ABSTRACT
In the history of socioreligious thought, sociologist Joachim Wach has been undervalued. He started to work within the area of the Religionswissenschaft, the science of religion, as it had been developed within the German current, which was one of the best traditions in these studies. Gabriel Le Bras, professor of canon law, promoted "religious sociology" in France and elsewhere. He had a crucial role in the passage from a classical sociology of religion to a better-implemented methodological approach, especially regarding the statistical dimension. Le Bras influenced Henri Desroche, who had a good grasp of Marxist literature and had been one of the first scholars to establish a link between socialism and religious sociology. His case offers a good example of the weight that an ecclesiastic education could have on a person's effective field of studies and social commitment.
