Violence directed against Christian communities and emigration of their members are leading to a decline in the Christian faith in the land of its origin. Political and religious leaders in the West have called for support and protection of these threatened communities. These books speak with two different voices, that of the Church of the region and that of the visiting reporter. Each rejects a simple picture of a Church persecuted by a hostile Islam and instead describes a community of faith and of witness.

The first is not just a book about Middle Eastern Christianity – it is a book written out of Middle Eastern Christianity. The writer is a Palestinian Christian, living and working in the town of Bethlehem in the West Bank region of Palestine. This place of origin gives a distinct perspective rooted in a set of experiences which shape its understanding of the history of the region. It presents us with unexpected ways of viewing events and challenges our accepted frameworks. Its main challenge is to the perception which the author has experienced that this is a history in which the Christian Churches have suffered persecution by Muslims. While it is a history of suffering and dispossession this arose not from persecution of Christians but from political and social processes.

This history begins with the Ottoman Empire, a multinational, multiethnic, multilingual and multifaith community covering a wide area which included the Middle East. Here the Ottoman Turks controlled the government and the army, while the religious communities had much control of their legal and social life. Christians comprised around 7 per cent of the population of the Middle East at the start of this empire in the sixteenth century. As the Ottoman empire declined, it was overcome by European nations and new movements of nationalism, colonialism and religious fundamentalism reshaped the region. The size of the Christian community declined dramatically in all parts of the region. The book traces the history of the Church through this turbulent and controversial process.

It is not a history of persecution. This the author defines as ‘systemic mistreatment … based on religious belief’. He accepts that this description can apply to some events, notably the systematic deportation of the Armenian population of Turkey after 1915 which led to the first use of the term genocide and later the destruction of communities under ISIS after the 2003 Iraq war. Otherwise he shows that the persecution of Christians by Muslims is the creation of Christian Evangelicalism, promoted by right-wing political groups in the USA and used for diplomatic ends. It ‘victimises, objectivises and minoritises’ the diverse Christian communities of the Middle East. It is a view which does not acknowledge the co-existence of diverse faiths in the Middle East over fourteen centuries.

As the Ottoman Empire declined, European powers became entangled in the Middle East and drew the area into their colonial networks. Their ambitions and actions shaped the historical development of the region. The British recognised the agricultural and economic potential of Palestine and looked to Jews to take control of this region as agents of British imperial rule. This imperial interest combined with Evangelical Christian interpretations of biblical promises to promote and encourage Zionism. The nationalistic claim of Jews to the land of Israel has its roots in British imperial ambition, and was nurtured under the British mandate following the First World War. It led in due course to the founding of the state of Israel. This was not only the Nakba or Catastrophe when as a result of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 more than 50,000 Christians – among the 800,000 Palestinians – were driven from their homes. As well as this dispossession it set up a religious state in which nationality and faith coincided and which undermined the multifaith and multinational character of the historic Middle East. The interests of other western nations also influenced events. Although Germany did not establish colonies in the area, it had commercial interests, especially in the Berlin to Baghdad railway, and the concern to protect these led to its support of the Turkish state and so to knowledge of and possibly collusion in the Armenian genocide. This theme continues with the US/UK invasion of Iraq war leading to the emergence of ISIS. Thus the sufferings of the Christian communities of the Middle East is an outcome of political actions, in which western powers were active.

The key term for the argument, which is also the final word of the book, is ‘resilience’. The Christian community in the Middle East is varied with Chalcedonian Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant contributing to its richness. It has engaged with political and social movements, with some members having a leading role in pan-Arab and other movements. It has also collaborated with peoples of all faiths in building a just society. In spite of its diminished numbers, it maintains this Christian witness. Among these was the Christian Academic Consortium for Citizenship in the Arab World which brought together participants from across the Middle East who prepared hundreds of papers setting out the main challenges facing the Church and the society, which set out the basis of the mission of the Church as it looks ahead.

This broad sweep of history is presented in concise chapters which set out the main events and movements, and within these detailed descriptions provide vivid illustration. So, of the nine pages which summarise the events of the Nakba when the state of Israel was founded, three describe the events which led to the destruction and depopulation of Iqrit, a village of 490 Greek Catholics in north Galilee.

There are other histories which could be – and have been – written about these events. In this history there is no space for the Holocaust, which took place mainly outside the Middle East. Instead it shows how the emergence of post-Holocaust theology and the use of language such as ‘Judaeo-Christian tradition' within western liberal Christian thinking have contributed to a view of Christianity and a support for the state of Israel which has undermined the historic Christianity of the Middle East.

The next book presents us with an alternative voice, which comprises the observations of a war reporter who has worked for thirty years in the Middle East. She comes as a visitor, learning about the region, visiting the places, worshipping in the churches and making friends. As she does this, so she learns about her own faith and her journeys become a personal pilgrimage.

She visits four places – Iraq, Gaza, Syria and Egypt. As she travels, she discovers the roots of the Churches in the earliest times and then their shaping by shifting historical events. Then she shows how the sufferings of each has its own character. In Iraq, Christians have been subjected to systematic and ruthless attacks in the years since the US/UK invasion as their traditional homelands were occupied by the militant and fundamentalist Islam of ISIS. In Gaza, the tiny community of just over a thousand Christian believers shared in the conditions imposed by control from both Israel and the radical Islam of Hamas. In Syria, the Churches are firmly loyal to the government, although the war has led many to leave the country. Egypt has the highest number of Christians in the region and here prejudice and discrimination take many and varied forms. Like Raheb, di Giovanni finds that the picture of persecution at the hands of Islam is simplistic and misleading. Instead it is the political changes, the rise of both national and religious movements and the violence of war which have led to the decline of communities and flight of their members.

As she visits, she meets and introduces us to some of those whose social engagement, love of neighbour and awareness of their long presence has built up the resilience of the Church. Their many stories remain in the mind of the reader, initiating us into their world where they are trapped by political changes they cannot influence and then often leave to live in the West where they live in a frontier space caught between their old home and their new place of emigration. Often she returns to look for old friends only to discover they are no longer to be found. This is the ‘vanishing’ of the title.

The first book under review comes from this heart of historic Christianity. It describes events often overlooked; it confronts western Christians with uncomfortable truths about the outcomes of political actions in which they have been complicit; above all it is a witness to a vibrant faith rooted in Middle Eastern society. The second tells the human stories which carry and witness to this faith. For her, it is a ‘twilight’, as the light of their witnesses fade. But twilight is not the same as night. The light which comes from the resilience of the Christians remains and – perhaps – may lead through darkness to a new dawn. This is the hope expressed in these books.