Associate Professor of History of Religions and Interfaith Studies Deanna F. Womack has edited a new scholarly volume focusing on Christian communities in the Middle East. Christianity in the Contemporary Middle East: Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Communities in Context (Brill, 2025) addresses how Christians in Arabic-speaking regions of North Africa and West Asia negotiate identity amid socio-political turmoil.
Published as part of Brill’s Theology and Mission in World Christianity series, contributors to Womack’s volume include scholars of religious studies, theology, and anthropology. Articles in the volume touch on how Christian congregations and organizations in the Middle East have responded to violent conflicts, migration, and political and economic unrest.
The first section of the volume considers the ecclesial, theological, and political realities of Middle Eastern Christian communities; the second applies ethnographic methods to questions of Arab, Syriac, and Armenian Christian identity.
The volume adds to a growing body of scholarship centered on the rich and diverse histories of Christian communities in Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.