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There are plenty more who want to be inscribed indelibly as Coptic Christians.

"The tattoo was once used to identify Christian orphans whose parents had been killed in war," said Girgis. "So they wouldn't be brought up as Muslims!"

Ayman Raafat Zaki, 22, also bears a cross.

He has been a member of St Michael's church in Cairo for nine years and he is now an altar boy.

Every Sunday, dressed in his white robes, he helps lead a large Christian congregation.

He chants readings from the Bible, as the young boys circle the church, spreading thick plumes of fragrant incense.

And yet Ayman's overt spirituality - and his tattoo - are not enough to convince the state he is a Christian.

Ayman's father converted to Islam so he could divorce his wife when Ayman was just five months old.

Ayman's mother took her only child and fled the family's village for Cairo.

In Islam, the father determines the religion of his children.

And now - even as an adult - Ayman is denied by the state the Christian identity card he craves.

On February 14, Lebanon will commemorate two years since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Lebanon has only known a semblance of peace a few years at a time. But even in its tragic history, not many periods have been as violent and unsettled as the last two years.

In the course of this very short period, Lebanon has known 15 targeted bombings and 9 attempts at political assassination, 6 of which succeeded and 3 that led to maiming. Interspersed were the toppling of two governments, endless demonstrations, and sit-ins. To top it all, a 34-day Israeli military aggression beginning last July led to the near-total destruction of a freshly rebuilt infrastructure and the displacement of more than a quarter of the population. Now the entire country is ripped in half in political disagreement and once again on the brink of civil war.

My thesis, therefore, is: No world peace without peace among religions, no peace among religions without dialogue between the religions, and no dialogue between the religions without accurate knowledge of one another. This is one reason why we are assembled here. We can no longer regard the world religions simply as existing side by side; rather we must view them together-in interdependence and in interaction. Today, no religion can live in splendid isolation.

AMHERST, Mass. — Creationism is growing in the Muslim world, from Turkey to Pakistan to Indonesia, international academics said last month as they gathered here to discuss the topic.

But, they said, young-Earth creationists, who believe God created the universe, Earth and life just a few thousand years ago, are rare, if not nonexistent.

One reason is that although the Koran, the holy text of Islam, says the universe was created in six days, the next line adds that a day, in this instance, is metaphorical: “a thousand years of your reckoning.”

But that does not mean that all of evolution fits Islam or that all Muslims happily accept the findings of modern biology. More and more seem to be joining the ranks of the so-called old-Earth creationists. They do not quarrel with astronomers and geologists, just biologists, insisting that life is the creation of God, not the happenstance consequence of random occurrences.

The debate over evolution is only now gaining prominence in many Islamic countries as education improves and more students are exposed to the ideas of modern biology.

So, if Kingdom is not a credible interpretation of either the historical or current crisis of understanding between East and West, what is the message that Scott is trying to convey to us? A cursory consideration of the movie’s characters, their statements, choices, and actions leave little to the imagination. Far from a mere statement against religious extremism of any conviction—as the director has repeatedly described his film—the movie’s plot and lead persona (young blacksmith turned crusader Balian) illustrate not the inevitable failure of a ruthless, fanatical, and gruesome foreign occupation, but rather the glorious victory of the individual conscience over the tyranny of parochial authority.

Man is the active agent of his own destiny, the heart and mind are the ultimate benchmark of morality and justice, and history is authored by the courageous and nonconforming individual rather than those who happen to wield power, much less Divine Provenance. Balian embodies the perfect Enlightenment product. Man is both the means and the end of Scott’s Crusades.

To illustrate this point, all the clerical characters are disproportionately evil, hypocritical (“convert to Islam now, and repent later!”), incapable of rational thought and bloodthirsty, whereas the characters displaying kindness, wisdom, and mercy invariably take a much more individualist and relativist approach to their faith (“A kingdom of conscience, peace instead of war, love instead of hate: that is what lies at the end of Crusade.”) and seem to have more faith in human efficacy than divine predestination (“There you are not what you are born but what you have it in yourself to be.”), if faith comes into it at all (“I put no stock in religion”).

The widescreen Saladin’s defining characteristic is intelligent and at times merciful diplomacy, rather the deeply pious commander we know from Islamic sources. The most profound statement allotted to him in Kingdom when asked what Jerusalem means to him is the bombastic and pseudo-philosophical “nothing … and everything.” Unfortunately, Scott’s alternative for grand narratives is formulated with neither eloquence nor depth: “The world will decide. The world always decides.”

The second major anachronism is the movie’s approach to religion. Most people know that the Crusades were wars of faith. Crusaders underwent extreme hardship, risking their lives and expending enormous amounts of money because of their devotion to Christ, his Church, and his people. Crusader piety also manifested itself in extraordinary devotion to the Virgin Mary and the saints, particularly those saints who had lived in the Holy Land. The Kingdom of Heaven, however, performs the delicate operation of stripping religious piety completely out of the Crusades. Balian and his father appear to be agnostics. Other Crusaders, like the Hospitaller, are openly critical of religion. Indeed, all of the good guys in this movie seem to have no devotion to God at all, only a devotion to tolerance. The bad guys, on the other hand, are all religiously devout, which causes them to be either evil (like Guy and Reynald) or mad (like the glassy-eyed preacher who chants, “To kill a Muslim is not murder, it is the path to heaven”). In other words, the medieval world is portrayed in much the same way that Hollywood views America: Smart people either have no religion or do not take it very seriously. The rest are right-wing Christian fanatics.

There are no churches in this movie, not even in the holiest of cities. There are no monks, no nuns, and very few pilgrims, all of whom would have filled the streets of medieval Jerusalem. Only two priests appear in the film, one a twisted corpse mutilator and the other a villain whose strategy for defending Jerusalem is to convert to Islam and leave the people to die. Scott scatters a few crosses here and there, but there are no crucifixes, which were much more common in the Middle Ages. Beautiful set decoration of Crusader palaces includes no icons of Mary or the saints, indeed no religious art of any kind. Christians, Muslims, and Jews all live in harmony in this cinematic Jerusalem. Yet, in truth non-Christians were forbidden to live in the Holy City during the reign of Baldwin IV. But it is not just Christianity that Scott sterilizes. Muslims are shown praying a few times in the film, yet the only devout Muslim is a black-robed cleric demanding that Saladin attack the Christians and capture Jerusalem. The message here is clear: Religion leads to fanaticism, and fanaticism leads to war.

In the midst of near civil war, Reginald of Châtillon, lord of Kerak and Montréal, broke the truce with the Muslims by attacking a caravan. Saladin replied by proclaiming jihad against the Latin kingdom. In 1187 he left Egypt, crossed the Jordan south of the Sea of Galilee, and took up a position close to the river. Near Sepphoris (modern Zippori) the Crusaders mobilized an army of perhaps 20,000 men, which included some 1,200 heavily armed cavalry. In a spot well chosen and adequately supplied with water and provisions, they waited for Saladin—who, by some estimates, had about 30,000 men, half of whom were light cavalry—to make the first move.

On July 2 Saladin blocked the main road to Tiberias and sent a small force to attack the town, hoping that Count Raymond's wife's presence there would lure the Crusaders into the open. It was Raymond, however, who initially persuaded the king not to fall into the trap. But, late that night, others, accusing the count of treason, prevailed upon the king to change his mind. This fateful decision would lead to the destruction of the Crusader army. On July 3 the Crusaders undertook an exhausting day's march, spent a terrible night without water, and were surrounded and constantly harassed. The following day they faced Saladin's forces at the Horns of Hattin and fought throughout the day, with smoke from grass fires set by the enemy pouring into their faces. When the infantry broke ranks, the essential coordination with the cavalry was shattered, and the Crusaders' fate was sealed. By the time Saladin's final charge ended the battle, most of the knights had been slain or captured. Only Raymond of Tripoli, Reginald of Sidon, Balian of Ibelin, and a few others escaped.

The king's life was spared, but Saladin killed Reginald of Châtillon and ordered the execution of some 200 Templars and Hospitallers (religio-military orders discussed below). Other captive knights were treated honourably, and most were later ransomed. Less fortunate were the foot soldiers, most of whom were sold into slavery. Virtually the entire military force of the kingdom of Jerusalem had been destroyed. To make matters worse, Saladin captured the relic of the True Cross, which he sent to Damascus, where it was paraded through the streets upside down.

Saladin quickly followed up his victory in the Battle of Hattin by taking Tiberias and moving toward the coast to seize Acre ('Akko). By September 1187 he and his lieutenants had occupied most of the major strongholds in the kingdom and all the ports south of Tripoli Jubayl and Botron (Al-Batrun) in the county of Tripoli and Tyre in the kingdom. On October 2 Jerusalem, then defended by only a handful of men under the command of Balian of Ibelin, capitulated to Saladin, who agreed to allow the inhabitants to leave once they had paid a ransom. Though Saladin's offer included the poor, several thousand apparently were not redeemed and probably were sold into slavery. In Jerusalem, as in most of the cities captured, those who stayed were Syrian or Greek Christians. Somewhat later Saladin permitted a number of Jews to settle in the city.

Lest you think I am crying "Foul!" out of loyalty to my own religion, let me remind you that I am an agnostic, and when it comes to gods and religion, I question everything. So why am I defending a faith I don't personally share? Because the facts are what interest me, and anytime someone twists them in order to sell a sentiment or message, even if I agree with that sentiment or message, it tends to tick me off.

And unfortunately, though not surprisingly, twisting the facts to make his point is exactly what Ridley Scott has done here. I don't disagree with his message: tolerance is good, fanaticism is bad, war in the name of religion is absurd. It's just a shame that he has chosen such a complex and already much-misunderstood historical period to muddle up in order to do so.

A new big-budget comedy starring two of Egypt’s most famous actors is attempting to defuse escalating tensions between the country’s Muslim and Christian populations.

In Hassan and Marcos Omar Sharif and Adel Imam play a Muslim preacher and Coptic Christian priest who are forced to change their religious identities and go into hiding after both come under fire from fanatics within their respective communities for being too moderate.

The film lightheartedly explores the causes behind the antipathy and mistrust the communities feel toward one another.

The film is a large-scale critique, but it's wrapped around a personal narrative. Merchant briefly recounts his conservative evangelical upbringing—which included a lot of The 700 Club—and then brings viewers up to the point when he felt compelled to make this film. A trip to Africa showed him a side of the church that looked very different than the church he knew in America. Despite the harsh conditions they lived in, the African believers were full of kindness, joy, and grace—he heard none of the antagonistic rhetoric that often comes out of the American church. If our faith is the same as theirs, Merchant wonders, "Why is the gospel of love dividing America?" He starts by showing how the church is "dividing America"; he ends with some ideas for fixing that.

Merchant's personality is one of the film's strengths. He is goofy, wry, and above all else, humble. "I don't act very much like Jesus," he says early on, including himself in his critique of the church. That humility is important, because it's at the heart of what Merchant demands from believers over the course of his film. And remarkably enough, his humility never feels disingenuous.

Lord, Save Us is a fast-paced, eclectic blend of television clips, interviews, staged scenarios, and (rather cheesy) animated sequences. Many of the clips are used by Merchant to highlight the fever pitch of our society's "culture war." James Dobson, Bill Maher, Ann Coulter—they're all here, on both sides, and their voices are polarizing.