This text begins a research project concerning those thinkers who associate the discussion about the possibility of thinking about God with the problem of difference. The main question of these considerations is this: How does God appear on the differentiated horizon, while torn by difference always conceived in a defined manner? If difference is inevitably inscribed in thought, then how is God inscribed in difference? These questions lead to another: How does difference rule in reflection on divinity? In other words: How far does the way that difference is conceived affect how we reflect upon the deity? When looking for answers to these questions, we take the first step towards Heidegger. Owing to the special status of ontological difference and the trace it leaves on thinking “on the horizon” of difference, it is with this that we begin movement toward differentiation as such. The question about God and the difference in Heidegger’s thought in this text takes the following form: How does God appear in a sphere divided by the difference between Being and beings? How does ontological difference mark the conception of God?

Attitude of the Courage to Be – Response Given Not Only to Hamlet

The article comprises an analysis of the concept of  “courage” as an ontological and ethical principle, constituting the chief category in the philosophical theology of Paul Tillich, called “the philosopher of borderlands,” regarded as the most important thinker in the Protestant, liberal theology of the 20th century. In his philosophical theology or theological philosophy the notion of “courage to be” provides an essential point of reference in the context of spiritual development of the human individual, as well as revealing possibilities of giving sense to being, which appears itself to man as devoid of sense. In the first part, the concept of “courage to be” is itself subjected to analysis as the ontological and the ethical principle. According to Tillich, the existentially (ethically) oriented being constituted a step in the individual’s life, which is already connected with conscious life and self-affirmation. The second part discusses Tillich’s understanding of faith as the “to be or not to be” of human existence. The author of Dynamics of Faith says that the courage to be can be expressed either in individuation, that is, in the personal relationship and encounter with God, which represents the existentialist approach, or by means of participation in God’s power. Tillich proclaims that only the virtue of courage can overcome the anxiety arising from lack of sense and from doubt, which is characteristic of human life.

Idiom and the Name of God

In this article the author follows Derrida’s deconstruction of the Babel tower parable, showing how God’s name is structured by difference, instead of identity. The story of the tower of Babel introduces not only the origin of languages and the necessity of translation, but the ultimate untranslatable – the name. God’s name, hence every name becomes for Derrida another quasi-transcendental, which conditions of possibility (identity) are concurrently conditions of impossibility (difference).

The article deals with issues related to the history of the relations between churches as institutions, and their individual clergymen, and the Nazi state. The source referred to in this article is the intimate journal of Minister Friedrich Onnasch (1881–1945), the superintendent of the Koszalin Church District and parish priest of Saint Mary’s Church in Koszalin, murdered by Soviet troops in Barlinek in February 1945. A document written on a regular basis, never published, is a detailed account (though coded, due to censorship), showing the experience of the clerical office in a time of totalitarian oppression. It shows the situation in the Evangelical Church after 1933 and the commitment of Minister Friedrich Onnasch and others, among them Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945), associated with Pomerania, in the movement of the Confessing Church. It explores the areas of Christian religion in its Evangelical topography, limited to the space of the former Prussian province of Pommern (Provinz Pommern) and Western Pomerania after 1945.

The article addresses representations of the Evangelical denomination at contemporary permanent museum exhibits in the region of Masuria, inhabited between 1525–1945 by a Protestant majority. Applying semiotic analysis, the author presents the outcomes of field studies in the local museums in Olsztyn, Mikołajki, Mrągowo, Ogródek, Szczytno, and in the open-air museum in Olsztynek. The principal research question is the issue of visibility and recognisability of Evangelism-related items at permanent exhibits. The author concludes that there are three types of omissions in the presentation of the history of Masurian Evangelicals. The silencing of the Protestant past of Masuria results from the cultural colonisation that took place after 1945 and from identifying Evangelicalism with Germanness in the common consciousness of the currently dominant Polish Roman Catholic community.

“Refueling with axé,” or Religious Therapy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé

In the article the author stresses the role of the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé in health therapies, showing that, in spite of linking Candomblé mostly with Black Brazilians from lower social strata, successfully applied religious therapies based on the strategy of “refueling with axé” nowadays attract many well-educated, rich, white representatives of the local elites. These new adherents find in Candomblé ways of improving their health, but also a sense of community and support that sometimes even make these “clients,” in spite of still existing prejudice, take a decision about initiation.