Przegląd Religioznawczy – The Religious Studies Review

Zegary czasu starożytnego judaizmu według Aureliusza Augustyna i Maxa Webera

Zbigniew Drozdowicz — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

In these remarks, I will attempt to present the issue of clocks of time used by Aurelius Augustine and Max Weber in the presentation and evaluation of ancient Judaism. These two clocks differ in several ways. The most important differences between them are that Augustine was guided by confessional considerations and Weber by scientific ones during their construction. In the first case, the confessional approach is visible in treating Judaism as a preparation phase for the emergence and popularization of Christianity. In the second case, the development of Judaism is seen as a process that contributed to the fact that Jews became a pariah nation. Both clocks were the subject of polemics and critical commentaries. Nevertheless, it is unquestionable that measuring time might be conducted with clocks constructed differently. The most interesting are those clocks that are able to point out the important aspects of the changing reality. The more varied this reality is, and it is highly varied in the case of religious beliefs and practices, the more difficult it is to construct such clocks of time. Ancient Judaism is a good example of this fact.

Światopogląd chrześcijański wobec naturalizacji religii. Adaptacje, transformacje, negacje

Sławomir Sztajer — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The scientific study of religion creates a considerable challenge to religious communities, including Christian communities and denominations. Since such a study makes religion a subject of scientific explanation instead of perceiving it as a partner of dialogue with science, the religious attitude towards the outcomes of the scientific study of religion requires employing interpretive tools other than those usually used to understand the relation between science and religion. The scientific study of religion takes different forms, but a unique role is played by conceptions that attempt to find the natural foundations and determinants of religious thought and behavior. The results of those attempts – new theories of religion – are popularized, penetrate social consciousness, and are often used as a basis for a worldview according to which religion is nothing more than a purely natural phenomenon. However, in late modernity, reflexivity based on expert knowledge, including scientific knowledge, forces the change of religious thinking and the reorganization of religious action. This article points to three different reactions of Christian tradition to the attempts to naturalize religion, including a decisive rejection of the naturalist worldview as well as various forms of adaptation and transformation of the religious view of the world through introducing naturalist premises.

Katolickie Credo w kontekście dokumentów: Deklaracji z Abu Zabi i Deklaracji końcowej VII Kongresu Przywódców Religii Światowych i Tradycyjnych

Remigiusz T. Ciesielski — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This article is concerned with describing the Catholic Church’s approach to ecumenism in the broadest sense and the consequences that this entails. The Creed, which is the basis of the religious identification of Catholics, can be subject to transformation and subjectivisation. The implications arising from the content of the documents form the basis of the article: Abu Dhabi Declaration and the 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions.

Wschodnie inspiracje w zachodnim religioznawstwie na przykładzie teorii mitu Mircei Eliadego i Josepha Campbella

Andrzej Korczak — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

While responding to the disappearance of the experience of symbols in Western culture, Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell are inspired by Eastern mysticism. It triggers a new look at the content and method of religious studies. It can be expected to have both positive and negative repercussions in Western culture.

„Instytucja Kościoła mnie rozczarowała” – religia w dyskursie prawicowych portali informacyjnych podczas kampanii prezydenckiej w 2020 roku

Stella Grotowska — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This paper examines the discourse of four Polish right-wing news and political commentary services on religion and the Roman Catholic Church. The aim of this text is to identify the contexts in which references to religion occur. It is assumed that media representations of religion, religious practices, and religious institutions demonstrate the social significance and the role of religion. At the same time, those representations either sustain or redefine it. The study is exploratory in nature. It covers the period of the campaign before the 2020 presidential election. The analysis shows that in the discourse of right-wing news portals in the period covered by the study, religion was presented as marginalized in the political, cultural, and social dimensions.

Towards confessional unity: Bulgarian struggle with a difference

Ewelina Drzewiecka — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The paper raises the question of the relationship between the notions of nation and religion in modern Bulgarian culture from the point of view of intellectual history and the history of concepts. It proposes to broaden the field of view by interpreting the idea of religious unity from the perspective of the structures of utopian thinking. Various texts of the Bulgarian intellectuals from 19th and 20th centuries that are devoted to the ideal of national unification by means of confessional unification are brought up in order to historicize and contextualize meanings and discursive practices aimed at annihilating religious differences. The analysis is focused on two concepts/ideas “confession” and “politics.” It is conducted in terms of “the monastic utopia” and “the utopia of politics” by Jerzy Szacki, which seems to have great potential for capturing the ways in which the Orthodox tradition manifests itself in the conditions of local modernity.

Wizja starzenia się, starości i umierania w islamie

Hanna Grzesiak — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The purpose of the article is the analysis of the selected sociocultural aspects and the foundations of Islamic theology in the face of aging, old age and dying. Islamic Source Texts: The Koran and the Hadith recognize God as the Creator of the world who requires man’s complete submission. The elderly are treated with great respect, and old age is seen as one of the stages of life, which is a summary of life. It is also a period that brings a person closer to death. This, in turn, ends this life and is the gate to eternal life. According to Islam, after death, man will be held accountable for all earthly deeds; therefore the stage of old age is a special period in which the individual comes closer to God.

Spór buddystów z taoistami w cesarstwie chińskim

Jakub Kwiatkowski — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The aim of the article is to present and analyze the arguments of the representatives of Buddhism and Taoism, present in the content of two medieval texts. The first is Huahu jing (Huāhujīng 化胡經) or “The Conversion of the Barbarians” from the turn of the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, which presents Buddhism as a tainted version of Taoism intended for Western barbarians and unsuitable for the Chinese. The second analyzed text is Xiaodao lun (Xiaodaolun 笑道論) or “Laughing at the Tao,” a Buddhist response to Huahu jing from the 6th century CE that criticizes Taoist mythology, doctrine, rituals, and religious practices. The analysis of medieval Chinese texts allows us to examine the position and mutual perception of dominant denominations in the Middle Kingdom in the early imperial period. As a result of the research, the relationships between Taoism and Buddhism were recreated.

Pamięć i tajemnica w zbiorowych rytuałach terapeutycznych brazylijskiego candomblé i haitańskiego wodu

Renata Siuda-Ambroziak — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

In the article the author concentrates on an important difference in two contemporary collective therapy rituals involving animal sacrifice in two Afro-Latin-American cults of the same origins: Candomblé in Brazil and Voodoo in Haiti. Looking back at the colonial and early independence context of their evolution in both countries, the author comments on historical, sociocultural factors, which, by influencing collective memory, made Candomblé treat animal sacrifice as something secret or, at least, very discreet, and, at the same time, made Voodoo treat it as an open to all and quite violent public ritual.

Mesjanistyczna koncepcja dziecka a edukacja religijna w systemie pedagogicznym Marii Montessori

Astrid Męczkowska-Christiansen, Janetta Charuta-Kojkoł — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The article addresses the religious and educational contexts of Maria Montessori’s pedagogical system, along with its anthropological and ontological embedding, with a particular focus on the teleological concept of the world and the messianic concept of the child and childhood. The analysis of Montessori’s views on the significance of religious education, which can be read from the perspective of expanded ecumenism, indicates its subservience to the development of the child’s spirituality, understood both in the perspective of self-transcendence and the role to be played by the child in the eschatological process of achieving a world of perpetual peace.

Walter Rauschenbusch – pastor i reformator na miarę czasu? Wyzwania dla ruchu ewangelii społecz-nej w dobie przemian społecznych w Stanach Zjednoczonych Ameryki na przełomie XIX i XX wieku

Sebastian Dama — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Walter Rauschenbusch was an important figure in American liberal Protestantism, the social gospel movement, and American theology. He served for many years as pastor of the Second German Baptist Church in New York and a professor at Rochester Theological Seminary. His most notable work was Society of Christian Social Crisis (1907), in which he set forth his ideological assumptions for Christianity in the United States. These ideas referred primarily to the vision of the Kingdom of God on Earth, which was to be instituted mainly through eliminating social inequalities and facilitated by the spread of love of neighbor and social justice. In addition, they were inspired by the figure and activities of Jesus Christ, whom the American pastor saw not only as a son of God, a prophet, and, before all, as a social activist. Hence, to act effectively, Rauschenbusch created a movement based on Christian socialism, as reflected in the Society of Christian 168 sebastian dama Socialists and later in the social gospel movement, which significantly changed not only Christianity in the United States but also the society of the country.

Europa i jej przyszłość. Filozoficzno-społeczne rozważania papieża Franciszka o Europie

Ryszard Wójtowicz — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Pope Francis presents a vision of Europe and its future in many of his speeches, lectures, exhortations, and encyclicals. In this perspective, Europe should regain its (lost) position with hope and courage, establishing itself on transcendent (Christian) values and practicing solidarity and brotherhood. However, according to the pope, if Europe does not open itself to the “transcendent dimension of life,” it is in danger of “spiritual atrophy” and thus collapse and “the end of Europe.” This article attempts to answer the question: is Europe still an unfinished project (an unfulfilled ideal), or maybe the European Community is a naive utopia that has found itself “facing the end”?

Religia w polityce Rosji w latach 1991–2020. Wybrane zagadnienia

Gracjana Dutkiewicz, Karolina Szydywar-Grabowska — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The article includes considerations devoted to the place and role of Orthodoxy in the socio-political life and foreign policy of the Russian Federation in the years 1991–2020. It presents the attitude of Russians towards Orthodoxy and the Russian Orthodox Church, the attitude of Russian political authorities towards Orthodoxy and the Russian Orthodox Church and the place and role of Orthodoxy and the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia’s domestic and foreign policy. Due to the authority, Orthodoxy and the Russian Orthodox Church are used for political purposes. In the first case, Orthodoxy refers to the tradition of the Russian Empire and is considered a permanent element of state-building. In this message, Russian statehood does not exist without the spiritual and historical achievements of the Russian Orthodox Church. In this context, Orthodoxy serves, among other things, to emphasize Russia’s historical continuity, the unchanging model of its state, legitimization and maintenance of power, justification of Russia’s dissimilarity to other civilizations, or its aspirations to become a great power. In the second case, the Russian Orthodox Church is one of the pillars of strengthening politics and political power, in particular by spreading content consistent with the interests of the ruling elite. It continues, among other things, the age-old tradition of legitimizing political power and its rule and emphasizes the historical continuity of the state as a community of language, culture and religion, while maintaining its conservative values.

Komunistyczny aparat represji wobec ezoteryków i ugrupowań ezoterycznych – zagadnienia metodo-logiczno-źródłoznawcze

Zbigniew Łagosz, Karolina Maria Hess, Tomasz Krok — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The article analyzes the methodological and source-related issues related to the research on the surveillance of esoteric circles by the communist apparatus of repression. The first part is focused on explaining the broad concept of the repressive apparatus, as well as the presentation of the chronology of the institutions that created it. Next, the article explains the use of the term esotericism in the context of academic research and the range of meanings of the term in the study of esoteric groups in the period under study in Poland. It also presents a review of previous studies focused on the subject of the invigilation of esoteric circles. The main part of the article focuses on the arrangement of existing sources for such a large-scale research project, as well as on various methodological problems related to the specificity of the researched archival documents.