5th Biennial Conference on Religion and Politics

The year 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of the death of John Paul II. We will simultaneously celebrate the 30th anniversary of the publication of his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, defending human life, and approach the 35th anniversary of the publication of his encyclical Centesimus Annus, analyzing the collapse of the Communist Bloc, the essence and challenges of a modern democratic state and a free economy. John Paul II's thinking on social and political issues started from theology. He recognized that while there are secular activities, in the sense of not being under the jurisdiction of the Church, there are no completely secular areas in the sense of absolute independence from theological presuppositions (Rowland 2003, 79).

Over last two decades, our civilization is moving in the opposite direction. Social, economic and political projects as well as key categories of the Western legal order (e.g., human rights), pretend to be so secular and independent of any theological presumptions that they acquire even sacral qualities. This paradox of sacralization a rebours was described theoretically years ago by Leszek Kolakowski (2014).

We would like to invite you to submit abstracts of your presentations for the 5th Biennial International Conference on Religion and Politics entitled "Supreme Generator Against All Abuses of Power? Question of God and Existence of Politics", which will take place on 6-7 November 2025 at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw (Poland). 
   
We would like to devote this year's edition of the conference - taking John Paul II's analyses of democracy and the free market as a starting point - to topics that are related to the issue of the relevance of the "question of God" to the possibility of a politics and economy benevolent to man. 
  
We invite you to present current research in the field of political science of religion. As we have in the tradition of our conferences, there will be parallel panels on current research on religion and politics alongside the main sessions. 
  
We especially encourage you to submit papers on the leading theme of this year's edition and the following topics: a) the role of religion in the political and economic theory; b) the issue of leadership in the context of the challenges of the 21st century, c) the relationship between Islam and liberal democracy, d) the importance of culture in the context of secularization and political change; e) continuity and change in Catholic social teaching.

Guide for authors
Applications should include the title of the presentation along with the abstract (max. 300 words).

The conference will be held in English and Polish.

Proposals for presentations should be sent via the application form on the conference website https://religionandpolitics.pl/ .

Key Dates
Deadline for abstract submission: 8 October 2025