The subtitle of this book alone lends insight into the daunting task undertaken by Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva Spector Simon: how to summarize and synthesize two millennia of Christian history in the geographic cradle of Christianity itself. It is to their credit that the authors largely succeed in providing an erudite, ecumenical, and in-depth survey of Christian history in a region often synonymous with “the Muslim world” in the popular mind.
Tejirian's and Simon's latest work grows out of their long scholarly engagement with modern Middle Eastern history and especially Protestant mission history in the Middle East. In particular, Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion builds on their 2002 edited collection Altruism and Imperialism: Western Cultural and Religious Missions in the Middle East. In composing what they envision as a “benchmark narrative” for Christian history in the Middle East (x), Tejirian and Simon look to correct what they see as the modern Protestant bias in much research in the field. Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion thus includes ample attention to Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox communities and missions in the Middle East.
In this vein, the authors dedicate the first three chapters of the book to the premodern roots of Christianity in the Middle East, including the early ecumenical councils, the medieval Crusades, and the rise of the Ottoman Empire. Several overarching themes emerge in this early history. For example, the spread of Christian missions generally depended on the political control of friendly Christian and/or European powers. In turn, the “apocalyptic urgency” (36) of fourteenth-century Franciscan and Dominican missionaries foreshadowed similar waves of millenarian Protestant thinking in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Finally, Muslim conversion was rarely the focal point of these missions. Rather, most medieval Latin missionaries aimed to correct the perceived heterodoxies of their Middle Eastern coreligionists and to establish Eastern Rite “uniate” churches that accepted the primacy of the Roman pontiff.
Although billed as a 2,000-year history of Christianity in the Middle East, the majority of Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion focuses on the period from 1820 to 1910, when Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox missions briefly flourished in the Middle East. As France, Britain, and Russia expanded their influence in the region, intra-Christian rivalries mirrored intra-European imperial rivalries. As in nineteenth-century Africa, Christian missions were also increasingly associated with the credo of “morality and modernity through education” (140). Stymied in their efforts to evangelize Muslims and especially Jews, Christian missionaries turned their attention to indigenizing their own small communities and expanding humanitarian ministries. Some of the missions' most important long-term legacies emerged in unlikely areas—such as Western schools' nurturing of emergent nationalisms in places like Lebanon, Armenia, Egypt, and Turkey.
Coming at the high point of Christian missions in the Middle East, the First World War (1914–18) took a tremendous toll, precipitating a regional “nightmare of war, massacres, deportations, economic privation, famine and disease” (170). After the war, mainline Protestant and Catholic missions became more associated with humanitarian NGOs like the American Near East Relief Fund than with explicit religious proselytization. In their place, Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians brought a new missionary zeal, focusing their millennial fervor on Israel in particular. As the twentieth century progressed, Western missionaries developed far more positive relations with the ancient Eastern Christian communities of the Middle East. Christianity has also faced a far more hostile cultural and political climate, buffeted by secular nationalisms and resurgent political Islam alike. The region is perhaps more Muslim and less Christian now than it has ever been.
Tejirian and Simon synthesize a remarkable amount of historical data in just over 200 pages. At times the density of the prose and multiplicity of names, dates, and places can be overwhelming. In this regard, the book would greatly benefit from regional maps as well as chapter subheadings that thematically organize the material. In light of some of these structural challenges, I would not recommend the text for undergraduate students. As an introductory text for graduate students and nonspecialist scholars, however, Conquest, Conflict, and Conversion is a rewarding read indeed.
