Culture, Catechesis, and the Brain

I'm working on a paper to present at the October pastors' conference and I have found this Salvo article (here) extremely helpful.  Here are the opening paragraphs:

"One of the themes I’ve been exploring in some of my Salvo articles is how our brains change based on interactions with our social environment.

​In my Salvo article ‘The Neuro Transformers’ and also in ‘Sex & the Kiddies’ I explained just how flexible the human brain is and how the messages we are exposed to in our culture actually change the neuro-circuitry of our brains."

Or to put it another way -- you and your children are constantly being catechized by everything that is around you, whether you are aware of it or not.  And not only is it catechizing you, it's actually changing your brain.

Here's his concluding paragraph:  "Not only can things like memorizing and swimming underwater change our brains, but our brains also change based on the messages we receive from society all around us, and from the cultural environment in which we grow up. This can be a force for good, when the culture around us is wholesome, but it can also be a force for great evil and subversion."

This is extremely important as we consider the environments of our homes and schools.  To be continued...

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