Christian communities native to the Middle East are passing through turbulent times. In Egypt, where the Copts constitute the largest concentration of Christian Arabs anywhere in the region, the community finds itself caught in the crossfire between an authoritarian government and radical Islamist groups. The Copts, despite sharing strong sentiments of Egyptian nationalism with the Muslim majority, are often beset upon by both the authorities and the fanatics because they are perceived as a convenient scapegoat. In southern Sudan, though a peace agreement may be near, Christians were locked in a 20-year civil war with an Islamist government in Khartoum bent on imposing Sharia on them by force.

Christians in growing numbers are daily fleeing the chaos in Iraq, where their churches have been bombed and their livelihoods threatened by Islamist militants leading the armed insurgency against U.S. and coalition forces. In the Holy Land, in places where ancient Christian communities reside, like Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth, the Christian presence has shrunk dramatically due mainly to emigration, as Christians see themselves being marginalized by a conflict increasingly defined in terms of Jews versus Muslims. And in Lebanon, following 15 years of war that resulted in open-ended Syrian domination, the Christians, who number close to 40 percent of the population, have seen their freedoms steadily erode, their numbers dwindle, and their political influence shrivel.

Two distinct historical narratives define the way of life and the destiny of the Middle East's diverse indigenous Christian communities: a narrative of subjugation and a narrative of freedom. On one side lies the vast majority of Christian Arabs - over 90 percent - in their respective regional and cultural contexts. Since the rise and spread of Islam these communities have been relentlessly reduced to dhimmi status, or second-class status in their own homelands, being forced to forfeit any semblance of free existence. The Christians of Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Syria and the Holy Land belong to this vanquished category.

On the other side stand the Christians of Lebanon, numerically a minority, but with a unique historical experience of freedom that was defended and preserved over the centuries at a high cost in terms of blood and treasure. Here the entrenched Maronites, affiliated with Rome since the year 1180, serve as spearhead for a host of other lesser denominations who have thrown in their lot with them to form an exceptionally rooted and tenacious Christian community largely resistant to the ravages of "dhimmitude." However, the combined toll in recent years of war, foreign occupation, economic deterioration, and attrition through emigration has weighed heavily on Lebanon's Christians, causing them for the first time since the mid-19th century to experience an appreciable loss in the precious freedoms to which they have clung so fiercely for so long.

One way to begin to appreciate the qualitative difference in mindset and outlook between dhimmi Christians and free Christians in the Middle East is to look at attitudes of Christians on both sides of the Syrian-Lebanese border. In Syria, where Christians have lived as dhimmis for centuries, even the slightest improvement in their overall situation, as happened under the late President Hafez al-Assad, was hailed as a tremendous achievement and a great leap forward by the community, which has offered its complete allegiance to the present regime. Not having known real freedom, Syrian Christians reacted to even the smallest dimension of breathing room with an outpouring of gratitude.

Move across the border into neighboring Lebanon and the inexorable reduction in the community's personal and communal freedoms over the last quarter century is viewed by Christians as nothing short of calamitous. For a people who have tasted the fruits of real freedom and sacrificed much to protect them, even the minutest diminution of such a valuable commodity is greatly felt and lamented.

The future of Christian Arabs hangs in the balance today. The majority, which initially was offered order in place of freedom, is now being handed insecurity everywhere throughout the Arab world. Those few who risked everything to embrace freedom face, at best, an uncertain course as pressures mount to deprive them of what is left of their hard-won liberties. Invariably, the stigma of being alleged "agents of the West" or "closet Crusaders" continues to loom menacingly over these communities and rears its lethal head whenever religious passions rage uncontrollably.

The future will remain bleak for Christian Arabs if their plight continues to be neglected by the rest of the world; if the so-called war on terror falters and fanaticism gains the upper hand against moderate forces in the Muslim world; if something remotely resembling democracy does not strike root in a pacified Iraq; and if the line of freedom's erosion is not held in Lebanon, where a homegrown exception to the freedom-starved regional norm managed to flourish in the face of overwhelming odds.

Thus stand the spiritual descendants of the apostles 2,000 years later in the lands surrounding the sacred spot where Jesus chose to appear as a lowly carpenter.

By Habib C. Malik
Daily Star, Lebanon

Habib Malik teaches history and cultural studies at the Lebanese American University in Lebanon. This commentary is taken from bitterlemons-international, an online newsletter