Abstract
In this text, entitled Discerning the Signs of the Times in Post-communist Czech Republic Pavel Hošek deals with the most influential theories explaining the historical and sociological causes of Czech secularity, and shortly describes the gradually changing relationship between the majority of Czech society and the Church over the last two centuries. He also discusses some of the proposed explanations for the exceptionally high distrust towards the Church in the Czech context, accompanied, interestingly, by a growing and generally very high degree of interest in alternative spiritualities.
In the following part of the first chapter, a missiological hermeneutics of contemporary cultural trends is proposed, based on the notion of "discerning the signs of the times". In subsequent paragraphs, the several key features of contemporary culture are shortly discussed and missiological implications suggested, namely the post-rationalist, post-ideological, post-traditional, post-optimistic, post-individualist and post-materialist aspects of contemporary culture.