| Sumario: | The article focuses on the theme of secularization and it's effect on state formation. Nineteenth-century social theorists, as far removed as Friedrich Engels and Ferdinand Tormies, shared a common perspective in which it was assumed that the development of capitalism would necessarily undermine the social and cultural bases of traditional religion. The whole ethos of capitalist culture was thought to be inimicable to the very roots of Christianity. Max Weber, for whom the rationalisation of the life-world remained a central question assumed that the destruction of both traditional and charismatic elements in social relations would lead eventually to the privatisation of all religious practice and belief. "The Foundations of Christianity" attempted to identify early Christianity as the radical protest movement of subordinate classes. While there are differences between the sociology of religion and Marxist analysis, there is nevertheless a convergence on the idea that the economic character of capitalism brings about eventually the erosion and collapse of traditional Christianity.
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