“Change is always uncomfortable. Some kinds are traumatic,” writes Alice Camille in "The endangered vineyard," this Sunday’s Prepare The Word scripture commentary. Christians in Syria face an uncertain future as Syria plunges further into unrest every day. They fear that in the event President Bashar al-Assad falls from power they may be subjected to reprisals at the hands of a conservative Sunni leadership.

For many Syrian Christians, Assad remains predictable in a region where unpredictability has driven their brethren from war-racked places like Iraq and Lebanon and where others have felt threatened in post-revolutionary Egypt. They worry that the struggle to dislodge Assad could turn into a civil war, unleashing sectarian bloodshed in a country where minorities, ethnic and religious, have for the most part found a way to coexist.

The plight of Christians in Syria has resonated among religious minorities across the Middle East, many of whom see themselves as facing a shared destiny. In Iraq the number of Christians has dwindled to insignificance since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, driven away by bloodshed and chauvinism. Christians in Egypt worry about the ascent of Islamists. Christians in Lebanon, representing the largest minority by proportion in the Arab world, worry about their own future in a country where they emerged as the distinct losers of a 15-year civil war.

But while the promise of the Arab revolts is a new order shorn of repression and inequality, worries linger that Islamists, the single most organized force in the region, will gain greater influence and that societies will become more conservative and perhaps intolerant.

Source: An article by the New York Times