How Christianity Might Adapt and Endure in the Middle East

J erusalem’s Old City is divided among Muslims, Christians, and Jews — the spiritual descendants of Abraham. But the three faiths and communities intermingle throughout much of this ancient theopolis. Perhaps the most volatile stretch of Jerusalem is to be found in the Muslim Quarter, where the Via Dolorosa converges with El Wad Street, which leads to and from both al-Aqsa Mosque and the Western Wall.

“A hundred yards of mayhem,” says a middle-aged English Catholic man residing in the Old City. The space between the Austrian Hospice and the Fifth Station of the Cross, where Simon of Cyrene carried the cross for Jesus, is an Abrahamic gauntlet that thousands run each day.

It’s not difficult to sort locals from pilgrims along that stretch of the Arab souk: European Muslims and African Jews and Asian Christians brush against the pushy vendors, mouths agape in awe or clenched in irritation, wide eyes gazing upward or fixed ahead in perpetual if mild petulance. They move past each other in uneven steps as the sojourners halt clumsily to peer around — crammed together between the shrines and shops as the muezzin’s voice echoes off the city’s smooth pale stones.

The innocence of pilgrims and cynicism of locals seemingly sustains the equilibrium; rare instances of violence here are more likely to arise from familiarity than from encounters with strangers. Some pilgrims carry light wooden crosses provided by tour guides in pious displays, often to the visible embarrassment of younger relatives. But few of these tourists will have meaningful contact with local Christians — or with those from the wider region.

Most wayfarers of this mayhem are governable. But Israeli security is everywhere, just in case — the armed young men and women no less diverse than those whom they guard. Sizing up your attire or complexion, they might ask your religion if you happen to turn down the wrong street at the wrong time of day. There are no bright-line rules, just the intuitive judgment of young police with assault rifles. This tends to encourage good behavior.

Less intuitively, the Christian presence tends to calm rather than worsen the tension, both in Jerusalem and across the Middle East. This fact is often overlooked by U.S. foreign-policy observers who, for all their talk of diversity, in practice prefer simplicity — and uniformity — to the messiness that comes with pluralism. In places such as Hebron, where Abraham is believed to be buried, virtually everyone, including visitors, is Jewish or Muslim; tension permeates the city. Perhaps with Christians, it might feel more like Jerusalem, which is comparatively stable. (This was, as it happens, the logic of the Ottomans who infused Christians into Sunni or Shiite villages across the Levant, but never mixed Sunni with Shiite.)

The indigenous Christian presence in Jerusalem and Palestinian-majority areas is shrinking, however, as it is in much of the Middle East. Yet the Christians in Jerusalem’s Old City are certain to remain strong so long as pilgrims are permitted to visit. This presence promotes stability — both because one can’t tell another’s religion at a glance, and because tourists bring business.

Of course, there’s more to the Christian role in the region than their presence in Jerusalem. Forty thousand Christians live in the West Bank, and several hundred survive under Hamas in Gaza. There are thousands of Christians in the rolling green hills of the Galilee. In Tel Aviv one finds Christian liturgies packed with migrants from Africa, South Asia, and the Pacific, who worship without fear of persecution from the government or terrorists. These migrant poor in Israel can and do visit their holy places. Sadly, many indigenous Christians across the region cannot.

Christians are forbidden to travel to Jerusalem and other holy sites by governments across the region. (Palestinian Christians in the territories have no special right of access but are permitted or denied entry to Jerusalem the same as their Palestinian neighbors.) And yet, despite years of intense Sunni–Shia conflict, Shiite make pilgrimage each year to the Sunni-hosted Mecca. The distance from Jerusalem to Beirut is roughly that between D.C. and New York or between Santa Barbara and Carmel, but few Lebanese Christians will ever pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There are various reasons for this: Israel and Lebanon aren’t quite at war, but neither are they close to peace. The Lebanese Armed Forces can’t disarm Hezbollah — or even raise the issue. Terrorism and corruption have sent tiny Lebanon into socioeconomic and political chaos, triggering an exodus of Christians surpassing even that of Lebanon’s civil war.

But even in Lebanon, like Jerusalem, Christians provide a buffer of sorts. Some Lebanese Christians lean toward Sunni allies, some toward Shiite — the latter producing the disastrous Christian–Hezbollah political alliance. The Christian exodus from Lebanon is unlikely to make Lebanon stabler or the region safer: The buffer will disappear and Lebanon will become just another Sunni–Shia battleground. One hears few voices from the foreign-policy establishment raising concerns, though U.S. diplomats will sooner or later wonder aloud, without irony, whether there might be greater stability in the Levant if only there were a buffer between Sunni and Shia. If the Christian presence in the Middle East survives, it’ll likely be thanks to visionaries from the region rather than to insipid onlookers from Washington.

The U.S. will remain engaged in the Middle East for decades to come but will primarily look for successes in a region where those are difficult to come by. The Abraham Accords in 2020 normalized relations between Israel the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. More states are likely to follow. As they do, they will probably reap the economic and social benefits of peace. Tragically, some countries in the region will be left behind — and their people will be made to suffer the regressive policies of their governments.

One hears it said often in the region that “the road to Washington goes through Jerusalem.” This will only become truer in the years ahead, as the U.S. disengages militarily and uses its limited diplomatic energy on those open to regional rapprochement, trade, and protecting religious freedom and other fundamental human rights — including the right to make pilgrimage to holy sites. That road to Jerusalem will become another Abrahamic gauntlet of sorts: intense and narrow and perilous, beset by innocents and cynics alike, and guarded by a younger generation who know the value of both pluralism and armed security.