Mind, body and faith to intersect in 2023 Cummings Conversations lectures by Dr. William Carl
(The lectures were streamed live on the Maryville College Facebook page and will be archived there.)
Feb. 27, 2023
It seemed an intimidating ask, that spring day in 1999 in the office of the Rev. Dr. William Carl at First Presbyterian Church of Dallas: Could he, as a man of faith, lecture on the brain?
Specifically, he recalls, could he lecture on philosophical and ethical questions of how care and nurture of the mind can affect the body’s physical health? And could he give that lecture to a meeting of physicians at an annual gathering of the International Society for the Advancement of Humanistic Studies in Medicine in Aspen, Colorado?
“A physician with whom I served on a health care board was in charge of the program for this conference, and he told me that doctors were coming from all over the world for these very serious lectures, and that the subject was going to be the brain, and that they wanted me to lecture on it,” Carl said. “I told him, ‘I know absolutely nothing about the brain except that I have one!’”
And that, his friend told him, was why his perspective was needed. Physicians and other medical professionals are trained to examine the issues on a micro scale — to diagnose and treat specific ailments and organs, illnesses and limbs. Carl’s task would be to coach them into a macro approach as well, so that the end result would give patients the best chance for a complete recovery.
“I took that challenge and read 50 books on cognitive neuroscience, because I wasn’t a medical person, and they wanted me to bring a different angle, but I still had to understand what I was talking about clinically,” he said. “I also interviewed neurosurgeons and neuroscientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
“What I began to understand is that if doctors will think of patients as whole persons and not just uninteresting appendages to very interesting diseases, it can make a profound difference. That’s how I started to lecture on ways to change medical education. Fortunately, medical schools were already moving that way and have continued to do so for decades.”
The Cummings Conversations
Those lectures have made him an in-demand speaker around the world, from Oxford to Princeton to Cornell to Carnegie Mellon to the University of Arkansas (UAMS) College of Medicine to Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center in Knoxville, along with many others. In March, Carl will be the featured speaker for the Cummings Conversations on the Maryville College campus. Named for Margaret Cummings, a former instructor of Bible and Religious Education at the College who left behind a legacy of faith, service, and lifelong learning, the Margaret M. Cummings Conversations on Faith, Learning, and Service take place every spring. Formerly known as “February Meetings,” they give MC students, faculty and staff — along with the local community — a chance to gather and discuss questions of faith and responsible living.
Carl obtained his Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Communication from the University of Pittsburgh. He and his wife, Jane Alexander Carl — a native of Maryville — have lived in Blount County since 2020, following his service as senior pastor at Independent Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. In addition to his role as a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister and former president of Pittsburgh (Pa.) Theological Seminary, Carl is also a Greek scholar, former professor, novelist, screenwriter, playwright, poet, lyricist and author of eight nonfiction books in addition to a recently published novel, Assassin’s Manuscript, which happens to feature a fictional professor from MC as a central character. His studies of the brain, however, have elevated him to a respected lecturer at medical schools, medical conferences and grand rounds for major hospitals since 2000 with lectures like “Brains, Cancer and Hope,” and “Faith, the Brain and Pain.”
The overarching theme for his Cummings Conversations lectures is titled “The Good News of Neuroscience: Faith and the Brain for a Better You and a Better World!” Over the course of three talks in the Ronald and Lynda Nutt Theatre of the Clayton Center for the Arts, Carl will focus on the power of the brain as a tool for wholeness and wellness, and the bridges that must be maintained between an individual’s mental, physical and spiritual health.
“What I came to understand as I read these books and did all of this research, which I’ve continued to do since 2000, is that there is way more going on than I realized, in my brain and in everyone else’s brain,” he said. “That caused me to discover that I can do anything I want if I tap into all of this unrealized potential. I can become better at tennis or chess if I work at it. I can learn how to play an instrument or learn a new language if I work at it. In other words, anything is possible!
“Realizing that was, no pun intended, a mind-blowing experience. Understanding that there is so much going on in each one of our brains helps us see that we can use them way more than we do, and that we shouldn’t waste another minute to improve our lives and our health.”
Three lectures, two days
Carl’s first lecture — “Brains, Bodies, Beliefs and Behavior,” which he’s given around the country and to the China Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing — will take place at 7 p.m. Monday, March 27, and will discuss the bio-psycho-social-spiritual model of wholeness. One of the ways Carl explains the functions of the brain, he added, is to attach various brain functions to different college departments and disciplines: “Memory would be the history department; emotions, the psychology department; etc., so that we show how the parts of the brain are interconnected, which helps us understand every part of the mind-body equation,” he said.
The second lecture — “A Brain Technique for Speaking Without Notes and Acing Every Exam!” — will take place at 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 28. It grew out of a lecture he designed for clergy, he added, based on his research into memory function and cognitive “tricks” to recall information through working the left and right hippocampus to access both verbal and visual memory.
“It’s basically a brain technique I discovered for preaching without notes, and it was designed to help clergy preach without having to read their sermons, but it’s also a technique that will help college students prepare for exams by turning the brain into something like a virtual teleprompter,” he said. “It’s a technique I’ve taught to pastors, professors, politicians, litigators and CEOs.”
The third lecture — “Brain Secrets for Exercising Your Mind, Your Body and Your Faith for a Complete and Fulfilling Life” — will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 28. The topic will be the first time Carl has ever presented it publicly. In it, he will talk about the hallmarks of active, lively and growing churches, and the need to remain mentally active as a way of improving cognitive function and delaying the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s. He will also explore the differences between the human brain and artificial intelligence (AI).
“Don’t you want to live a happier life? Generally, that comes with knowing your brain and using it correctly, and that’s what the neuroscience in the last lecture is about,” he said.
All three lectures — which are free and open to the public — represent a holistic approach to a complicated topic, but one Carl feels will benefit everyone from medical professionals to local clergy and laity to Maryville College students, faculty and staff. Approaching such a topic from a perspective born of his own work in faith and his own study of medicine serves to demonstrate, he believes, that both can be used effectively for improvements to the health of an individual’s mind, body and faith.
“Science and religion should never be seen as enemies,” he said. “Neither should social justice and evangelism — they’re not left and right the way they are often portrayed in this country. Social justice and evangelism are two sides of the same coin, and Jesus believed we should do both. We should be involved in science and religion, social justice and sharing the good news, because all of them are important for complete lives and healthy communities.”
Copies of two of Carl’s books, Assassin’s Manuscript and The Lord’s Prayer for Today, will be available for purchase in the Maryville College Bookstore, located on the ground floor of Bartlett Hall, prior to the Cummings Conversations. Carl will sign copies of the books following the evening lectures on March 27 and 28 in the William Baxter Lee III Grand Foyer of the Clayton Center. Both books will also be available for purchase on-site during each event while supplies last.