The transformation of the image of God during the development of eating disorders and eventual therapy: a sociological study

Author(s): Dariusz Tułowiecki / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

The text aims to present the image of God – a Higher Power being discovered as part of eating disorder therapy and the changes in the informant within her life. The text is based on empirical material obtained through a case study of a person experiencing eating disorders, who started therapy in an OA group. Her eating disorders took the form of anorexia, addiction to dieting, and bulimia. While attending the group, the respondent goes through the 12 steps of OA, which assume acknowledging one’s powerlessness against eating disorders, discovering a Higher Power which can make one recover, committing one’s life to God – the Higher Power, and building a bond with God through prayer, regardless of the way God is perceived. The case study was conducted by means of a series of interviews with a young woman who declared herself to be a Catholic with a strong distance from the institution of church. She is a believer, occasionally practicing, with a high level of religious tolerance, anti-clerical, for whom God is a relational creature who comes to the rescue and gives acceptance – an idea of a perfect, unconditionally loving father.

Współczesny człowiek modlitwy w kontekście kryzysu antropologicznego

Author(s): Marek Tatar / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2022

One of the manifestations of the contemporary human crisis is prayer. This article addresses this issue in the context of the challenges of civilization. Using the analytical method, the genotypic and phenotypic foundations of prayer are indicated. The key is the experience of Holy Scripture, which is a prayer-sanctifying dialogue. The culmination point of this process is the person of Jesus Christ. In this context, it is necessary to notice and specify contemporary challenges, which are multilayered and multi-faceted. The progress of civilization, which is at the center of modern existence along with increasing apostasy, has placed man at the center of the universe. This has caused a huge anthropological and identity disturbance. The analysis shows that referring to God as Truth in a prayerful interpersonal dialogue can lead to a person regaining his identity.

Kościół przyszłości

Author(s): Michał Jędrzejek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 808/2022

Chrześcijaństwo bez cudowności

Author(s): Michał Jędrzejek,Mateusz Burzyk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 810/2022

Socjologiczne ujęcie zjawiska religii, religijności, duchowości i nowej duchowości

Author(s): Józef Baniak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2 (18)/2021

In this article I present the following three issues: (1) religion – its essence and functions; (2) religiosity – its definitions, parameters and indicators, forms and types, social dimension of religiosity, cultural religiosity, new religiosity; (3) spirituality and religious spirituality. The basis of this article are the references, terms, points of view and reflections of many religious sociologists on all the phenomena included here: religion, religiosity, spirituality and new (religious) spirituality.

Kościoły i parafie diecezji ełckiej (cz. 7)

Author(s): Wojciech Guzewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2023

The article presents parishes and churches: St. John Paul II in Ełk, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Filipów, St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe in Gawrych Ruda, St. Anthony of Padua in Gąski, St. Anna in Giby.

Kościoły i parafie diecezji ełckiej (cz. 6)

Author(s): Wojciech Guzewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2022

The article presents seven parishes and churches from the area of the city of Ełk. They are: Christ the Servant, Bl. Karolina Kózkówna, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of the Apostles, St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, St. Thomas the Apostle, the Holy Spirit and God's providence.

Kościoły i parafie diecezji ełckiej (cz. 5)

Author(s): Wojciech Guzewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2022

The article presents parishes and churches: Our Lady of Częstochowa in Drygały, St. Andrzej Bobola in Dubeninki, St. Adalbert in Ełk (cathedral), the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Ełk and St. Rafał Kalinowski in Ełk.

Religious and National Identity of the Meskhetian Turks in the Conditions of Changing Statehood

Author(s): Agata Nowak / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

Meskhetian Turks are a Turkish-speaking ethnic group, which lived in Georgia until 1944. The origins of this ethnic group is a matter of academic dispute. Since their beginnings, they have been under the influence of many cultures due to their location on the borders of the Christian and the Muslim worlds. In 1944, they were forced to leave Georgia and were displaced and dispersed throughout the territory of the Soviet Union, mainly to Central Asia. There are currently around 350–600 thousand Meskhetian Turks scattered all over the world. They are the only ethnic group which did not gain permission from the Soviet authorities to return to their homeland of Georgia. The deportation is the most tragic event in the history and collective memory of Meskhetian Turks which has directly affected their traditions, their religiousness, and their religious and national identity. The aim of this paper is to analyse how these events and the present situation have influenced and reshaped religious and national identity of Meskhetian Turks as well as their traditions in the Soviet and post-Soviet period.

Zaratusztrianki w świątyniach: miejsca kultu religijnego z perspektywy zaratusztriańskiej diaspory w USA

Author(s): Paulina Maria Niechciał / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2022

In this article, I approach the issue of temple visits by Zoroastrian women living in the USA. I analysed the field material in terms of the motivations and circumstances of these visits. The analysis showed that the women visit both Zarathushtrian places of worship in the immediate area, as well as those located further away, including in their old homelands, although they valorise them differently and motivate the need for such visits differently. Some perform religious practices at temples of other religions.

Miejsca rytuałów współczesnych pogan w Krakowie

Author(s): Joanna Malita-Król / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2022

In the following article I describe ritual places used by four Kraków Neopagan groups (Native Polish Church, Group Mir, Free Rodnovers of Kraków, and Reformed Druids of Gaia Poland). The most important locations include the surroundings of Krakus Mound (along with the Liban quarry below and the ‘sacred circle’ on the opposite site of the quarry) and Grove by the Wilga river. The used sites and their context are analysed, as well as the reasons why a particular place was chosen. I focus on the perspective of my interviewees, using Kim Knott’s spatial analysis and the combination of the three approaches by Belden C. Lane. Based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews with members of the studied groups, I distinguish three categories of reasons (physical; connected to culture and tradition; metaphysical), which show the multidimensional character of the decisions made and many perspectives in which ritual places are perceived.

Antygony polskie i świętość w odczarowanym świecie. Zmiana wzoru kulturowego w relacji do cmentarzy ewangelickich na ziemiach polskich po 1989 roku

Author(s): Jarosław Płuciennik,Marcin Hintz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2022

In this article, the authors set themselves the goal of describing the pattern of civil engagement comparable to that of Antigone in relations with the state on the case study of people associated with the “Anna Foundation”, saving the evangelical (protestant) cemetery in Gostków (Lower Silesia) from the mid-nineteenth century. The area of operation of this foundation is the local communion of multicultural influence. The research method involved reading sources, a series of qualitative interviews with activists and other subjects with “borderline experience”, a description of photographic documentation and an interpretation of the history of modernity. The article is a case study and an attempt to interpret a broader phenomenon of saving cemeteries of various denominations from destruction and oblivion in Poland after 1989. This study contributes to studies on culture and religion, and the philosophical and theological reflection of late post-modernity. In interpreting the phenomenon of civic involvement, the authors use the concepts of “disenchantment of the world”, “rationalisation”, “bureaucratisation” and “the garden state”, as well as “re-enchanting of the world” and “holiness in the secular age”. In the conclusions, the authors propose to correct both the definition of “world enchantment” and the definition of the inevitable secularisation of the world in late (post) modernity. The authors argue that in the time of the post-pandemic crisis and the climate catastrophe, Albert Schweitzer’s “reverence for life” may be an equivalent that is appropriate for the non-rational elements of contemporary culture.

Navigating Islamophobia: the tale of two Polands

Author(s): Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

The paper analyses the Islamophobic and anti-refugee narratives in Poland through the lens of two different modes of patriotism. These two types of patriotism reflect a great division within Polish society – i.e. between openness and aspiration towards EU and closeness and pride from Polish history. Islamophobic and anti-refugee discourse are powerful tools used in contemporary political discourse by the ruling party, yet they exemplify only one of many layers of the division. The paper starts with setting the framework for Islamophobic discourse in Poland, namely lacking post-colonial reflection and cultural homogeneity. It uses the concept of social imaginary to analyse conflicting discourses on Muslims and refugees on three different examples: use of Polish history for as a source of integration vs. defence against allegations; welcoming refugees as European obligation vs. obligation of EU towards Poland, and endorsing multiculturalism vs. Poland as antemurale christianitatis.

Dwa bratanki?

Author(s): Janusz Poniewierski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 817/2023

Zmiany uczestnictwa w niedzielnych praktykach religijnych w diecezjach w Polsce w latach 2004–2018

Author(s): Małgorzata Grzegorczyk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2023

The article describes the dynamics of religious practices on Sundays of Catholics in dioceses in Poland in the years 2004–2018. It aims to present the regional differentiation of the dioceses of the Catholic Church in Poland on the basis of changes in the values of dominicantes and communicantes, and to indicate areas in Poland with similar changes in participation in religious practices on Sundays. A typology of the dioceses was done on the basis of changes in the values of the dominicantes and communicantes indicators from 2004 to 2018, using data from the Institute for Catholic Church Statistics. The results indicate the geographical and historical determinants of the changes – participation in religious practices increased in the dioceses located in the area of the former Congress Kingdom (mostly in its eastern part) and Galicia, and decreased primarily in the dioceses located in the Recovered Territories and Greater Poland.

Religijność a emancypacja w drugiej połowie XIX wieku

Author(s): Łukasz Książyk,Damian Włodzimierz Makuch,Adrianna Karbowiak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2023

„Największym pariasem rodu ludzkiego jest kobieta chrześcijanka” (?)

Author(s): Magdalena Sadlik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2023

The topic signaled by the title is presented on the basis of several journalistic texts: the controversial book Thalitha kumi and articles by “fighting” women, including Cecylia Walewska, Kazimiera Bujwidowa, Iza Moszczeńska, Maria Turzyma, and Maria Czesława Przewóska. The fate of women over the centuries presented in them forms the “history of injustice,” which was blamed on, among other things, Christianity, which had distorted the teachings of Jesus. In the name of fighting forces hostile to progress, emancipatory journalism repeatedly attacked the institutional Church, seen as a bedrock of conservatism, backwardness, and dogmatism.

Anii ̕ 70 în România – perspective socio-politice şi religioase

Author(s): Ovidiu Soare / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2023

The study aims to analyze some socio-political and religious perspectives from the Romanian society of the 70s, a society in full revolutionary momentum, which after a quarter of a century of communism had gained some self-confidence and had managed to motivate its social actions and ideological; at the same time, he had also gained a certain international credibility, having a leadership attentive both to raising the standard of living of working people and to the strict application of party and state directives, for the creation of a multilaterally developed socialist society, in which to find the new type of man, educated in the spirit of Marxist-Leninist teachings. On the other hand, the Romanian Orthodox Church was present in the social and cultural life of Romanian society, through actions in accordance with Christian traditions and ordinances established over the centuries, despite the specific pressures of the communist society of those times. For a modern observer, the Romanian society of the 70s seems like a paradox. He sees a society in which both Marxist ideologies and Christian teachings and ordinances existed, of course with manifestations and intensities specific to each of them, specific to those times.

Çağdaş Dünyada Kutsalın ve Mitlerin Dönüşümü: Post Modern Kutsallık ve Yansımaları

Author(s): Şerif Esendemir,Melek Akgün / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 51/2023

Towards the end of the 20th century, the modern positivist paradigm lost its influence, and with the hermeneutics paradigm coming to the forefront, the position of religion and the sacred in social life began to be questioned again within the scope of the secularization thesis, which is one of the building blocks of modernism. The focus of these inquiries has been on how the function of religion in the public sphere has changed in the modern period and how the secularization thesis has become functional. However, in the 20th century, the postmodern critiques of the hermeneutics paradigm have reversed the hypothesis that religion and the sacred will disappear in modern society, which is the main argument of the secularization thesis. The idea of modernism defined life as a public sphere that distinguishes between the sacred and the secular sphere, ansd that the moral values and forms of worship shape the sacred, while the secular is a public space that includes politics, economy, science, education, etc. The distinction between the sacred-secular and the religious-irreligious, which emerged because of this radical and structural separation of modernism, was questioned again with its post-modernism approach that emphasizes pluralism and differentiation. The continuation of the existence of sacredness that is defined as post-modern sacred or secular sacred today, which emerge in different forms and structures because of the consumer culture created by globalization as “popular culture spirituality”, has been crucial in making sense of the transformation of the sacred from modernism to post-modernism In parallel, myths, which were accepted as religious and sacred narratives in the early ages, have reappeared in the emergence of secular holiness in the postmodern world, although they have been characterized as surreal narratives in the modern period. In this context, in this study, the transformation of mythical thought and the sacred in the processes of modernization, secularization and postmodernization around the basic arguments of modernism and post-modernism ideas is discussed and the effect of mythological view and mythological elements in the emergence of post-modern and secular sacredness in contemporary societies is examined.

Biological turn a socjologia religi

Author(s): Kamil M. Kaczmarek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2022

The article presents some examples demonstrating the potential benefits that the sociology of religion can obtain from including a sociobiological perspective. The question posed by biologists about the evolutionary meaning of religion for human societies allows us to return to the question of the social functions of religion, which in turn sheds new light on the issue of secularization. The signaling theory used by sociobiologists to explain religious rituals reframed in the context of the relationship between – religious organizations and the faithful benefitting from their services, allows us to take into account an additional mechanism that explains the observed relationship between the number of religious staff and demographics.