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    Published: 2025-12-281
    Vol. 67 No. 3 (2025)

    Laboratory of inclusive diversity

    Tadeusz Zieliński

    Ikona ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1195-0637
    Ikona DOI https://doi.org/10.36124/rt.2025.24

    The public mission of the Christian Theological Academy in Warsaw

    Abstract

    Against the backdrop of the broadly accepted understanding – common in Poland and the European Union – of the university’s public mission, the activities of the Christian Theological Academy in Warsaw (ChAT) may be seen as satisfactorily fulfilling, and simultaneously embodying in a specific way, the goals that society and the state set for a higher-education institution. Based on the analyses carried out, it should be assumed that ChAT’s public mission is realized primarily in four dimensions: educating personnel for minority Christian Churches; conducting research on religious minorities, including their position within society and the state; engaging in efforts that support social inclusion and social cohesion on a supra-local scale; and providing educational and scholarly activities in the fields of social sciences and the humanities. In the course of these activities – both within the university and in its external engagements – the following values, and the competencies associated with them, become evident and gain broad recognition: freedom to express difference, that is, freedom from uniformity; respect for diversity; openness to dialogue; solidarity; willingness to cooperate under conditions of deep religious, ideological, cultural, and national pluralism; tolerance; the creation of space for the free pursuit of truth; readiness for compromise; and the search for a shared axiological minimum. All these values undoubtedly possess an emancipatory character, strengthening the agency of members of the academic community, particularly students entering adulthood. The significance of the ethos shaped in this context – of this set of attitudes and the skills required to cultivate them – is undeniable when it comes to the well-being of civil society, social cohesion, and democracy.

    Keywords:

    academic freedom, higher education pedagogy, intercultural education, university’s public mission, religious and ideological pluralism, social capital, social inclusion, university autonomy

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    Zieliński, T. (2025). Laboratory of inclusive diversity: The public mission of the Christian Theological Academy in Warsaw. Theological Yearbook, 67(3), 569–600. https://doi.org/10.36124/rt.2025.24

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