The author deals with the new functions of religion and the sacred in societies that are dubbed «postsecular». He makes an overview of famous social philosophers, such as Habermas, Taylor, Rorty and others, who write about religion and the secular. The author believes that philosophers often ignore the empirical reality and the sociological data and concentrate upon «beliefs» instead of deeper levels of social imbedding of religion, religious practices, and everyday behavior and values. The shift of focus would suggest an emphasis upon new forms of religiosity and spirituality largely triggered and disseminated by globalization. The author distinguishes «political» (public) and «social» secularization; if the former trend is reversed by a return of religions into the public sphere, the latter one shows not so much the revival but rather the appearance of new forms of religiosity, whose sociological base has to do with the late modern pattern of «thin solidarities» (instead of «thick solidarities» of earlier times).