社会学之父没有使用或者极少使用“世俗化”这一术语。后来的社会学家更频繁地使用“世俗化”这一术语,但赋予其不同的意义(Shiner,1967)。直到20世纪60年代末,关于世俗化的数种社会学理论才主要由贝格尔、卢克曼和威尔逊提出,用以指称涂尔干所说的分化、韦伯的理性化、滕尼斯的礼俗社会与法理社会。这些理论引发了对世俗化有效性和普适性的讨论。一些社会学家完全拒斥这一理论,甚至将之称为应该被抬到“失败理论之墓地”的“教条”(Stark,1999:270);另外一些人则是这 The father of sociology does not use or seldom uses the term “secularisation.” Later sociologists used the term “secularisation” more frequently, but gave it different meanings (Shiner, 1967). It was not until the late 1960s that several sociological theories of secularization were mainly proposed by Berger, Lukman and Wilson in order to denote what Durkheim said of differentiation, of Weber’s rationalization, of Tengis Society and Law Society. These theories lead to a discussion of the validity and universality of secularism. Some sociologists completely reject this theory, even calling it a “dogma” that should be carried to the “cemetery of failure theory” (Stark, 1999: 270); others are