Christian Freedom in the Contemporary Middle East

Palestinian evangelicals in Israel-Palestine describe themselves as a “minority of a minority of a minority”—Palestinians in a Jewish state, Christians among a Muslim-majority co-ethnic population, and evangelicals within older Christian traditions. Though small in number, they strategically mobilize their minority status to engage global evangelical narratives on religious freedom, often securing influence beyond their demographic size. Yet, their relationship with dominant evangelical frameworks—especially Christian Zionism— as well as the Israeli state is complex and fraught.

This paper explores how Palestinian evangelicals navigate competing notions of freedom—religious, political, and theological—within both the Israeli state and global evangelicalism. Drawing on a year of ethnographic fieldwork in Israel-Palestine, it contributes to critical debates on the politics of religious liberty and highlights the intersection of religion, power, and geopolitics in Israel-Palestine.

For centuries, the Coptic Church has proudly identified itself as the Church of the Martyrs (Kanīsat al-Shuhadā’). Given this spiritual heritage and the enduring plight of Christian minorities in the Middle East, this paper examines Matta al-Miskīn’s theology of martyrdom. Rather than advocating for the protection of Christian minorities, Matta exalts martyrdom as the pinnacle of Christian spirituality. While he contends that God sends the “spirit of martyrdom” to serve the purpose of “healing” a deeply wounded world, the paper argues that it is also through “martyrdom” that the Church sustains its “freedom” in Matta’s thought – where both “healing” and “freedom” are defined in purely spiritual terms that align with his Orthodox ecclesiology.

Discernment in the New Testament is a communal practice shaped by the wisdom of the cross and agape love, not a step-based decision-making process. It forms a people whose way of life is governed by self-giving love. In Syria, after the fall of Assad, the Church faces the temptation of survivalism. Yet, discernment must resist fear-driven isolation and reclaim the Church’s prophetic vocation. Practical theology must balance immediate needs with the Church’s call to embody Christ’s self-giving love, forming structures of care that sustain without compromising mission. This vision also speaks to American Christians, offering a path beyond polarization toward communal wisdom, faith, and love.

This paper will discuss the function of Eastern Christian liturgical music in preserving the religious and cultural identity of Middle Eastern Christians, with a special focus on the role of women in the successful transmission of oral traditions. One of the most distinctive features of Eastern Christian worship, the musical traditions of the Orthodox Churches represent ancestral bonds that hold their communities together across time and space, allowing them to resist assimilation into the dominant cultures of Islamic society and Western Christendom. I will highlight non-standardization and embodiment as key features that enable this resistance. After establishing a theoretical background, I will discuss the practical necessity of expanding women’s access to liturgical music for the future of Orthodox communities in the Middle East and in the diaspora. I will conclude by discussing the enduring barriers to women’s participation in chant and highlighting recent efforts by Orthodox women to overcome them.

Gaza's ancient Christian community faces imminent disappearance. Rooted in the first century, it has endured twenty centuries of resilience. However, the recent Israeli military operations in Gaza since October 2023 have inflicted severe, possibly irreversible damage on this small community. International human rights organizations raise concerns about potential genocide. This paper examines the history of Gaza's Christians, arguing they have suffered near-extermination. I propose the term ecclesiocide to describe the destruction of a Christian community, encompassing loss of life, displacement, cultural damage, and disruption of communal life, emphasizing the scale of harm to the Church in Gaza. Furthermore, I analyze the role of the Zionist Christian lobby in providing political and theological support for Israeli actions, including calls for the forced displacement of Gaza's population. This paper demonstrates the impending vanishing of Gaza's historical Christian presence, even as it offers a testament to their enduring faith.