ABSTRACT
The problems that arise from the fundamental ambiguity find expression in five dilemmas or paradoxes which the history of religion in general and that of Christianity in particular may be seen to exhibit. The first and fifth of these paradoxes are quite obviously special manifestations and further specifications of the problems of the control of force and fraud, a classical problem of political theory. With respect to the second, third, and fourth dilemmas and to Max Weber's concept of the routinization of charisma, the literature of the sociology of religion from Troeltsch on has given many analyses of the process of the routinization of sects and their transformation into stable and conservative denominations. Talcott Parsons was the first to use the term "dilemma of institutionalization," which he applied to this particular problem of the relationship between institutionalization of religion and the power structure of society.
