Secularism ended before it began in earnest. August Comte was not satisfied with sociology but wanted religion. Positivism as a cult of science was not enough for him; he wanted positivism as a cult in itself. Post-secularists recognise that religion exists and is important for social life, and ultimately the most radical believe that a certain religion – most often their own – is true. As Elżbieta Hałas argues in the opening essay, all projects of combining sociology with theology are deceptive. Those who try to create sociological visions of the New Jerusalem today are in fact heralds of the apocalypse. At the same time, the religion of humanity is returning today in many guises: in Michael Burowoy’s public sociology, Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural sociology, and Bruno Latour’s cult of nature. The authors of the articles composing the fifth issue of State of Affairs take a closer look at this kind of relationship between science and faith, sociology and theology. The volume is supplemented by translations of texts by August Comte, Georg Simmel, and Florian Znaniecki, a conversation between Keith Tester and Kieran Flanagan, and, as usual, an extensive section of reviews and polemics.