I review the main concepts of Max Weber’s Sociology of religion to reaffirm their sheer importance to understand religious phenomena, both in their own dynamics and in their links with other dimensions of social life. Then I turn myself to the task of follow up in a critical vein some of the readings of Weber done by contemporary sociologists in France (Pierre Bourdieu), in the United States (Peter Berger), and in Brazil (Flavio Pierucci). Though arriving at controversial results, they are fine attempts to supersede Weber’s work but keep this though alive. In the final part of the article, I change criticism into proposition trying to understand the scope of processes of world disenchantment and secularization in the Brazilian context.
Sociology of Religion; Max Weber; World disenchantment; Secularization; Brazilian religious field