Dennis Hiebert in his office at Providence College.
Beginning in January, Dr. Dennis Hiebert, Professor of Sociology at Providence College, will teach a course on religion from a social scientific perspective at the Eastman Education Centre in Steinbach. “Religion and Society” explores issues that have been important in Hiebert’s own life.
“I have always been a person of faith, a spiritual seeker,” says Hiebert, who spent thirteen years at Providence as athletic director before earning a Ph.D. and beginning the sociology program there fifteen years ago. “After seeking and observing many different kinds of spiritual phenomena, I became intrigued with the complexity of religion.” Hiebert emphasizes that wherever religion or spirituality or faith are present, human psychological, social and cultural factors are also involved.
This was reinforced for Hiebert in 1996 when his pursuit of spiritual encounters brought him to a snake handling worship service in Georgia. “The congregation began to sing a chorus, ‘God knows all about us and he understands.’ At first my thoughts of the snake handlers were very critical. I thought, ‘Yes, God knows about you people; he knows all about these rituals and meanings you have constructed.’ After a moment I realized that God knew all about me too. If God knows all about what the snake handlers constructed, he must know all about what I have constructed too.”
“The social scientific study of religion has nothing to say about the supernatural because science cannot affirm or deny anything spiritual,” says Hiebert, “but science can make all kinds of useful observations about what humans experience as spiritual that are useful to both the believer and the skeptic. There is always a natural dimension to everything that happens to humans. This course will help identify the psychological, social, and cultural dimensions of what is experienced by the individual as purely spiritual.”
For his doctoral dissertation, Hiebert did research on theories of the stages of personal faith. In-depth study of faith development gave him a better understanding of the differences between people of faith. “I realized that the differences between people of faith were not always theological or doctrinal, but often psychological and social. This helped me work through some of my own questions about religion and spirituality. There is always more than one thing going on.”
Hiebert is looking forward to offering “Religion and Society: Social Scientific Perspectives” to the community he calls home. The course will be taught at the Eastman Education Centre in Steinbach on Monday evenings, 6:30-9:15 p.m., from January 5 until mid April. For more information, visit prov.ca.
