Febe Armanios, a professor at Middlebury College, has been recognized as a finalist in the 2025 Christianity Today Book Awards. Her latest book, “Satellite Ministries: The Rise of Christian Television in the Middle East,” published by Oxford University Press in 2025, was selected as one of four finalists in the “Missions and the Global Church” category. The award panel included theologians, pastors, novelists, and other notable thinkers.
The book examines how Western evangelicals and local Christians used terrestrial and satellite broadcasting to expand Christian television across the Middle East from the early 1980s onward. Armanios’s research highlights the intersection of faith, technology, and political dynamics in the region over four decades.
The inspiration for her study came while watching American televangelists broadcasted with Arabic dubbing on Cairo television. Armanios described her experience: “The moment felt surreal,” she said. This led her to consider how television can bring unfamiliar religious practices into new environments.
“When I wrote the book, my goal was to trace how, over more than forty years, television altered and amplified the public expression of Christianity for many people across the region,” said Armanios. “I examined how foreign-sponsored evangelical initiatives inspired indigenous Christians to create their own media platforms.”
Armanios noted that because there are few documentary sources on this topic, she relied on oral history interviews for much of her research. “This approach allowed key figures who influenced these channels to share their personal stories and provide critical details—something that written records alone might fail to capture fully.”
She is known for her scholarship on religious minorities in the Middle East as well as studies connecting food practices with religious cultures. Among her previous publications are “Halal Food: A History” (2018) and “Coptic Christianity in Ottoman Egypt” (2011), both released by Oxford University Press.
