Localising Secularisation Thesis? The View from Poland

Abstract

Abstract: Secularization paradigm for a long time has been a dominant frame of reference for understating the place and function of religion in contemporary societies. First secularization theories (Berger, Wilson, Martin), even if constructed on the basis of the European experience, served as a universal theoretical framework, for interpreting changes of the position of religion in the global world. Along with growing evidences from outside and within Europe on vitality of religion, the secularization paradigm was challenged and its applicability was steadily limited.

The aim of this paper is to focus on the adaptation of the model into the Polish context under the socialist and post-socialist conditions. Taking into account cultural embeddeness of the model and it universality interesting is a question about the extent and the way in which the model has been present and used in the Poland?