Public Scholarship
How Coptic Martyrs—and Migrants—Inform Our Christian Faith (Interview by Jayson Casper)
While beheadings grab headlines, poverty and cultural friction push emigration to the West—where the welcome is not always what Copts expect. The story is far more nuanced than the flight from religious intolerance, says anthropologist Candace Lukasik, drawing from her recent book, Martyrs and Migrants, for this interview with Christianity Today.
American politicians talk about persecuted Christians abroad – but here’s what happens when those Christians migrate to the US
While American politicians frequently champion the cause of persecuted Christians abroad — such as Egypt's Coptic Christians, who face discrimination and periodic violence — that concern does not translate into preferential treatment once those Christians arrive in the U.S., where they are subject to the same immigration system as any other migrant. For Coptic migrants, the line between "persecuted Christian" and "suspect migrant" is not just blurred — it is continually redrawn by the state and reproduced in everyday encounters.
Human Rights and Persecution Economies
If the Copts in Egypt are the subjects of human rights (those injured by Muslims, their claims in need of redress), what then of Copts in America? Where American Muslims have been racialized and securitized under the War on Terror—and Copts racialized alongside them? How are these social, political, and religious contexts (the Copts in Egypt, the Copts in America) even comparable? How can we start to take American Copts seriously as communities in their own right—with their connections to Egypt, but also centering the struggles they face here, as immigrants, as racialized communities, as working-class people?
Disappearance or Reconfiguration? The Future of Middle Eastern Christians
That Christian communities in the Middle East have experienced violence, displacement, and political marginalization is undeniable. But focusing on disappearance alone obscures another reality, which is that Christian presence in the region is not simply collapsing; it is changing. This Brief argues that Christianity in the Middle East must be understood not simply as loss but also as reconfiguration—a process that has included pragmatic accommodation with authoritarian states; new modes of survival and resilience amid destruction, conflict, and state collapse; and the growing centrality of diaspora advocacy networks that shape political and moral debates across borders.
Theopolitical Entanglements: Tisa Wenger Interviews Candace Lukasik on Martyrs and Migrants
In this wide-ranging interview, Tisa Wenger and Candace Lukasik reflect on the intersections between Martyrs and Migrants and Wenger’s recent book Spirits of Empire: How Settler Colonialism Made American Religion. Together, we examine theopolitics, Christian martyrdom, secularism, race, empire, and Indigenous sovereignty, considering how theology and political power are historically co-constituted. The conversation concludes with a discussion of transnational research methods and their implications for the study of religion, migration, and minority politics.
Land, Migration, and Memory in an Upper Egyptian Village
This seemingly ordinary village in the governorate of Qena tells a unique story of Coptic emigration over the past century. Its villas stand as a living testament to the Coptic land-owning families that once held considerable political and social power, prior to the 1952 revolution. Bahjura also tells of the current wave of Coptic emigration to the United States through the Diversity Visa (Green Card Lottery). Both distinctly classed perspectives on the changing climate in Egypt continue to live in Bahjura through folktales of a bygone era, the ever-present detailed wooden balconies of abandoned buildings, and the locked gates of the most elaborate villas, designed by French engineers.