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Samuel Gregg: Islam and the Closing of the Secular Mind
Samuel Gregg: Islam and the Closing of the Secular Mind
Nov 3, 2025 5:06 AM

Writing in the American Spectator, Acton’s Director of Research Samuel Gregg says the “enlightened” Western mind can no longer think seriously or coherently about religion:

Given the decidedly strange response of the Obama Administration and much of the mentariat to the violence sweeping the Islamic world, one temptation is to view their reaction as simple prehension in the face of the severe unreason that leads some people to riot and kill in a religion’s name. But while the Administration’s response has plenty to do with trying to defend a foreign policy that has plainly gone south, it also reflects something far more problematic: the Western secular mind’s increasing inability to think seriously and coherently about religion at all.

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