Spiritual authority versus secular authority : relations between the Maronite church and the state in postwar Lebanon : 1990–2005

The voluminous literature on religion and politics in the Middle East has paid scant attention to state relations with national Christian churches.2 In most cases, these churches were in existence for centuries before the appearance of the modern Middle East state. This neglect can be justified partly on the grounds that those churches rarely step into the political domain and, unlike the radical Islamist movements, do not pose any threat to the stability of Middle East regimes. It also reflects the difficulty of conducting research on minorities in the Middle East, due to the sensitivities of Arab governments, most Arab academics, and Arab public opinion at large, toward this subject. Nevertheless, Christian churches in the Middle East represent minority groups, and there is a vital need to examine minority issues in the region, not only because those minorities often are subjected to official (and societal) discrimination, but also because a focus on minorities can help to shatter any lingering myths about the monolithic nature of Middle Eastern societies.