The author analyzes different views on the relations between religion and modernity, which appear in the social theory of the 20th–21st centuries. The paper provides critical analysis and assessment of secularization theories which claimed incompatibility between religion and modernity. Finally, the article deals with a relatively new contribution made by the concept of ‘multiple modernities’ elab- orated by Shmuel Eisenstadt. This concept both softens and shades the findings of the secularization theorists.