The treatment of the secularization thesis by the empirical sociology of religion made currently in Brazil is theoretically deficient (at least for the most demanding intellects). In this article, having regard to the empiricist and ill-advised celebration of recent religious ferments which are supposed to be turning our times into a "de-secularized" or "post-secularized" age, the author supports the claim for resetting the conceptual discussion. He suggests that it would be very useful to Brazilian sociology of religion to cope again with the old political-juridical meaning through which was first conceptualized the problem of a socio-historical process of dessacralization, taking place above all in the sphere of political-juridical normativity. This is the meaning unfolded by Max Weber, considered the major proponent of the secularization theory, in his sociology of law.
Secularization; Secularization of law; Disenchantment of the State; Max Weber; Sociology of religion; Sociology of law