Opublikowane: 2023-05-291

Orality and freedom of choice as key determinants in Polish Evangelical culture and discourse: selected field reflections

Abstrakt

Evangelical Christianity is a rare notion in Poland, a country where, as of 2018 over 90% of the population (32,460,984 people) declare adherence to Roman Catholicism. In contrast, there are a mere c. 74,000 followers of the Protestant Evangelical tradition (Główny Urząd Statystyczny 2021). In 2010, I joined the Baptist church and after a couple of years noticed certain communication-based mechanisms in operation. This reflection brought me to the point where I decided to proceed with research on the role of speech in Polish evangelical communities. Certain peculiarities became my focus of interest: I realized that speech is a crucial factor in sustaining each service or church activity. This statement should be understood against the background of the usual Polish religious experiences which are strongly influenced by the institutional, liturgical Roman Catholic church and in which a significant number of visual signs, including gestures, symbols and attire assume the burden of responsibility for sustaining believers’ sense of identity. The participant observation became an opportunity to discover and understand the hallmarks of evangelical communication, which could be subsumed under such terms as: orality, freedom of choice, spontaneity, imagery, and relationality.

Słowa kluczowe:

dyskurs, kultura, ewangelikalizm, oralność, Polska, wolność wyboru

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Zasady cytowania

Grabowska, M. (2023). Orality and freedom of choice as key determinants in Polish Evangelical culture and discourse: selected field reflections. Rocznik Teologiczny, 64(1), 273. https://doi.org/10.36124/rt.2022.09

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