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In a Time of War

Bernard Lewis of Princeton, one of the most astute students of Islam, has long been urging us to understand that, when Muslims speak of the West, they mean the Christian West. They mean Christendom. Many in the West want to believe that ours is a secularized culture, but Lewis reminds us that most Muslims view secularization itself as a form of specifically Christian decadence. More and more, as this war continues, we may come to recognize that we are, however ambiguously, who they think we are, namely, the Christian West.