The Testimony of the Christian Family as a Response to the Problems of the New Individualistic Spirituality Cover Image

Świadectwo chrześcijańskiej rodziny jako odpowiedź na problemy nowej indywidualistycznej duchowości
The Testimony of the Christian Family as a Response to the Problems of the New Individualistic Spirituality

Author(s): Irmina Nockiewicz
Subject(s): Theology and Religion, Systematic Theology, Pastoral Theology
Published by: Kuria Metropolitalna Białostocka
Keywords: New spirituality; individualism; civil religion; human rights personalism; new evangelisation; family; Neocatechumenal Way; mission ad gentes

Summary/Abstract: New individualistic spirituality was born under the pressure of growing individualism in the society. This religious phenomenon is built on the liberal axiology, predominantly individualistic and charaterised by its selective and inclusive approach to the content of belief. Individualism drives to the sacralisation of own „I”, reinforces self-deification and on religious grounds leads to the hegemony of the self-oriented topics, focused on self-development. This trend finds its expression in the lifestyle combining aesthetic with ethics and in the secular religion of rights.The megatrend of the new individualistic spirituality is a source of many social and religious problems: beginning from the escapism or the indifference and ending with the civil religion of human rights. Christian personalism is its antithesis and therefore a response, since it proposes the dynamics of unselfish gift of self to pull a person out of the individualism and introduce in the community, basically manifested in the family. For this reasons the family is an effective tool for humanising and personalising contemporary society. Christian family is also called to bear witness to Christ and to the Church. Nowadays families have their role to play in the evangelisation under the new form of „mission ad gentes” initiated by the Neocatechumenal Way. Families, formed in the neocatechumenal itinerary, go together with the presbyter in the dechristianised places where they lay the foundations for the new catholic parish. Witness of Christian family’s life is rooted in the union with the Triune God, consequently it becomes a sacrament of God’s presence in the world and an effective tool for the new evangelisation.

  • Issue Year: 34/2016
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 93-108
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Polish