Abstract
This paper attempts to assess the impact of the secularization debate of the mid-1960s on the theoretical evolution of the sociology of religion and on the development of the ICSR. An analysis of the Acts published by the ICSR over a thirty-six year period shows that criticisms of the theoretical narrowness of “religious sociology” in Europe existed long before the debate about secularization broke out, and that the ICSR only reacted to this debate six years later, when a new generation of scholars became dominant in the ICSR. The conclusion is that, although the secularization debate did not have any direct impact on the theoretical evolution of the discipline nor on the evolution of the ICSR, it had an indirect impact, in the sense that it was only when a new generation of scholars, who were university professors rather than churchmen, came to power, that the new paradigm which secularization theorists had put forth came into effect.