1 1 The author acknowledges the support of the EuroEthos Research Project, funded under the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme and Centre of Excellence for Research and Development of Citizenship and Participation: Facing the Challenges of the 21st Century. INTRODUCTORY: CIVIL SOCIETY, PARTICIPATION, AND RELIGION 1 JANA PLICHTOVÁ The Role of the Church within Civil Society The civil society that fills the gap between the private and the strictly political state sphere plays an irreplaceable role in the democratic system both from the perspective of the articulation of various social perspectives and from the perspective of the moral health of society, establishing organizational support for active participation in public affairs. Civil society consists not only of prominent personalities but also of a variety of collective entities (cooperative unions, civil associations) including churches and religious communities. According to Lefort (1981) religious communities are especially important for several reasons. Firstly, they play a major role in cultivating the virtues that are essential for self-government and a healthy civil society. Secondly, the church speaks out from a specific point of view— traditional ethics. It demands participation and solidarity, especially with the society’s least favoured. Thirdly, the church has “bonding and bridging social capital” (using Putnam’s concepts). It has the potential to bring people together within the groups from which they come and across different groups such as race, economic status, etc. However, religion could also be dogmatic, violent and irenic, a source of terrorism and according to Philpott’s hypothesis (2007) it depends both on the degree of autonomy between religious actors and states and on political theology—the set of ideas about political authority and justice held by religious actors. The idea of the church and religious communities as public actors encompasses several presuppositions. Among the fundamental ones are freedom of thought, faith, and opinions, ethical pluralism, openness of the churches; this means that all churches compete for the spiritual favour of religious people because none of them has its existence guaranteed by the state. This also presumes a sort of civil culture, i.e. the interest of citizens to take part in public affairs as well as their expectation that churches and/or religious communities will also participate. Only under such conditions can we imagine that churches enter into a dialogue between themselves and with the lay public. HUMAN AFFAIRS 18, 1–9, 2008 DOI: 10.2478/v10023-008-0001-9 Unauthenticated Download Date | 7/28/18 12:27 PM