Free Lecture to Integrate Science and Spirit

Margaret M. Poloma, who has written extensively about religious experience in contemporary American society, will speak about “Integrating Science and Spirit: A Sociological Journey” in a free Pascal Society Lecture Tuesday, Jan. 26, at 7 p.m. in Hieronymus Lounge.

Poloma, who earned her doctorate in sociology from Case Western Reserve University, is professor emerita and research professor at the University of Akron, where she served on the faculty from 1970-1995. She uses her personal story and professional research to provide an account of how she perceives the Holy Spirit at work in integrating experiences of her spiritual life with her work as a social scientist.

“While social science has been firmly embedded in modernist culture and resistant to the possibility of spiritual influences on behavior, recent postmodern perspectives have provided a framework for seeing God as an agent in social interaction,” she says.

Poloma has pioneered studies of prayer and divine healing. She says her new interdisciplinary project focuses on “godly love, the dynamic interaction between divine and human love that enlivens benevolence.” She is a principal investigator for the three-year longitudinal study “The Flame of Love: Scientific Research on the Experience and Expression of Godly Love in the Pentecostal Tradition,” which is funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Many of her publications have focused on Pentecostal spirituality, including “Charismatic Movement: Is There a New Pentecost?” “The Assemblies of God at the Crossroads: Charisma and Institutional Dilemmas,” “Main Street Mystics: The Toronto Blessing and Reviving Pentecostalism” and “Blood and Fire: Godly Love in a Pentecostal Emerging Church” (with Ralph Hood).