Rationality, Humility, and Spirituality in Christian Life

As Euro-American culture turns resolutely away from religiosity toward spirituality and becomes increasingly post-Christian, the ordinary, everyday practice of Christian life is ever more questioned and in need of scrutiny. In this interdisciplinary analysis, Christians are first called to comprehend the excessive rationality that modernity has built into both the cognitive and organizational structure of contemporary Christian life. They are then summoned to personify an authentic attitude of humility, and in particular, the virtue of intellectual humility that is most challenged and tested by religious convictions. Going forward, Christians are subsequently invited to live their faith more as an internally differentiated and open spirituality, rather than an externally determined and regulated religiosity. When we exhaust our rationality and are confronted with its limitations, we are humbled by our finitude and animated by our spirituality.

Dennis Hiebert, PhD, is Professor of Sociology and Department Head of Arts and Sciences at Providence University College in Canada. Author of numerous academic articles on the intersection of sociology and Christianity, he is also editor of the Journal of Sociology and Christianity, and past president of the Christian Sociological Association. His mission is to separate the purely Christian from the merely cultural as much as possible, while granting that it is never entirely possible. Dennis and his wife live in southern Manitoba and have two adult sons.