Liberal Quakerism as a Response to the Contemporary Cultural and Religious Diversity Cover Image

Kwakryzm liberalny jako odpowiedź na współczesną wielość kulturowo-religijną
Liberal Quakerism as a Response to the Contemporary Cultural and Religious Diversity

Author(s): Zbigniew Kaźmierczak
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Theology and Religion, Other Christian Denominations
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe ChAT
Keywords: Liberal Quakerism; silence; mysticism; cultural diversity; religious diversity; meeting for worship; pluralism;

Summary/Abstract: Quakerism was established in the mid-seventeenth century as a response to the religious confusion in England of that time. Th e contemporary liberal Quakerism can be seen as an answer to a similar confusion, except that now it extends to non-Christian religions and worldviews. Silence can be a platform for fi nding unity beyond all the religious contradictions, silence that is the essence of Quaker worship. Th e liberal Quakerism can be a model of spirituality that unites various forms of worldviews, because for many decades, such a model has been implemented in it, as it gathered people with diff erent, oft en confl icting worldviews. Meeting people with diff erent worldviews prevents the feeding of superiority towards those who believe otherwise, which unfortunately seems to be the common practice in traditional religions. Th is lets discard the old division between the sacred and the profane, the sacred being the centre of the religious life in the strict sense and the profane not fully belonging to the area of divine infl uence. Th e postulate of Quakerism to focus on experience rather than on doctrine, could change the current, poor interreligious dialogue into the common search for truth.

  • Issue Year: 59/2017
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 509-526
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Polish