Cross-sectarian civil society has been proposed by transnational policy-makers as one of the most effective sites of post-civil war reconciliation in Lebanon. More recently, the Arab Uprisings and Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon mobilized various urban middle-class groups in Beirut to further participate in cross-sectarian organizations and movements. Critical historians of Lebanon have documented how sectarianism is a nationalist creation that dates to the beginnings of colonialism and modernization. Yet, the imagination of sectarianism as “pre-modern” and “anti-national” has been central to civil society politics in Lebanon. Cross-sectarian civil society discourse defines sectarianism as the primitive atavistic tendency among Lebanon’s various religious communities that undermines sentiments for wataniyya (patriotism). Based on my broader ethnographic research conducted between 2012 and 2015 in Beirut, this paper will unpack the complex entanglements of sectarianism, nationalism, and secularism within the cross-sectarian civil society led by Lebanon’s urban elites. I will specifically focus on the leading political and civil society actors including urban elites, returning Lebanese diaspora, European volunteers and local policy-making institutions such as ministries, political parties, universities, and transnational funding agencies. I discuss how the current cross-sectarian civil society in Beirut blames everything on "sectarianism" while belittling and excluding many low-income and religious Lebanese for being "sectarian." I critically analyze the cosmopolitan urban elites' claims to ethical citizenship vis a vis the other local communities they criticize. Using an intersectional analysis, I unpack how sectarian difference is invoked alongside other forms of social difference such as social class, urbanity, religiosity and age. I specifically problematize the ways middle-class cosmopolitan Lebanese who proudly participate in cross-sectarian civil society invoke sectarianism to discredit and vilify different local actors. I will also suggest that post-colonial encounters with civil society practitioners from “Western” countries are central to the shaping of cross-sectarian civil society discourses over sectarianism in Lebanon. The cross-sectarian civil society organizations in Beirut currently host hundreds of European aid-workers and volunteers. I argue that through condescending historical comparisons between the European wars of religion in the 16th and 17th centuries and the current conflicts in Lebanon, they contribute to the portrayal of sectarianism as an essential archaic problem of Lebanon. By looking at the social interactions and cultural exchanges among diverse actors within cross-sectarian civil society, I will suggest that critiques of sectarianism obscure social inequality, and reinscribe racialized, gendered and class-based hierarchies.