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EN
The religiosity of Poles has been undergoing a far-reaching transformation for several years. All the research shows that less than half of the Polish society could be described as “the believers – practitioners”. The vast majority of Poles are people whose faith has individualized and is not strongly associated with the institution of the Catholic Church. In addition – as indicated by the described research – the moral assessment of another person is not related to the fact of his religiousness. The people live – to use Weber’s terms – in the disenchanted world in which they do not need clerics as interpreters of the reality.
EN
This article applies the perspective of historical-sociological semantics to examine the changing meanings of secularisation and pluralisation in relation to changing realities. This approach here makes it possible to analyse and distinguish several other concepts of the sociology of religion that can be used to take a more differentiated look to the often all-encompassing application of the concept of secularisation, which both embraces and diminishes Weber’s multidimensional concept of ‘disenchantment’ (Entzauberung). Drawing on Niklas Luhmann’s concepts of ‘segmentary differentiation’ and the ‘surplus effect’, the author attempts to formulate a radically different sociological concept of religion based not on a substantive definition of its sacred content but on the historical sociology of action, whereby religion can be interpreted through its specific focus on ‘meaning’ as a particular type of social relationship and its corresponding ‘chance’ (Weber) of understanding. Other cultural (and political) phenomena of modern society (confessionalism, political theology) whose applicability and effect are not explained away or exhausted/voided by the secularisation theory can also be analysed as ‘religious’. To provide these phenomena with a context the author uses the term ‘religious culture’ to aggregate of everything people of a particular period know and think about their religion, how they evaluate it, and to what degree they identify with it. The pluralisation of religion can then be demonstrated not just on a surface level (for instance, in term of the rise of new sects, client cults, and cult movements, participation in various spiritual and esoteric activities), but more generally as the potential or real presence of specifically religious phenomena in the public space and as a particular type of social relationship: both between actors reciprocally, and between actors on the one hand and institutions on the other, and finally also between institutions.
EN
The fiftieth anniversary of Sociologický časopis (since 2001 Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review) provides an ideal opportunity to discuss the presence and achievements of the sociology of religion in the most important Czech sociological journal and to contribute to the historical, theoretical, and methodological analysis of Czech sociology of religion itself. The author provides a summary of all the articles, reviews, and information on the topic published in the journal and shows that, regardless of its importance within Czech sociological discourse at the various stages in the development of the discipline, the sociology of religion has generally had only a limited presence in the journal over the years, for both internal (sociologists of religion were not considered ‘core members’ of the sociological community) and external reasons (fear of what was considered a ‘problematic’ topic during the communist era and the non-existence of ‘untarnished’ students of religion after the collapse of the communist regime). The situation changed only recently, broadly speaking in the last decade, as younger generations seized the initiative and research on religion became a standard part of the Czech sociological mainstream. However, only a small number of contemporary sociologists of religion publish articles in the journal and, consequently, this sub-discipline is still far from being a consistent presence in its pages. The limited degree to which Czech sociology of religion has established itself in the pages of Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review thus raises fundamental questions about the nature of the discipline, its students, and the broader sociological environment.
EN
The article focuses on the relationship of religionisity and subjective satisfaction, a problem that has recently become one of the topical themes of social sciences. The author on the one hand presents the great expectations that the society (even non-religious) puts in the "satisfactory" role of religion, and on the other hand their factual unfulfillment, or better to say the minimum real influence of (non-)religiosity upon the subjective contentment.
EN
Fr. prof. Władysław Piwowarski is known in Poland and abroad primarily as a sociologist of religion. His sociological works are an important component (one would like to say – classic) of the Polish sociology of religion, they have determined and still determine its development. Most of them closed a certain stage in the development of the sociology of religion in Poland and opened a new one. Today it would be difficult to imagine a thorough study of religiosity without taking into account the sociological achievements of Fr. prof. Piwowarski. In this study, we will only focus on selected aspects of his concept of the sociology of religion (sociology of religion as a sociological subdiscipline), religiosity as a subject of sociological research, methodological problems of the sociology of religion). We ignore his scientific achievements in the fields of sociology of morality, social philosophy, Catholic social science and pastoral theology.
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EN
In my article I would like to look at the phenomenon of post-secularism from the point of view of sociological research of social trends. I generally understand post-secularism as a return to religious values and religious thinking in various areas and levels of social life. I would therefore like to ask whether post-secularism can be said to be one of the contemporary trends, and if so, what would be its characteristics and whether it can be described as a micro- or megatrend. After all, both leading microtrend researcher Mark J. Penn considered as microtrends some examples of religious revival in the USA, but also a classic reflection on megatrends John Naisbitt claimed that one of the megatrends today is the growing interest in religion.
PL
There is a common opinion that a researcher cannot be entirely objective. Although they can keep a semantic neutrality, their identity and social environment make it impossible to maintain this neutrality in the practice. The author tries to prove that this neutrality is impossible as well because every scientist chooses their own philosophy of language. The author shows examples of certain statements of sociology of religion confronted with three positivist requirements and ways in which the choice can influence the interpretation. We can translate the statements to become compatible with the requirements of the language but every translation is subject to risk of losing the depth, the root of thinker’s intention. Since there are many opposite views on philosophy of language a need arises to develop a sociological thought concerning thisaspect of their work.
PL
Prezentowane opracowanie stanowi wynik badań religijności na Pomorzu Zachodnim w diecezji koszalińsko-kołobrzeskiej, gdzie dominują wsie po-PGR-owskie. Stawiany w prezentowanej analizie problem badawczy przyjął postać następującego pytania: czym charakteryzuje się religijność mieszkańców wsi w diecezji koszalińsko-kołobrzeskiej w wybranych parametrach religijności i w jakim stopniu posiada ona wymiar wspólnotowy? Dla zbadania tej perspektywy, oprócz standardowego wykorzystania socjologicznych doświadczeń badania religijności, wykorzystana została skonstruowana przeze mnie skala znaczenia wspólnotowości w religijności, odwołująca się do analizy czynnikowej.
EN
The article is based on the study devoted to religiosity in Koszalin-Kołobrzeg diocese in Western Pomerania, where post-PGR villages (i.e. the villages where collective farms functioned during the socialist period) predominate. The following research question were tackled in the study: what does characterize the religiosity of rural residents in Koszalin- Kołobrzeg diocese according to the selected parameters and to what extent does their religiosity have a community dimension? Apart from recurring to standard sociological tools of studying religiosity, in order to answer these questions the author has constructed and applied the scale of community importance in religiosity that involves factor analysis.
EN
This introductory article is intended to open the volume of work prepared by the participants of the 12th UNESCO Janusz Korczak Chair International Summer School. The participants presented these papers at the RC25 ISA Interim International Conference in Warsaw, entitled: "Language and Society. Research Advances in Social Sciences" (26-27.09.2019), exploring the concepts of gender equality and children's equality in liberal and conservative discourses and practices invested in language. The papers in this volume primarily use the methodology of discourse analysis and a range of tools and methods within this framework. The purpose is to shed light on how discourses inform preferences, behaviours and representations, towards the positioning of individuals in society, based on their respective gender and their individual status - whether an adult or a child. It is interesting to explore what is expected of the holders of these positions and whether they are able to confront and renegotiate their situation. The authors look into gendered childhood, analysing if differences can be found in so-called conservative and liberal discourses. The gender aspect of childhood and the resistance towards children’s expected positions interlinked to their gender is visible to diverse degrees in this selection of papers. The concept of social positioning due to one's gender is at the heart of this volume. Therefore, this Editorial forms a theoretical backstage for the volume of works included in the special post-conference issue of Society Register.
EN
A gender gap in the religiosity of men and women is one of the classical topic of sociology and psychology of religion. Until recently, however, most of the researcher were conducted in Western European and the USA, which calls into question the thesis about the universality of this phenomenon. Hitherto no systematic analysis of gender gap in the religiosity was conducted for Poland. The following text has one descriptive and one explanatory purpose. It seeks to provide answers to the following questions: (1) Does the GGR exist in Poland, and, if so, to which extent and in which dimension of religiosity? Which GGR is persistent, and which changes over time?; and (2) Do structural variables or ideology explain the observed GGR change in time and in which dimension of religiosity? Do we observe the same trend across all dimensions of religiosity?
EN
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic restrictions limited access to religious services and forced religious organizations to move most activities online, thus amplifying the processes of mediatization. They have also brought to light the existing power relations and hierarchies among and within the Churches, among others in the context of minority-majority relations. This context opens up new avenues for research on the topics of mediatization and power relations. We argue that in order to give an accurate account of pandemic-related developments, sociology of religion would benefit from employing user-centric research perspectives and a constructivist concept of mediatization. Analyzing research done on the topic of religion and the media in Poland to date, we present the key premises of our research project deploying the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse, and highlight how it may be of use to Polish sociologists of religion.
EN
The paper “I wouldn't go to the doctor anyway!” presents a study of alternative medicine practices among Estonians, who are allegedly the least religious people in the world. Only 6 percent of Estonians consider religion important in their lives and only 2 percent attend church weekly; 1/3 profess to never having had the experience of the sacred, and another 1/3 have difficulties expressing when and in connection with what they have felt anything being holy. One of the world’s leading researchers of New Age, Paul Heelas, has called Estonia “a golden land” for studying trajectories of changing spirituality: “over and above serving to exemplify the ‘shattering’ retreat of Christendom … Estonia calls for the transformation of the study of religion … to the comparative study of sources of significance: their various promises … or their failures”. The present study is based on 34 life-story interviews, recorded digitally in the years 2008–2019 and stored in the Estonian Folklore Archives. Although the sociological theories of religion consider alternative medicine as the New Age spirituality by default, the interviewees perceive their activity as non-religious. The label ‘New Age’ is even regarded with hostility. There are some who identify themselves as Christians, and some who see the profitability of using the Buddhist language or Taoist images, but faith per se in any religious doctrine is hard to find. Soviet ideological brainwashing during the occupation trained Estonians to hang on to thinking for themselves and antagonism-buttressed self-preservation. In a basic values survey, Estonians put autonomy and self-sufficiency (equals autarchia in church terminology) in a very high position, the third among 21 values. This defiance is visible against the church as well as the New Age ideologies, and the state medical system. This might, thus, explain the great support for heterodoxy and the cultic milieu both in the census statistics of the 21st century and the large numbers of Estonians pursuing yoga. Whoever can afford it prefers finding help in Google search and not showing up in a doctor's office. Among the interviewees there are some who use in their job such oriental body techniques as yoga, acupuncture, Thai massage, and reiki. One person is a close family member of a long-time legendary folk-healer who used forest herbs and had a reputation as a clairvoyant, but in fact had higher education in biology and chemistry and advised clients skilfully by reading chemical elements in blood tests and applying knowledge about chemical content of the plants in the home forest. One woman whose rheumatoid-arthritic daughter was treated with modern medicine without satisfactory results for many years turned to Byzantine blood-letting cupping therapy that has been practiced for centuries by Scandinavian folk medicine. After sauna suction cups are placed on the skin to force the superficial capillaries to dilate, and then skin is cut intentionally in order to cleanse the organism of toxic residues. She defines herself as believing “in nothing except in herself” – “no witchcraft whatsoever in these therapies”, according to her own words. As Bronislaw Szerszynski has noticed, feral sacrality of the split transcendental axis – “abroad natural and cultural landscape freely roaming around religious symbols and actions” – is floating in society as a free cultural resource for private use in the creation of identities. At least, something similar can be detected from some life stories in this paper: one interviewee confesses that the job of an oriental body therapist allows to “get ever closer to God, the Creator, Buddha, the Intelligent Energy – whatever it is that has created, and keeps creating the Universe and us”. By the 21st century, after breaking free from the Soviet occupation, Estonia has successfully joined not only the European and North Atlantic alliances, but likewise embraced globalisation and started eagerly to “collect exotic experiences” as a landmark of post-modernist lifestyle, according to Zygmunt Bauman. We became Westernised in an Easternised West; for vacations and career enhancement we go to Westernised East. Szerszynski's idea of the hiding place for “roaming religion” in sports, education, and medicine allows posing questions to people from the realm of belief, while totally leaving aside Christianity. I am assuming that in those explanations about why people choose one or another solution for their health or psychological problems, the “roaming religion” phenomenon expresses itself without having to ask whether a person believes in God, Intelligent Energy, self-realisation, or whatever. Thorough quantitative research is definitely needed, but first, by qualitative methods, the diverse self-describing statements should be found, by which it would be easier for us to identify ourselves.
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EN
The Czech Republic is widely known as ‘the least religious’ country in the world and most Czechs are quite proud of that fact. The authors, however, challenge both of these characteristics. Czechs might better be considered unchurched than atheist, with various forms of modern New Age spirituality steadily gaining in popularity. Moreover, their reputation for irreligiosity is somewhat questionable, since it is most often based upon communist (and other more historically deep-rooted) anticlerical notions, while people have little real knowledge of the ideas which they so readily reject. These assertions are based both on quantitative data, provided by census returns and ISSP surveys on religion, and on qualitative data, collected in local ethnographic research in the town of Česka Lipa in northern Bohemia, designed along the lines of the Lancaster University Kendal Project in Great Britain. The Czech population can be divided into three ‘blocks’, religionists, spiritualists, and atheists/unbelievers, none of which, however, can be considered uniform in terms of membership or truly mutually exclusive. The authors conclude that traditional religionists of various denominations, the followers of New Age movements, and the ‘rest’ of the population can be seen as three distinctive groups within society and that mutual understanding and acceptance are by no means the norm.
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EN
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.
PL
Artykuł przedstawia na przykładach potencjalne korzyści, jakie może odnieść socjologia religii z uwzględnienia perspektywy socjobiologicznej. Pytanie biologów o ewolucyjny sens religii dla ludzkich społeczeństw pozwala wrócić do pytania o społeczne funkcje religii, co z kolei rzuca nowe światło na zagadnienie sekularyzacji. Teoria sygnalizacji, stosowana przez socjobiologów do wyjaśnienia religijnych rytuałów, ujęta w kontekście relacji między organizacją religijną a korzystającymi z jej usług wiernymi, pozwala uwzględnić dodatkowy mechanizm – wyjaśnia zaobserwowany związek między liczebnością kadry religijnej a demografią.
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Socjologiczne opętanie

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PL
W artykule podejmuje się dyskusję z tezą o wyparciu myślenia o szatanie z nowożytnej nauki, filozofii i teologii. Obecność figury szatana w socjologii najdobitniej dochodzi do głosu w rozważaniach Maxa Webera na temat procesu racjonalizacji i wykształcania się „sfer życia”. Autor przedstawia główne tezy Niklasa Luhmanna, dotyczące autonomii podsystemu religii we współczesnym funkcjonalnie zróżnicowanym społeczeństwie, jako rewizję weberowskiej teorii zróżnicowania społecznego, odwołującej się do motywacji aktorów społecznych. Przy tej okazji wskazany jest diaboliczny charakter oświeceniowej socjologii oraz luhmannowski postulat jego przezwyciężenia, wyrażający się w rezygnacji z krytycznej roli socjologii i moralizowania rzeczywistości społecznej.
EN
In the paper the proposition on the repression of the awareness of the existence of the devil from modern social science, philosophy and theology is discussed. The figure of devil is prominent in Max Weber’s description of rationalization and differentiation process of autonomic „spheres of life”. The author presents Niklas Luhmann’s characteristics of autonomy of religion subsystem in modern functional differentiated society as a revision of social differentiation theory based on actors’ motivations presented by Weber. In this perspective the demonic features of enlightenment sociology are indicated as well as Luhmann’s desiderata of its overcoming: abandonment of critical stance practiced by sociology and resignation from moralization of social reality.
PL
Artykuł dotyczy osobistego stosunku osób prowadzących badania społeczne nad religią do przedmiotu ich studiów. Podejmuje kwestię autorefleksji w socjologii religii i krytycznie omawia propozycje namysłu nad usytuowaniem badawczym przedstawione przez Neitz oraz Altglas i Wooda. Propozycje te korespondują z postulatami silniejszego osadzania socjologii religii w teorii społecznej i problematyce relacji władzy. Niedostatecznie się jednak odnoszą do współczesnej debaty o epistemologii i metodologii nauk społecznych, która destabilizuje tożsamości, zwraca uwagę na polityczne i etyczne uwikłanie działalności akademickiej oraz na relacyjny charakter wytwarzania wiedzy. Artykuł zachęca do dalszego namysłu nad problematyką usytuowania badawczego w socjologicznych studiach nad religią. W obrębie studiów prowadzonych w Polsce ów namysł mógłby wzmocnić te kierunki analiz, które działają na rzecz przełamania praktyki badawczej zwanej „metodologicznym katolicyzmem”.
EN
The article addresses the issue of personal attitudes of those conducting social studies on religion towards the subject of their academic interest. It focuses on self-reflexivity in sociology of religion and critically discusses the ecommendations for reflection on researchers’ situatedness presented by Neitz as well as Altglas and Wood. These recommendations correspond to the recent calls for a stronger embeddedness of sociology of religion in social theory and the issue of power relations. However, they inadequatly address the contemporary debate on epistemology and methodology of social sciences, which destabilizes identities, points to the political and ethical entanglement of academic activity and draws attention to the relational nature of knowledge production. The article encourages further reflection on the issue of situatedness in sociological studies of religion. Within studies conducted in Poland, such reflection could strengthen the analytical currents aimed at breaking with the research practice called „methodological Catholicism”.
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EN
The early printed books collection held by the University of Warsaw Library contains about 300 books printed from the 15th to the 17th century, with various marks of the 17th-century library censorship. Thanks to the provenance research conducting by the Early Printed Books Department staff we can recognize that most of these books were once held in monasteries. The purpose of this article is to present various methods of censorship, notes such as: “haereticus” or “prohibitus”, the names of authors or other people contributing to the work which were crossed out, obliterated or cut out, fragments of texts concerned heretical or salacious content – removed in different ways. Censorship marks are interesting as yet poorly explored testimonies of post-tridentine spirituality. Their analysis can bring new perspectives to the studies of sociology of religion.
PL
Artykuł podejmuje kwestię przenikania się dyskursów o homoseksualności z osobistym doświadczeniem osób, które rozpoznają w sobie pragnienie homoerotyczne. Dotyczy on mężczyzn, którzy zdecydowali się na formację kapłańską, a później odstąpili od studiów seminaryjnych i dziś deklarują się jako homoseksualni lub biseksualni, w większości jako rzymscy katolicy. Pokazuje, że mężczyźni ci na etapie przystępowania do formacji i w jej trakcie ulegali nie tylko wyobrażeniom o homoseksualności kształtowanym przez Kościół rzymskokatolicki, ale także wyobrażeniom obecnym w szerszej przestrzeni dyskursywnej, które w Polsce ostatnich dekad dynamicznie się zmieniały. Związane z seksualnością samorozumienie uczestników badań wchodziło zatem w różne, specyficzne dla danego momentu historycznego, związki z odczuwanym przez nich powołaniem i funkcjonowaniem w społeczności seminaryjnej.
EN
The article focuses on how discourses about homosexuality penetrate the personal experience of those aware of their homoerotic desire. It discusses the experience of men who undertook priestly formation, later departed from the seminary studies, and today declare themselves as homo- or bisexual, the majority as Roman Catholics. It shows that at the threshold and during the formation, these men were influenced by the ideas about homosexuality promoted not only within the Roman Catholic Church, but also in the wider discursive space – and those have dynamically changed in Poland of the last decades. Correspondingly, the sexuality-related self-understanding of the study participants came into various, specific to a given historical moment, relationships with their vocation.
PL
Artykuł jest poświęcony poznawczej sytuacji wierzącego badacza religii, którego przynależność zarówno do świata nauki, jak i do świata wiary, Peter Berger nazywa podwójnym obywatelstwem, zaś Pierre Bourdieu podwójną grą. Autor zastanawia się, czy do sytuacji tej można zastosować koncepcję rozłącznych obszarów dociekań (ang. non-overlaping magisteria, NOMA), która powstała jako model współistnienia religii i nauk przyrodniczych.
EN
The objective of this paper is to analyze the situation of a believing sociologist of religion. It is her affiliation to the both scientific and religious world that Peter Berger calls “the dual citizenship” and Pierre Bourdieu – “the double game”. The author investigates whether the non-overlaping magisteria (NOMA) concept proposed by Stephen Gould as a model of coexistence of religion and natural sciences can be applied to the situation of the social researcher of religion.
PL
Artykuł jest próbą przedstawienia i dyskusji wybranych socjologicznych i innych podejść do wątków i inspiracji monastycznych. Artykuł podzielony jest na dwie części. Pierwsza skupia się na tych socjologicznych teoriach, w których znaleźć można monastyczne inspiracje: teoriach nowoczesności Maksa Webera, Michela Foucaulta, Talcotta Parsonsa oraz instytucji totalnej Ervinga Goffmana. Drugą część stanowi przegląd współczesnych tekstów w zakresu socjologii monastycyzmu (Jean Séguy, Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Isabelle Jonveaux, Stefania Palmisano i krótko polscy autorzy).
EN
The aim of the paper is to present and discuss selected sociological and other approaches to monastic issues and monastic inspirations. The paper is divided into two parts. Part one focuses on sociological theories in which one may find monastic inspirations: Weber’s, Foucault’s and Parsons’ theories of modernity and Goffman’s total institution. The second part is a review of selected, contemporary texts from emerging subfield of sociology of monasticism. I refer to Jean Séguy, Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Isabelle Jonveaux, Stefania Palmisano and, briefly, to Polish authors.
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