DEIR DOURITE, Lebanon -
Showing off a tattoo of a cross on his forearm that reflects his Christian beliefs, Charbel Maroun points toward a shotgun lying on the hood if a beat-up car and jokes that he is ready for the next war. Maroun was born in 1982, the year Israeli forces invaded Lebanon and surrounded Beirut. As a toddler, his family's Maronite village, Deir Dourite, was razed in a war between the Druze, a small offshoot of Islam, and Christian Lebanese Forces -a conflict that caused the displacement of most residents from the area's Chouf mountain range.

In fact, until last week, Maroun had known only a country occupied by two powerful rivals, Israel and Syria. But Israel's recent troops withdrawal from its so-called security zone in southern Lebanon has left him more perplexed than joyful.

"We are still surrounded," he said, referring to nearby Druze villages and a Syrian army encampment. Syria, the nation's powerbroker, still has 30,000 troops in Lebanon.

In postwar Lebanon, Christians are undergoing an identity crisis, worrying about their dwindling numbers, the continued presence of the Syrian army and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

For them, the challenge is to rebuild the country from the ruins of civil war, come to terms with their minority status and diminished political clout, and accept their new identity in Lebanon's mosaic of intermingled communities.

Christians, who used to account for just more than half of Lebanon's 3.5 million people, now comprise about 35 to 40 percent. An estimated 500,000 to 700,000 fled Lebanon during the country's 16-year war, and an additional 100,000 have left since the war ended in 1991.

"Lebanese Christians are facing an existential crisis in terms of numbers and an uncertain future because of their small birth rate and the danger of an eruption of Islamic fundamentalism in the region," said Paul Salem, a Harvard-educated political analyst.

Christians, and especially Maronites - a sect recognized by Rome as Catholic and the largest Christian group in Lebanon, followed by Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholics - cling to the hope of restoring their past influence.

Lebanon, a country no bigger than the state of Connecticut squeezed between powerful neighbors, has historically given refuge to many dissident groups. That openness, allowing Christians to coexist with Muslims, has made Lebanon perhaps the most cosmopolitan country in the Arab world.

Charbel Maroun, however, is part of a younger generation of Lebanese who have never experienced the Lebanon his father still fondly remembers - a peaceful haven for 18 religions and a nation that earned the moniker as the "Switzerland if the Middle East."

By the time Maroun was born, the word "Lebanonization" had become a synonym for shelling and destruction. In Lebanon, many Christians politely refer to the men from Damascus as "our Syrian brothers" in reference to the 1991 Treaty of Brotherhood that formalized Syria's intervention.

But for Maroun, the Israeli pullout after a 22-year occupation has spurred him and other Christians to forgo cordiality and call for the Syrians to withdraw as well.

"They (Syrians) should just get out," he said, while helping his father rebuild the family home 25 miles southeast of Beirut. In a recent editorial, Gebran Tueini, the publisher of the Arabic language daily Al-Nahar, echoed that view. He wrote that Syrian troops should leave Lebanon before this summer's parliamentary elections and dared to include in his editorial the view that many Lebanese consider the Syrians to be their enemy.

Following Tueini's editorial, President Emile Lahoud, a Maronite, denounced the pleas for a Syrian withdrawal. "We all know that such calls and their timing do not reflect the interest in protecting Lebanon's sovereignty and independence," he said in a public statement.

Most historians attribute the roots of the Lebanese civil war to frustration with the sectarian distribution of power sponsored by France, Lebanon's former colonial master, in 1920. The French, who withdrew their troops in 1946, sponsored an arrangement that clearly favored the Christians.

In 1990, the Lebanese constitution was amended in accordance with the Taif Accord to end the Christian's majority status in Parliament. While Lebanon is still ruled by a triumvirate - power is shared between a Maronite Christian president, a Sunni prime minister and a Shiite speaker of the National Assembly - the number of seats in the assembly have been increased from 99 to 128 and divided equally between Christians and Muslims.

Yet some Muslims argue that the Christians still have too much power in relation to their population. Sami Baroudi, a political science professor at Beirut's Lebanese American University, says many Muslims want to abolish the current sectarian power formula. The idea has become "very popular among secular educated people," he said.

However, some Christians are well aware that they must now accept their minority status and are trying hard to convince Muslims that the nation would not be the same without them.

"Without the Christians, Lebanon would be a Syria or any other Arabic country," said Selim Abou, dean of Beirut's Jesuit Saint-Joseph University.

Dory Chamoun, the leader of the Maronite right-wing National Liberal Party, hopes that Lebanon can again become a haven for minorities once the Syrians are gone.

"As long as Lebanon is occupied by Syria, Christians and Muslims alike won't play much of a political role."