Introduction. The article analyzes the process of secularization of Western European society as a source of world secularism from the point of view of a Russian modern philosopher Grigory Borisovich Gutner and a Canadian philosopher, cultural historian Charles Margrave Taylor. Theoretical analysis. The purpose of this article, first of all, is not only the analysis of secularism as such, but also an attempt to understand the ways out of its coordinate system, which has driven itself into its own trap.