Fear: And The Love That Can Only Cast It Out

Fear shuts down part of your brain.

I had a recent conversation with Marshall Ganz, an old friend, veteran organizer, and internationally renowned teacher of organizing at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He said something that struck me deeply in the midst of this stressful presidential campaign-, “Fear shuts down part of your brain.” 

I mentioned this quote at an event in Ohio just days ago. After the event a doctor spoke to me and confirmed this from his own medical experience. 

When people go into an MRI exam, the doctors can see the brain waves change. He said they actually monitor the brain patterns of their patients during the MRI and they can actually see the brain pathways changing, likely because of being in that MRI chamber and fearing the results and the potential outcomes. We had a fascinating conversation and I I asked if he could send me more about how fear literally can change the ways our brains work. He sent me this a day later.

We spoke briefly about the neurobiology of fear, and how functional MRI can actually display the different neuronal (electrical) pathways that are activated in the brain in response to certain stimuli. Without getting overly nerdy and into medical details, the part of the brain most involved with the neural response to fear is the amygdala, and when activated our normal pathways of first processing through the cerebral cortex (the rational thinking parts of our brain) are bypassed. We think this developmentally allows us to react quickly to a fearful stimulus, rather than think through why we might be in danger (fight, freeze, flee). Interestingly, once activated, the amygdala also affects how our brain remembers the response this fear triggered in us.

Of course, the more we study this the more complicated it gets. There are biological, stress hormonal and other background factors in play. But bottom line, there is a neuroanatomical truth to what you said, and to what happens in our brain when we are scared.

In case you were interested, here is a reference to one of the earliest functional MRI studies that showed this, but there have been many replicated since that time.

After speaking in Ohio, I spoke at Hope College, an evangelical Christian school in Holland Michigan. As I travel around the country, I am seeing the very high stress about this election– especially in battleground states.

I have siblings in western Michigan who kindly came to the Hope event, to spend some wonderful time together. Over dinner beforehand, my sister Barb Tamialis, who is an expert on early childhood development told me the same thing– from her experience with both children and adults. The rational part of the brain shuts down when the fear factor comes into play, and fight, flight, freeze takes over. 

The closing arguments of the Trump campaign, and the Republican candidates who have sold out to him– because of their fear of the strongman who promises to keep them in or banish them from power– are all about FEAR. I have been watching all their campaign ads in the swing states when I turn on the news in my hotel rooms in the morning and at night. The Trump and Republican ads are either about the fear of outsiders, with constantly repeated lies about the non-white immigrant “invaders” who are “vermin” and “are poisoning our nation’s bloodstream” and are now taking over our country. Language taken straight from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

And now Donald Trump is stoking more fear by talking about the “enemies from within,” and naming of Democratic elected officials like Congressman Adam Schiff, who oversaw Trump’s impeachment trial and is now running for the Senate, and Nancy Pelosi. Trump  says he might have to use the military to deal with his political rivals. Even Fox News reporters have tried to give their preferred candidate the chance to back away from those extreme statements, but Trump has refused and just doubled down. 

General Mark A. Milley, now retired, but the former Trump appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is now making a very serious statement about this election. Despite being a conservative General, he is now revealing what he learned about Donald Trump from working with him as president. In an interview with Bob Woodward for his just released new book, War, the former top military officer in the United States, found Donald Trump to be “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country.” And as the election nears, Gold Star General, John Kelly, who was Trump’s longest serving Chief of Staff in the White House and the closest person to the former President as he governed, was so concerned when Trump said he would use the military against his domestic opponents that he decided to come out publicly to say he also believes that Donald Trump met the definition of a fascist, and that he would rule as a dictator.

Having no respect for the rule of law, or the constitution– which Trump has said he might have to “terminate”-- and refusing to concede to the proven results of an election with the peaceful transfer of power–which is at the center of our historic continuation of democracy–many Republicans like Liz Cheney and many others are now campaigning for Kamala Harris, despite their differences with her on many policy questions, in order to protect democracy itself, which they now also say is at stake in this election with a dictatorial autocrat seeking absolute power. 

Many Republicans and former Trump officials, including his Vice-President Mike Pence, all decided that the Trump inspired violent insurrection at the U. S. Capitol on January 6, was an attempted coup that could happen again. Trump has now referred to Jan. 6 as “a beautiful day of love,” and has promised to pardon those arrested and imprisoned for their violent acts if he is elected president. But the past Trump administration and former Republican elected officials now supporting Harris have all been banished from the Republican Party, and received many personal threats of their own. General Milley has resorted to more protection at his home, including bullet proof glass windows, as Trump has accused him of treason saying he should be executed.

With all this fear in the air, I turn back to the Scriptures as we always should do but sometimes forget to do.

“God is love and those who abide in love abide in God. and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God.” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

1 John 4:16-21

That God is love is so fundamental to faith–in all religions. And love is the great contrast to fear.

Go to your concordances and then to your own Bibles and take the time to read these Scriptures. Some that jumped out at me right now, for what I need to remember in this stressful election season are:

“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power, love, and self-control.”

2 Timothy 1:7

“I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all my fear.”

Psalm 34:4 

Psalm 27 lays out our political moment for us:

“The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid. When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh–my adversaries and foes–they shall stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war rises up against me, I will be confident…..Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me. And they are breathing out violence. I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord: be strong, and let your heart take courage.”

After reading through the concordances about the subject of fear in the Scriptures, I turned to the Bible to read all the texts. I found that they were mostly all underlined in my personal Bible, and I needed to read them again and ground myself in them. And the 23 Psalm which I repeat most every day says so clearly, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear not evil for you are with me.”

The most ardent religious supporters of Trump, the Christian nationalists like the New Apostolic Reformation militants have themselves become evangelists for the false religion of fear, hate, and violence we see all around us. Some of Trump’s religious supporters are now actually saying that ‘love is too soft” for a time like this, that “loving your neighbor” cannot be applied in this election and we need a strong man to keep our power in this country as white Christians who are losing “our country” and must become “God-appointed warriors” to take it back. 

It is time for all of us now to have those hard conversations with our friends and family who have been turned from the way of Jesus to the way of fear and will for political power to protect us–in these next two weeks before the election. We need to listen to their fears and remind them that God is love. Take the time to explain how  their distorted and deceiving false facts with those fear factors are wrong; but mostly to remind us all that only love can cast out our fears. That’s what we should be talking and praying most about.