The Baptist Church in the Lebanon is small in number of adherents and recent in its date of origin. It began with a community of less than ten members gathered in one congregation in 1895, and has grown until it now consists of 1,600 members scattered across thirty-two churches. However the community remains a tiny proportion of the total population of a country of 4.5 million inhabitants.

Although small, the community has survived and grown through a turbulent period of history, from the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, to the development of a prosperous country sometimes known as the Switzerland of the Middle East, to the collapse of its society in a prolonged and brutal civil war, and then to the gradual reconstruction of the country. Lebanon remains a country of religious diversity and economic prosperity. It has close links with western nations, including the USA. The experience of the Baptist churches helps us to understand more of the challenges facing a missionary community in the complexity and sometimes confusion of Middle Eastern politics. In spite of the small size of the community, or perhaps partly because of it, we can grasp some of the challenges and choices facing the missionary vocation in the Middle East.

It all began with a young Greek Orthodox, Said Jureidini, who travelled to the USA and experienced a conversion to Baptist Christianity. He gained his support from the conservative Landmark group which had separated from the Southern Baptist Convention. After his conversion experience Jureidini returned to the Lebanon and founded the first Baptist Church in 1895. The link with Landmarkism gave the church a distinct identity, blending a conservative and exclusive Baptist theology with a Lebanese leadership and ethnic roots. This distanced it from the Southern Baptists of the USA, which resulted in recurrent divisions and tensions between Baptists who were ethnic Lebanese and Baptists who were led by American missionaries.

The Baptists were drawn from other Christian groups. Statistics gathered in 1980 show that 45 per cent came from other Evangelical Churches, 28 per cent from Greek Orthodox, 13 per cent from Greek Catholic, and a smaller number from the Maronites and Copts. The question of how missionaries should approach those who were already Christians but of different traditions has resulted in a variety of mission strategies. It is not addressed by the Baptist Churches or by this study. The aim of converting people from membership of older Churches to the new Baptist Churches – new, that is, to Lebanon – is assumed.

The approach to Muslims proved more challenging. The 1980 figures show that only 2 per cent of members of the Baptist Church came from a Muslim background. The possible responses to addressing this more challenging target group include the ‘gospel bomb’ strategy by which the message of the Bible is thrown at those addressed, rather as a bomb is directed at a target, with little attention given to follow-up or nurture. Others followed a way of living among Muslims, entering dialogue with them, and using example rather than words to convince neighbours of the grace and power of Christ. Neither approach had the desired result of attracting Muslim converts to the Baptist Churches.

The development of this community went through four stages, distinguished by changes of attitude towards American Baptists. The first was the formation of the community, shaped by its conservative Landmark connections. Then came a new phase with the growing influence of missionaries from the USA, especially Finlay and Julia Graham who arrived in 1948. This led to the building of schools and churches; and a programme of evangelism which included an approach to Muslims. This stage came to an end with the start of the Civil War in 1974. The war led to an emphasis on articulating and teaching a Baptist spirituality, through Sunday schools, hymn books and discipleship training. In 1987 American Baptist missionaries were evacuated in response to a US government decision, and this led to a fourth phase when the Lebanese Baptists worked with others to develop an Arab Evangelical Christian identity.

The focus on the Baptist community shows some of the issues, challenges and strategies carried out a various stages, and so helps us to understand the responses of one small and vulnerable group. It shows how a Baptist identity developed, with a complex set of relations with other Christians and with Muslims, with the Lebanese government and with international interventions; how it responded to political violence and unrest; and how it related to the much larger Southern Baptist Convention in the USA. It suggests that the theological theme of reconciliation is the distinctive mark and vocation of the Lebanese Baptists. The narrow focus of the study does not allow discussion of the fortunes of other Christian Churches in the region and so restricts the presentation of the context in which the Church survived. It is more interested in the political pressures on Baptists, than in the Christian mission and faith in the region.

The author is herself a Southern Baptist whose research began with a meeting with Arab Baptists which then led to academic and ethnographic researches. The result is an enthralling study, which explores a wide range of mission themes. The end of the story points towards the development of an Arab Christian form of Church, spread across the various countries of the Middle East and with roots in the diaspora in the USA and elsewhere. If this book helps the understanding of how this can be achieved and what enables it to grow then it will have served a valuable purpose.