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The dynamic secularisation of Polish young people and the fact that many of them are opt­ing out of religious classes prompts a critical analysis of the current model of Religious Education and the development of proposals that respond to contemporary socio-cultural challenges. In others words this article will seek to outline potential directions for modifying the current Religious Education model intended for secondary school students in Poland. This paper attempts to provide a synthetic answer to the following questions: Why is Religious Education in secondary schools today not leading to the expected results? What elements of it are inadequate for contemporary conditions? What should the model of Religious Education for young people look like in the context of a decline in religiousness? Where and how should catechesis be provided? This paper contributes to the discussion on the shape of Religious Education for young people in a changing society.

The aim of this contribution is to reflect on the relation between religion and morality. An overview of the different theories of the origin of morality is provided. According to Blanchard, there are four traditional ways in which the origin of morality can be explained: (1) origin from nature, (2) origin from ourselves, (3) origin from culture and (4) origin from an objective moral law. The last instance creates the possibility for religion to be identified as the origin of morality. In reflecting on the relation between religion and morality one realises that the question that needs to be discussed is whether religion is indeed the provider of morality or not. It is also necessary to determine if religion is the guarantor for morality. The aim of this contribution is to reflect on the relation between religion and morality. An overview of the different theories of the origin of morality is provided. In reflecting on the relation between religion and morality one realises that the question that needs to be discussed is whether religion is indeed the provider of morality or not. It is also necessary to determine if religion is the guarantor for morality. What happens in a secularised society? Is it still possible for morality to exist in a secularised society? It is clear from an understanding of secularisation as differentiation – the separation of spheres – religion and morality can be separated and can exist independently in a secularised society. The influence of the evolution theory by Charles Darwin led to a new way of understanding the nature of morality. Some reflection on the influence of evolution on morality is presented here. One prominent recommendation resulting from this investigation is to emphasise that religion can provide the morals for morality. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This contribution reflects the intersection of anthropology, philosophy, religion studies and ethics. The discussion is based on a philosophical reflection on the relation between religion and morality.

In the recent decade quite a few countries and regions legalised physician assisted death. While palliative care is already or becoming the standard end of life care in many countries, the increased availability of physician assisted death coupled with the secularisation of hospice in more settings require – where this has not happened yet – a clear response of palliative care specialists to patients’ requests for physician assisted death. The paper analyses the World Health Organisation’s current description of palliative care with a special focus on its prohibition of hastening death. Some palliative care professionals do not agree with the ban on hastening death, and these professionals’ non-conventional interpretation of palliative care actually seems to meet the wishes of some patients.

As a result of the process of secularisation, Christians in Europe are increasingly becoming a minority. Therefore, European churches are challenged to develop appropriate innovative models of contextualisation for the gospel instead of swerving into nostalgic retrospection or uncritically adopting theological approaches from other continents. This article presents the contextual pole of such a model, which consists of three areas: aesthetics, ethics and ecclesiology; they match people's aesthetic and ethical needs, and their desire for truth, manifested in the search for the legitimacy of one's actions in a group. Each area is assigned an adequate theological source that enables contextual correlation: aesthetics, the ambiguous imagery from Revelation; ethics, the theology of mission of the First Letter of Peter; and ecclesiology, the call to the disciples in Matthew 5 to 'be salt and light'. This ideal-typical model perceives the increasing aestheticisation of society as a dominant cultural feature and uses it as a starting point for a process of contextualisation. The context pole is determined by the anthropological dynamic which leads from the 'beautiful' to the 'good' and from the 'good' to the 'true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides a theological analysis of the figure of Hugo Grotius, one of the founders of the modern international law, who had a great influence for the peace-process in the last time of the Thirty Years’ War. He also played a role in the European history of the Enlightenment and secularisation eras. In our time analysis of Grotius’s heritage is connected with new liberal understanding of religion in the spirit of tolerance, as well as with the connection between religion and politics. Grotius recommends to build a foundation of law and peace without any use or misuse of the name of God — could it be helpful also in our time? The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer expected a non-religious time, but we have to see a growing influence of religion for political decisions and in consequence a growing mistrust against religion in the secular society. But it gives also an overview about new literature to Grotius and about his life and works and his significance in contemporary theological discussions. A short point is the reception of Grotius in the Russian tradition. The article is based on the report made at the historical conference devoted to the Thirty Years War (Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 2018).

The objective of the article was to critique two cognitive strategies used by both proponents of Christian and secular moralities to justify an exclusionary relationship between them, thus contributing to the conflict between them. They are the cognitive strategies of foundationalism and incompatibilism. The objective was also to resume a critical discussion of these two strategies in Wentzel van Huyssteen’s publications. The method followed was, first, to provide a historical reconstruction of the relationship between Christian faith and the secular and, second, a critical analysis of Richard Dawkins’ foundationalist view of secular morality and Stanley Hauerwas’ incompatibilist view of Christian morality. Findings were that influential views of a positive relationship between Christian faith and secular morality are found in history, and that the foundationalist view of Dawkins and the incompatibilist view of Hauerwas are both untenable and contextually inappropriate. This led to the conclusion that there is no justification for the view that Christian morality and secular moralities necessarily exclude one another. The remaining challenge to find an alternative approach that would allow for a more positive relationship between these two moralities and provide guidance on adaptations they need to make was also identified. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The Christian ethical research undertaken in the article drew on research findings in the fields of Christian Ethics, Church History, philosophy, evolutionary ethics and psychology. Research results present Christian and philosophical ethics with the challenge to find an acceptable alternative for the problematic foundationalist and incompatibilist approaches.

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The development of Administration from the pre-modern „Empire" to the modern „State" is analyzed in three steps. Firstly, this paper examines 12 characteristic elements which distinguish the distinct, modern bureaucrat as a type from the multifaceted „servants" of pre-modern rulers. Secondly, the paper compares 13 typical differences between premodern empires and modern states, which also ultimately reveal plurality or unity. Thirdly, on the basis of this double typology a three-level theory of state building has been developed. The micro-level concerns the individual and collective will for power, whereas the socio-cultural macro-level refers to the capitalist marketeconomy, to the cultural heritage of the ancient Roman Empire and in that context to Latin Christianity. The meso-level of political systems is characterized by the rise of competing power centres in wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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It is now 49 years since Johan Heyns’s Sterwende Christendom? [Dying Christendom] was published (1969) in which he traced the history of secularisation and its impact on the theology of his time and 36 years since the publication (1982) of the first volume of his Teologiese etiek [Theological ethics] in which he discussed the impact of secularisation on ethics. In this article, the topic of the impact of secularisation on Christian ethics is revisited. Account is taken of research conducted on the secularising impact of modernisation since then. Although empirical research points to the fact that it is not true that modernisation inevitably leads to the complete demise of religious faith and ethics, and also not that there is today absolutely no room for religious influences in the different social orders, it does not mean that it is a case of business as usual for Christian ethics. It cannot be denied that modernisation has a significant effect on the shape of Christian ethics in the contemporary world. And it can also not be denied that in most contemporary liberal democratic societies, including South Africa, the public role of Christian ethics is restricted. Some of the challenges – and opportunities – present-day realities pose to South African churches and their members are identified and discussed. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: On account of the pluralising and fragilising impact of modernisation on Christian faith, the discipline of Christian ethics should today criticise the absolutising of Christian ethical beliefs and encourage Christians to actively support consensus seeking on moral values in the workplace and in society.

The Dutch Reformed Church (Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk) is in transition because of the influences of the more recent South African epochs of democratisation, Africanisation and globalisation. The histories of these epochs extend over more than 20 years and have had a significant influence on the church. The Dutch Reformed (DR) Church changed institutionally because its place and influence within society changed considerably as a result of political and social transformation since 1994. The ongoing process of Africanisation that accompanies these transformations brings certain reactions to the bosom of the church via the experiences of its members. Most are Afrikaners being more inclined to westernised social frames of reference. Ironically, these people are more susceptible to the effects of globalisation, especially secularisation, which transposes the religious set-up of the DR Church into an open and individuated system. These developments pose major challenges to the DR Church in the sense that it has to reconsider how it approaches society, what it can contribute to the ecumenical church, why it is necessary to reflect on its denominational identity and what its academic, theological endeavours in these regards entail.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article has an interdisciplinary scope because the multiplicity of the present-day calls for interdisciplinary academic reflection. For the purpose of this article, Church Historiography helps to systemise recent ecclesiastical developments within the DR Church. To clarify the influences of these developments on the DR Church, sociological premises are incorporated to describe them within a broader social context. References to the conducted empirical study serve to explain respondents� (members of the DR Church) social and religious constructs regarding these ecclesiastical and sociological phenomena.

Les relations entre l’Eglise et l’Etat en Belgique et aux Pays-Bas furent longtemps déterminées par un compromis historique établissant une paix larvée entre les forces politiques prônant la « liberté scolaire » et celles défendant la laïcité, de facto les valeurs de la Révolution française. A l’origine, il s’agissait essentiellement d’une lutte visant le contrôle de l’éducation publique et le rôle des congrégations religieuses dans l’organisation de l’enseignement. Ceci avait ensuite conduit à une segmentation accrue de la société en « piliers » gérant leurs propres réseaux sociaux dans un système communautaire subventionné par l’Etat et dont les élites décidaient entre elles des modalités à suivre. Avec la déconfessionnalisation et l’expansion économique inf luençant de plus en plus les rapports humains, cette organisation de la société a perdu sa signification et a conduit à la disparition plus ou moins complète des "piliers".

Pope John Paul II, following in the steps of his predecessors, strongly advocated the critical appraisal of the influence of culture on people’s spirituality. This article responds to his directive by seeking to develop an interpretation of how and why contemporary spirituality has changed that will better inform the work of religious educators in Catholic schools. A number of constructs like secularisation, privatisation of religion etc. have been used to describe the significant change in spirituality of many of the young people in Australian Catholic schools over the last 50 years from a more traditional religious spirituality to something that is more secular, eclectic and individualistic. To some extent, this change has been acknowledged; but the religion curricula in Catholic schools still give the impression that all of the students are, or should be, regular church goers – as if Sunday mass attendance was to be the end point of their education in spirituality. An interpretation of change in spirituality in terms of change in cultural meanings has been developed for the purpose of understanding contemporary spiritualities in other than a deficit model. Such an interpretation may be more persuasive in getting Catholic education authorities and religious educators firstly to accept, rather than condemn or ignore, the significant change in contemporary spiritualty; and then secondly, to take steps to address this change positively and constructively in the Catholic school religion curriculum. This article is concerned with the first step – understanding contemporary spirituality; it is intended that the second question will be considered in a follow up article.

La Révolution française contraignit de nombreux monarques européens à choisir entre le fondement théorique de leur autorité et l’exercice pratique de cette autorité. Georg Forster, voyageur et philosophe cosmopolite, observe et analyse cette situation, en accordant une place importante à l’analogie entre les mouvements du peuple et de grandes forces naturelles irrésistibles, qui ne semble plus laisser place aux figures d’autorité traditionnelles.

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Copyright of Sozialer Sinn is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

With reference to the religious and ideological changes in the GDR we opt for a specific approach to the analysis of secularization processes that goes beyond the conceptualization of the East German secularization process as mere repression. Based on research among East German families, our argument is that an important element of this process was the successful introduction of an interpretational frame that constructs a non-reconcilable conflict between politics and religion, as well as between science and religion. Our hypothesis is that the success of the secularization process in the GDR is closely interrelated with this conflictive framework. Our data indicate three levels of this conflict: about membership, world interpretation and ethics. These conflicts did not remain on the level of repression alone, but acquired subjective plausibility for much of the population. Consequently our approach is based on a general theory of conflict; it is historically grounded; and it takes its starting point from the perspectives of laypersons in the religious-ideological field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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