In February 2008 the capital of Chad came close to falling into the hands of rebels seeking to overthrow President Idriss Déby. This attack by Sudanese-backed rebels was seen in policy circles as yet another attempt by the Sudanese government to delay or prevent the deployment of a foreign peacekeeping force in the region.

How one answers the question “Is Critique Secular?” determines substantially how one engages with secularism, how one comes to defend it, repudiate it, or reconceptualize it. My answer to this question is unequivocal: Yes, critique is secular, and, to go even further, if the secular imagination ceases to seek and to enact critique, it ceases to be secular.

Who among us did not speak of what is healthy and what is harmful before the arrival of Hippocrates?