Sociology of religion as a recapitulation of Christian replacement theology: Max Weber and the prophetic roots of western rationalism

This paper discusses the dependence of current sociological efforts towards explaining the rise of western rationalism on Christian replacement theology. Replacement theology is the view that Jesus redeeming sacrifice reported in the Gospels superseded and replaced Judaism because it made universal the access to divine grace, which had before been restricted to an ascriptive chosen people. I argue that this theological thesis lies at the root of Webers view that the pariah condition peculiar to the Jewish people made the Jews - unlike Pauls missionary work - unable to diffuse the rational conduct of life which had been established through the (Hebrew) prophetic doctrine of a universal God