Neurotheology and the Biology of Spiritual Experience with Shaleen Kendrick

In this episode of Hunger for Wholeness, Ilia Delio speaks with neurotheologian Shaleen Kendrick about neuroscience, contemplative practice, and the biology of spiritual experience. Shaleen shares her journey from conservative evangelical ministry through deconstruction, suffering, and contemplative prayer into the emerging field of neurotheology.

Together, Ilia and Shaleen explore how religious experience is not separate from the body but mediated through it. They consider how God-language, belief, prayer, trauma, neuroplasticity, and contemplative practice all shape the brain and body—and how changing our images of God can change the very neural pathways through which we experience reality.

Later in the episode, they discuss the resistance many theologians have to locating spiritual experience in neurobiology, the promise and complexity of psychedelics and healing, and the growing scientific evidence that spirituality is an innate human capacity. Rather than reducing God to biology, this conversation asks what becomes possible when we understand the body as the living temple of divine encounter.

ABOUT SHALEEN KENDRICK

Rev. Dr. Shaleen Kendrick, ThD, is an emerging neurotheologian who developed the Neuro-Relational Integration™ (NRI) model—demonstrating how conscious integration across Mind–Body–Spirit neural systems can facilitate rapid adaptive evolution in how we think, act, and relate to ourselves, others, and the challenges of our time. NRI integrates neuroscience with liberation theology to show that through daily wholeness-making practices we can expand our human capacity and create new abilities that nurture not just individual flourishing but transform the systems we live in. She serves companies, practitioners, and faith communities, translating evolutionary spirituality into embodied practice—because the world needs humans who can evolve as quickly as our challenges emerge. This is Human Evolution in Practice.