Tożsamość chrześcijańska wobec kultury współczesnej
The Christian Identity Facing Modern Culture

Summary/Abstract: The article considers the issue of how to defi ne the Christian identity in modern culture. Due to the cultural transformations characteristic of modernity it is no longer justifi able to refer in the debates to the traditional concept of Christian identity, around which the social as well as individual life in the medieval Europe was organized. The social and political order established in the Middle Ages (the Christianitas), as well as the inherent concept of Christian identity, have been questioned with the advent of the modern times and the subsequent transformations of the notion of identity as such. However, the new concept of identity which has thus emerged precludes an adequate description of the Christian identity. Despite its appreciation of human individuality and freedom, the modern concept of identity fails to grasp the marks which are emblematic of Christianity, namely, openness to another human being and openness to God. The construction of ‘modern’ identity entails, inevitably, a relativist attitude which may lead to the loss of the meaning of life, the process which is most radically manifested in the modern idea of the ‘death of man.’ A response to the crisis of traditional and modern identities (the former, however, must not be identified with a crisis of Christianity) is the proposed concept of dialogical identity, which not only takes into consideration the contemporary cultural reality, but also incorporates the essence of the Christian message, namely the attitude of being-for-another to the extent of offering one’s life for another, which, in the Biblical sense, is considered as the fulfi llment of the commandment of love.

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