This is an argument with an idea that faith and religious practices are fading away, the influence of the Church on the life of society is coming to an end, and that it is a process that is inevitable and irreversible. The author shares Jose Casanova’s pro-position that the ever increasing dechristianization of the hitherto Christian societies seems to be more of a hypothesis than an empirical fact. Moreover, on the one hand, he puts forward questions about the positive sense of the process of secularization that has been wearing down European Christianity for three centuries now, and on the other, he recalls cases, described in the Bible and known in the history of the Church, of a dramatic depopulation of God’s people. And the question, whether we are to expect an increase of the secularization process, rather than its reversal, he answers with the following, specifically Polish, 17th century, formula: Fortuna variabilis, Deus mirabilis (the world goes round at random, and God is admirable!).

Secular processes are one of the reasons of the contemporary cultural crisis. They influence many aspects of individual and social life which is reflected in the sphere of art. Artistic activity is not only a picture of human existence, but also an expression of longing and desire for what exceeds wordliness. Great masterpieces, in spite of being created many centuries ago, confirm this, as they do not stop to delight us because their creators were inspired by the beauty of Christian faith. The contemporary depar-ture from God takes different forms – from securalizatiom which radically denies the supernatural reality to desecularization with its “new spirituality”, being quite often an indefinite spiritualism in the New Age style. In this perspective, sacred art, instead of surrendering to the secularization pressure, should find its new identity as an im-portant element of the new evangelization. Art as via pulchritudinis is to continue to fulfill its evangelizing mission for modern man who so often loses his way to God. It will then become for us a meaning full of hope which human life receives from the mystery of Christ’s redeeming love.

One of the consequences of the incorporation of Warmia into the Kingdom of Prussia was the growing secularisation of the entire region. The lands belonging to the bishop of Warmia and his canons became the property of the state. The Prussian Partition enabled Protestants to settle in the areas which had previously been domi-nated almost entirely by Catholics. State authorities tried to meet the expectations of Protestants already in the 18th century by employing school headmasters and religion teachers in the towns of Warmia. Frederick the Great issued a decree that allowed holding religious services in local town halls. Some rooms in the castles were also adapted for the purpose. However, along with the increase in population, there was a growing demand for new church buildings, parish houses and schools. Necessar financial support came from the Prussian king Frederick William III, who suggested that the so-called secularisation fund, available after the dissolution of the Neuzelle monastery in Brandenburg, be assigned to this end. Building of new churches was entrusted to the State Construction Commission, led by a distinguished architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel.

Prezentowany artykuł jest zachętą do podjęcia refleksji nad festiwalami, wid-zianymi nie jako okazje do celebrowania czegoś lub formy transgresji, lecz raczej jako „gry” znaczeń i komunikacja. Folklor jest dla autora prawdziwym laboratorium, w którym obserwować można codzienne życie. Dla zilustrowania swoich analiz przy-tacza przykłady karnawału w Binche (Belgia) i Święto Pracy (1-Maja), interpretując je zgodnie z koncepcją „gry” amerykańskiego antropologa Gregory’ego Batesona, który stosował ją do opisu gry zwierząt podczas walki. Prowadzi to autora do silnego podkreślenia drobnych detali zachowań, które zawsze mają znamię pewnej negacji, charakterystycznej dla kontekstów rytualnych .

For at least two centuries Europeans, in particular the political elites of Europe, have assumed that modernity and the rational character of the civilization require a marginalization of religion. A separation and juxtaposition of reason and faith, sci-ence and religion or the state and the church are regarded as almost obvious. Gradual-ly the legitimate principle of religious freedom has started to be understood as a pos-tulate of “purification” of public life from any references to sacrum and religion itself as an area of irrational and random opinions has been located in the private sphere. This has led to the conviction that religion (Christianity) does not have or should not have any significance in social life, the public order, the legal system or the widely understood political sphere . The central issue of the paper, which is the possibility of reversing the direction taken by European civilization, is conditioned not only by making the secularist policy of the West more friendly towards Christian tradition (for instance by grounding it on natural law) but still more by the revitalization of religious life of the Churches and Christian communities.

Pluralism and multiculturalism are new terms in biblical studies . Pluralism used in social sciences means a conditio of society in which members of diverse ethnic, racial, religious or social groups maintain their unique cultural identities. Multicultu-ralism focuses on interactions between different groups and communities within the confines of a common society. This paper aims at analysing the practice and models of pluralism in the Bible and the evaluation of pluralism in the biblical context (from separatism in the Abraham days until the multicultural Christian community in the first century). Christianity existed as a pluralistic community from the beginning. Paul the Apostle presents the Church as the body of Christ and interactions within the Chri-stian community consisting of Jews and Gentiles are illustrated by relations between members of the body. The mission of the Church is based on various models of incul-turation (contextualisation). All of these models intersect with one another in different ways. Pluralism in the biblical studies manifests itself also in the use of different Bible translation strategies and various methods of biblical exegesis and interpretation.

Szybka sekularyzacja, często przeradzająca się w wojującą ideologię, która usiłuje opanować wszystkie sfery życia społecznego i usunąć elementy chrześcijańskie z życia publicznego, dotyka wiele krajów. Zmiana tradycyjnych wartości i zasad, nowe antropologie, pytania o sens życia i miejsce Kościoła w społeczeństwie pluralistycz-nym to wyzwania, jakie stają dzisiaj przed chrześcijanami i domagają się odpowiedzi. Czy współcześni chrześcijanie mają coś do zaoferowania na współczesnym areopa-gu? W pierwszych wiekach, stanowiąc mniejszość, chrześcijanie nie tylko upominali się o swoje miejsce w społeczeństwie, ale także wskazywali na swój wkład w jego dobrobyt i funkcjonowanie. Po tzw. Edykcie Mediolańskim starali się wpływać na prawodawstwo, aby nadać mu ewangelicznego ducha. Nie zawsze było to możliwe i nie zawsze udało się zachować granicę państwo-Kościół. Niemniej jednak starano się zachować zasadę “Co Cesarza – Cesarzowi, a co Boga – Bogu”. W grę wchodziła słuszną autonomia w stosunkach pomiędzy Kościołem i państwem.

Interpreting the Gospel parable of the Prodigal Son and the Loving Father (Luke 15:11–32), J. Ratzinger/Benedict XVI shows the essence of the biggest problems of modern (particularly Western) society. The younger son’s journey to remote places, far from his father, symbolizes the fundamental gap between the present and God, which - although promising a happy and independent life – turns out to debase him. Blind questioning of the existing order (including the order of Creation!), an apotheosis of variability and a priori assumption of the new-over-the-old superiority, inevitably lead to confusion, with relativism becoming a “moral” reference and criterion for every action. Finally: bitterness and a protest generating violence, emptiness looking for satisfaction in drug-induced ecstasy, men seen as destroyers and enemies of nature. The only solution is a spiritual battle and metanoia – a return to the Father.

The new challenges for Polish theology in the beginning of the 21st c. in the context of possession and exorcism include a theological reflection on possession and exorcism in the Bible, in patristic texts as well as in medieval and modern theological literature. Another issue is an elaboration of a new theological anthropology, which should acknowledge the achievements of human sciences like psychology and psychiatry. The existence of the psychic sphere in the human being is to be distinguished while the human spiritual sphere is to be convincingly justified. More precise criteria will be needed in order to distinguish psychic problems from those of a spiritual nature, including possession.

This paper not only clarifies the concepts of secularism and secularization, but also analyzes them, and in its final part it evaluates them. The phenomenon of secu-larism is defined as an ideological and active attitude of hostility toward everything that is Christian. In turn, secularism, quite strongly associated with the current form of culture of societies and their development, is seeking autonomy and freedom. Rad-ical (sometimes irresponsible) secularization thesis of the Protestant (R. Bultmann, K. Barth, D. Bonhoeffer, E. Fuchs, F. Gogarten, G. Vahanian, P. van Buren, W. Ham-ilton, Th . J. Alitzer, J.A.T. Robinson, D. Sölle, W. Pannenberg) mind has been adopted by most Catholic theologians with a reasonable reserve. Catholic doctrine accepts the autonomy of temporal realities and a specifically understood process of profanation of the world (constructio mundi and consecratio mundi). However, the fact that different sectors of earthly life are governed by their own relevant laws, does not mean that the created things are totally independent of God, or that man can dispose of them freely and without any relation to the Creator (K. Rahner, J. B. Metz, P. Teilhard de Chardin, M. D. Chenu, J. Danielou, G. Thils, Ch. Duquoc, J. Maritain, H. de Lubac, Y. Congar, Cz. Bartnik, A. Skowronek, A. Nossol, J. Mariański). The position of the Catholic Church on this matter is contained in the conciliar Constitution Gaudium et Spes.

Secularity is a historical product of modern ages that signaled a diminishing role of transcendence in public as well as individual life, changing effectively the common understanding of key social institutions: economy, state, knowledge, the family, religion. It may take on the form of a neutral lack of transcendence in public life and personal orientation (secularization); it can also appear as an active ideological presence – an ambitious project to remove any reference to transcendence from public life in view of creating “a religion free zone” (secularism). In the first case secularity comes about as a result of a civilization process of subtraction, in which religion melts under the pressure of modern technology, science, economy, a new philosophical orientation, and political frameworks. In the second one, it assumes the form of a bellicose ideology which implies a specific agenda of actions against religion. Secularity came into being as an outcome of philosophical, cultural and political shifts that strived to free individuals from being subjects of the old moral order, and make them inde-pendent autonomous agents that live in the unprecedented conditions of novus ordo seculorum and secular, ordinary time.

The presented paper describes the phenomenon of secularisation and secularism in the culture of Western Europe, and attempts to identify its sources. The first point of the paper, The meaning of secularization and secularism, explains secularisation as a social process in which religion or, more strictly, religious institutes, religious behaviour, and religiously inspired conscience, are gradually losing their control over many fields of social activity such like education, arts or politics. Secularisation can be labelled as a philosophy of life “as if there were no God”, or a kind of ideology that tries to justify not only the very fact of secularisation but declares it a source and norm for human progress and demands the proclamation of man’s absolute autonomy in shaping his own destination. Among many philosophers who have influenced development of secularisation and secularism two stand out: R. Descartes (second point) and F. Nietzsche (third point). In the philosophy of Descartes one can identify at least four sources of modern secularism. These are: his concept of philosophy, theory of cognition with the resulting departure from classical concepts of truth and rationality and development of alternative ones, Cartesian metaphysics and the arguments for the existence of God and his concept of the nature of God evolving from those arguments. The last part of the article presents Nietzsche’s move away from the faith in Christian God and his turn to atheism. At least three fundamental causes for Nietzsche’s radical autosecularisation can be discerned: the emotional religion of his home, his disbelief in the authenticity of the Bible and his growing familiarity with the philosophy of Schopenhauer.

Po początkowym wyjaśnieniu i problematyzacji pojęcia sekularyzacji, autor przechodzi do różnych przyczyn procesu sekularyzacji, stwierdzając, że jego siła napędowa ma również chrześcijańskie korzenie. Na tej podstawie zostaje w części trzeciej artykułu przedstawiona i uzasadniona postawa, jaką Kościół powinien zająć wobec sekularyzacji, aby zarówno siebie nieustannie nawracać do Ewangelii Chrystusowej, jak też, aby móc ewangelizować również współczesnych ludzi. Jako jeden z najważniejszych punktów określony zostaje respekt wobec autonomii każdego dzisiejszego człowieka, który jest ściśle związany z uznaniem godności każdej istoty ludzkiej. W ramach wniosków zostają w końcowej części określone konsekwencje, które są pomocne w wyjaśnieniu szeregu kontrowersyjnych pytań wewnątrz Kościoła.