachers who were attempting to discourage little Johnny in his class who believed in the Bible. The teacher said, “Johnny, it wasn’t the Red Sea, it was the Reed Sea they walked across and it was only two feet deep.” “Wow!” Little Johnny replied. “God destroyed Pharoah’s Army in just two feet of water!” Yes! Unless you have the faith of a child, you can not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. What is my MA and all my honors and a big/small brain if I choose to go my own way and not the way of our Master Yeshua? When I was at USC and prayerwalking the campus, I was struck by the verse of Scripture carved on the philosophy building, “He that loseth his life, shall keep it unto life eternal.” Basically, what does it profiteth a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Universities like USC have forgotten their founding principals. What drives us? What is our core motivation? Should it not be “To serve the LORD YHWH with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and to love our neighbor as ourself?” To give God the Glory?
About jstephens