100 years ago, during the last great pandemic, German intellectual Max Weber caught influenza and died.
He was only fifty-six at the time, but he left behind several landmark works and a whole new discipline — sociology — that still affects how we view religion and society now.
Adam Possamai is a Professor of Sociology at Western Sydney University. He explains more about Webers legacy, and why he still matters a century on. Why was Weber’s work The Protestant Ethic so influential? What’s the relationship between Christianity and capitalism? And how has capitalism in turn, shaped how we see religion and spirituality today?
Then we hear from Anna Halafoff, Associate Professor of Sociology at Deakin University, who is part of a team that’s studying how Gen-Z thinks and behaves in relation to religion. She tells Meredith Lake what makes Gen-Z more religiously diverse than previous generations.