Re: CHAT: Visible planets (was: Corpses)

--- Peter Bleackley <Peter.Bleackley@...>
wrote:
> Staving Tommie L Powell:
> >Isidora Zamora wrote:
> > > I'm curious how it happens that most of the
> Arabs you know are
> > > Christian.  I would think that this would be an
> unusual situation,
> > > given that most Arabs actually are Muslim.
> >
> >Here in the US, about half of the Arabs are
> Christians because they
> >mostly came from the Arab countries that have had
> large Christian
> >populations since the time of the Crusades (namely,
> Lebanon, Palestine
> >and Syria).  One thing I find particularly
> disgusting about our American
> >media is that, though Israel treats Palestine's
> Christians just as
> >horribly as it treats its Moslems, our media ignore
> that (perhaps because
> >mentioning it might make some Americans wonder why
> our government favors
> >Jews over Christians there).
>
>
> I was under the impression that Arabic Christianity
> was considerably more
> ancient than that, dating back to the early Church -
> I know that there are
> Christian Churches in Iraq, where I don't think the
> crusaders ever set
> foot. One interesting fact I once learnt from an
> Arabic Christian - Arabic
> Christians tend to refer to the "Sovereignty" of
> God, rather than the
> "Kingdom" of God, since monarchy is generally
> associated with tyranny in
> Arabic culture (I haven't checked this assertion
> with my Iraqi Muslim
> friends, but one of them did agree that Saddam
> Husein had effectively been
> a monarch).
>
> Pete
You're correct.  Christianity in the Arabic lands of
today predates Christianity in Europe by some few
years.  Of course, at that early date those were not
Arabic speaking lands; they were Aramaic and thus the
use of Syriac as a liturgical language among
traditional Christians today.  Of course many new
converts to Christianity do not join the Antiochan
churches and conduct their worship in Arabic on
Fridays.

Adam

=====
Fached il prori ul pañeveju djul atexindu mutu chu.
-- Carrajena proverb