Neuroplasticity, Performativity, and Clergy Wellness

Issues of clergy health and well-being are physical issues but also have social and theological dimensions. This book engages in interdisciplinary reconsideration of theological anthropology in light of the plasticity and performative quality of the embodied brain ecosystem, arguing that self-care is a critical component of loving one’s neighbor.

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This book invites readers, particularly clergy members, to rethink their understandings of the human person in light of recent developments in neuroscience. In addition to bringing together religion and neuroscience, it engages narrative theory, exercise physiology, and constructions of wellness to raise crucial questions about human identity and relationality and argue for a model of care that connects self-care and care for/with others. Furthermore, it claims that human beings are whole, intra/inter-relational, dynamic, plastic, and performative agents who have the capacity to story themselves neurophysiologically (in both “top-down” and “bottom-up” ways) through their regular practices of wellness.