For at least the last seven years Lebanon has been in a deep economic and political crisis that has sparked several mass demonstrations in the heart of Beirut. The demonstrations, starting with the ‘garbage crisis’ in 2015 and preliminary culminating with the protests after the big explosion in 2020, were joined by up to more than a hundred thousand demonstrators with vast participation from all sites in the Lebanese society. None of the demonstrations have succeeded in substantially changing the political system. Manipulations by power elites crushed the demonstrations, pandemic and other reasons kept demonstrations away, but many also lost faith in them and stayed home. Why is that? This paper argues that when analysing the state in Lebanon, it is necessary using other tools than those post-Westphalian Weber concepts to understand the structure and political dynamic of the relations between state and society in Lebanon. Further, to develop a conceptual framework the paper firstly explores the discourse on secularization. It does so from two angles: a philosophical one analysing the debate between Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) and the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, known for his thesis that a well-functioning democratic state must be based in a secular-liberal state. This thesis is deconstructed in the analysis of the debate. The second angle is a reading of the history of secularization and sectarianism from the time of the French colonization to current debates. The paper concludes that the demand of secularization is as much the reason for sectarianism than the solution to the problem. This paper argues that it is necessary to use concepts of the state other than the post-Westphalian Weber concepts to understand the structure of Lebanon. It investigates the discourse on secularisation and concludes that it is not the solution to the political crisis. It introduces the concept of worldview and argues that a new relation between state institutions and religious communities is needed to provide new perspectives for Lebanon