Christianity in the Middle East: An Ancient Past, an Uncertain Future

Abstract

The continued presence of Christian communities in the Middle East evidences a nuanced reality of a religious pluralism in the Middle East often overlooked by political elites and media outlets. The Middle East, so often depicted as a homogenous, categorically Muslim region, is, in reality, a centuries-old bastion of religious diversity. Christianity has its roots in the Middle East, the very land upon which Jesus Christ himself trod. The first Christians were from this region that would eventually come to be called the Middle East, and the Middle East is home to some of the most ancient Churches in the world1. Christianity belongs to the Middle East, and more importantly, to the peoples of the Middle East, as much as it does to Rome and to the peoples of the traditional “Christendom”. The binary assumption that the West is categorically Christian, and that the Middle East is categorically Muslim, allows political struggle between East and West to be cast in a religious light, capitalizing on religious fervor.