Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 9, Number 2, January 2009

sity of Gdansk, funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (grant no. 10702632/3637). 2 See Ference Marton, Phenomenography, in Torsten Husen and T. Neville Postlethwaite (eds.). The International Encyclopedia of Education (London: Pergamon Press, 1994); John A. Bowden, Reflections on the Phenomenographic Research Process, in John A. Bowden and Pam Green (Eds), Doing Developmental Phenomenography (Victoria; RMIT University Press, 2005). 18 Journal of European Baptist Studies What inspires you to think about God? Where do you look for inspiration of this kind? - Participation in the liturgical life of the Church. - Personal prayer and reading of Scripture. - The awareness of what God has done. - The internet and reading books. - Life experiences, difficult situations. - Contact with other religions and cultures. - Other people, including students, and their experiences. - Contact with nature. How do new inspirations change your understanding of God? - God remains the same but becomes closer. - The image of oneself and the surrounding reality is changed. - The image of God is changed. - New inspirations reinforce the desire for seeking God even more. - God is a mystery, he is unknowable. How do you evaluate changes in your perception of God? - Change is a desired development. - Changes are a result of a natural psychophysical development of a human being until the ‘mature’ image of God is established. - Changes are dangerous. It may be stated in general terms that the interviewed teachers of religion working with 13-16 year-olds in Gdansk are aware of the changes taking place in the world. A number of them, however, see those changes as a threat to the religious identity conceived of in static terms because they assume it to be based on some established standards derived from the transcendent. Consequently, they are not open to inter-religious dialogue which could introduce new elements into the discursive structure, dynamising the process of creating new meanings and developing the theological identity of the subject. Some respondents openly declare that in their case this process has been finished, whereas others are only open to changes within the paradigms operating in their own traditions. Only a small number of the interviewed teachers look for new inspirations to think about God, and only single individuals within that number, in their search, turn to other religions. This is true of both the Roman Catholic confession, dominant in Poland, as well as of the minority confessions and religions. The aim of the questions was to identify the readiness for theological change and for a shift from a teaching to a learning position. The research was focused on change as the basic concept, especially in relation to teachers and learners, and its aim was to grasp the quality of the influence New Inspirations and Religious Education in Poland 19 on soc