The news about the radical Muslim assault on a French satirical magazine is still unfolding, and so it would be wise to withhold comments on the details until we actually have sufficient details.

But quite apart from the particulars of this assault, there is one thing that we can say with some certainty. This is a war to the death between two sets of mindless chants. One is Allah Akbar! and the other is Secular Neutrality! The radical Muslims insist on replacing one invisible idol with another one.

In the meantime, secularists steadfastly refuse to admit that their overarching rejection of metaphysical principles of governance is itself an overarching metaphysical principle — down to the chapter and verse, but without a sacred book to quote it from. But that doesn’t make it any less authoritative.

This is a battle of blasphemies. Cartoonists blaspheme the prophet, and men with guns blaspheme with the blood of cartoonists in the temple of liberal public discourse. When we have competing blasphemies, how shall we decide between them? Without a transcendent arche — the Lord Jesus Christ — any battle of blasphemies is going to be won by the side that is willing to take their blasphemy clean out to the edge.

And that would be the Muslims. They know what they are doing, and they are doing it with all their might. The secular West does not know what it is doing, and is doing it halfheartedly.

But the choice is — as always — Christ or chaos.