Psychologia. Religion long forgotten. The importance of religion in education towards civil society

Introduction End of religion? The prophesied epoch of the end of religion did not come, and it is doubtful that it will ever happen. During a ceremony on 14 October 2001 in which the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade was awarded at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt am Main, Jürgen Habermas delivered a speech in which he focused attention on the need for shaping a new attitude towards religion in contemporary culture. By the way, it was shortly after the terrorist attacks by Islamic fundamentalists on the World Trade Center in New York. He described the new attitude as ‘secularization in postsecular society’. It would be erroneous to understand this as resecularisation consisting on the coming back to the separation of state and church or, in broader terms, the public and religious spheres. It seems that what Habermas meant was to draw a conclusion from a substantial conditionality of ‘a postsecular society which adapts to the fact that religious communities continue to exist in a context of ongoing secularization’. Therefore, the new kind of secularisation is neither an antidote to religion nor a tool used for marginalising it from social, political, economic or cultural spheres. Habermas argues that it is quite to the contrary, as beliefs based on faith have the same right to exist in the public space as those referring to the secular worldview. Habermas in his speech put forward an interesting view of the dialogue between the religious and non-religious (secular) spheres from the perspective of observers who consciously distance themselves from religion. Paradoxically, from this perspective they can see damage, if not a gap, threatening secular society. But only if the secular side, too, remains sensitive to the force of articulation inherent in religious languages will the search for reasons that aim at universal acceptability not lead to an unfair exclusion of religions from the public sphere, nor ever secular society from important resources of meaning. Suggesting a dialogue, he demands from non-religious members of society not only an attempt to regard those who have different religious beliefs as equal, but to also understand the arguments presented by them in typically religious language. Furthermore, in order to enable dialogue, the latter should be capable of presenting their opinion in secular language. Only if the rule of reciprocity is kept can the ‘cooperative translation of religious content’ (translation based on Polish) be possible. The dialogue between the religious and non-religious spheres has always been polemical and full of tensions. Thus, Habermas defines the pivotal role of democracy in this way: ‘the neutral state [...] abstains from prejudging political decisions in favour of one side or the other’. In this light, religious impartiality cannot be confused with the state’s inactivity in matters concerning faith; just the opposite – involvement that does not favour one side or the other. The situation presented above provokes reflections on the significance of religion in education for secular civil society. This raises a number of questions. What is the role of religion in the upbringing and education of the young generation? Should interference in religious beliefs be allowed? Is the inheritance of religious traditions needed, and who is responsible for that? Do the church and other religious communities have the right to participate in creating public education? The above list could be extended to infinity. The aim of the editors and authors who submitted their papers for publication was not to provide full characteristics of religion’s contributions to social, political and cultural life. The main concern was to highlight the topicality of the existence of religious questions in broadly understood contemporary discourse on education, culture and politics. In this context it is necessary to reconsider the concept of ‘forgetting’ as it is applied to the presence of religion in individual and social life.

Introduction (Dariusz Stępkowski, Andrzej Murzyn)        7 Part I Basic Concepts Dariusz Stępkowski Non Scholae Sed Vitae: Bildung, Religion and Society in Herbart’s & Schleiermacher’s Pedagogical Theories     19 Andrzej Murzyn The Personalistic Ethics as a Support for the Civil Society     33 Mirosław Patalon Is Process of Theological Education Useful for the Civil Society?     43 Uto Meier Why Democracy Cannot Work without Unconditional Values: On Moral Boundaries and Ethical Guideposts for a Post-secular Generation     53 Dariusz Góra-Szopiński Partnership in Innovation for the Good of Civil Society: A New Conceptual Framework     89 Mariusz Sztaba Postmodernism and Neoliberalism as Modern Ideologies Threatening Today’s Civic Society: An Educator’s Afterthought in Terms of Catholic Church Social Doctrine     97 Part II Practical Approach Toshiko Ito Nuclear Disaster and the Quest for Meaning in the Civil Society: Religion in Japanese Educational Institutions Today      113 Eugeniusz Sakowicz The Resolution of Conflicts and Building Unity: M. Fethullah Gülen’s Pedagogical Proposition      131 Nazila Isgandarova Critical Analysis of Feminist Movements of Azerbaijani Muslim Women during Russian Colonialism      157 Ewa Teodorowicz-Hellman The Place of Christianity in Swedish Primary Schools: Historical Outline and Contemporary Social Discourse      173 Zuzana Svobodová Paideia as Care of the Soul – the Potentials of Contemporary School      191 Katarzyna Wrońska The Polish Family in View of the Idea of a Civil Society     207 Contributors      225