John Paul II – His Way of Thinking about the Connections between Faith and Culture – a Challenge for Christian Education

Abstract

The author formulated a thesis that one of the biggest challenges for contemporary education, especially in a Christian form, is to convince the participants of educational process about the meaning and essence of introducing the relationship between faith and culture to life. Understanding of this relationship results from the adopted interpretation of “faith” and “culture”. The dissertation presented an interpretation of John Paul’s II tuition. The understanding of it demands mainly the comprehension of the concept of “genuine culture”, which was introduced by John Paul II. It describes the way of life of a person who improves his or her humanity on the basis of truth and love. Such way of life is settled in faith. Art and science are special fields of life, which are dedicated to humanity, its improvement and understanding through searching for the truth and beauty. The author analyzed texts and speeches of John Paul II to reconstruct the sense of relationship between the genuine culture and faith, which they present. In the last part, she considered tasks of contemporary education, especially school one, in preparations for making the relationship between culture and faith come to life.