Marcin Hintz

In this article, the authors set themselves the goal of describing the pattern of civil engagement comparable to that of Antigone in relations with the state on the case study of people associated with the “Anna Foundation,” saving the evangelical (protestant) cemetery in Gostków (Lower Silesia) from the mid-nineteenth century. The area of operation of this foundation is the local communion of multicultural influence. The research method involved reading sources, a series of qualitative interviews with activists and other subjects with “borderline experience,” a description of photographic documentation and an interpretation of the history of modernity. The article is a case study and an attempt to interpret a broader phenomenon of saving cemeteries of various denominations from destruction and oblivion in Poland after 1989. This study contributes to studies on culture and religion, and the philosophical and theological reflection of late post-modernity. In interpreting the phenomenon of civic involvement, the authors use the concepts of “disenchantment of the world,” “rationalization,” “bureaucratization” and “the garden state,” as well as “re-enchanting of the world” and “holiness in the secular age.” In the conclusions, the authors propose to correct both the definition of “world enchantment” and the definition of the inevitable secularization of the world in late (post) modernity. The authors argue that in the time of the post-pandemic crisis and the climate catastrophe, Albert Schweitzer’s “reverence for life” may be an equivalent that is appropriate for the non-rational elements of contemporary culture.

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.