(CNN) -- Christianity was born in Bethlehem, in what's now the West Bank. It took root among people like the Assyrians, who flourished in ancient Mesopotamia. It soon found a home in places like modern-day Turkey.
In other words, Christianity traces its past squarely to the Middle East.
But do Christians have a future there?
Recent headlines provide ample evidence for skepticism. It's hard to ignore the depravity of ISIS beheading 21 Egyptian Christians on a beach in Libya. Nor can one shake off stories of women and children among the 262 Christians captured by ISIS in Syria, one of several horrors faced by Christians in that nation and neighboring Iraq.
They're not just feeling the heat from Islamic extremists: Just this week, police in
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The United Arab Emirates lets Christians do most everything but evangelize, for example, and Bahrain has top Christian and Jewish officials.
On the other end of the spectrum is Saudi Arabia, which doesn't allow the practice of anything but Islam. Religious police in Saudi Arabia try to make sure that's the case. David Curry, whose nonprofit group Open Doors USA helps persecuted Christians in more than 60 countries, calls Saudi Arabia's control on religious matters "complete."
"You're not allowed to go to church, you're not allowed to have a Bible, you're not allowed to think for yourself," Curry said.
Yet that hasn't stopped Christians from coming for a simple reason: jobs. They'll likely keep coming, with the World Religion Database projecting Saudi Arabia will have more than 1.5 million Christians by 2025.
And they don't necessarily stop believing and professing their faith once they cross the border.
"There are home churches (where people are) practicing their faith in private," says Zurlo, who helps manage the database and is assistant director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. "... Some of them come as guest workers, but they see themselves as
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They began converting to Christianity within years of Jesus' death and have kept the faith despite the growth of Islam in their homeland and, most shockingly, the Assyrian genocide of the 1910s and early 1920s.
Now those Assyrians in Iraq and Syria are under fire again.
Last August, ISIS militants overran Qaraqosh, a historic Assyrian community of about 50,000 people and Iraq's largest Christian city. And in recent days, the terrorist group stormed Assyrian villages in northeastern Syria, taking some 262 people hostage, said Assyrian Human Rights Network founder Osama Edward. Others fled for their lives, including about 600 taking refuge in St. Mary's Cathedral in al-Hasakah, Syria.
"We pray, we pray all the time," Romel David, who has 12 relatives thought to be among those kidnapped, told CNN affiliate KCRA. "What we've heard is it was like a sea of black uniforms marching through all the villages, burning down the churches, desecrating the crosses and wreaking
“Religious Freedom.” Office of International Religious Freedom Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. State Department Documents / FIND, , 17 Aug. 2011. eLibrary. Web. 31 Aug. 2011.
...women are that women do not speak to men, do not go out alone, and even public facilities such as McDonalds are segregated by race. In my opinion how Saudi Arabia goes about treating their women is demeaning. However, I know that the women in this culture are used to this and do not consider it deeming but only comfortable.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are both independent, Middle Eastern nations located on the Arabian Gulf peninsula. They share the same religion, same ruling style and same ruling religion. They are both Islamic monarchies where Wahhabism—a fundamentalist sect of Islam—is the primary faith among their people and the faith of their ruling families. Their economies follow nearly identical paths, as oil wealth is the primary sector of both of their Gross Domestic Products (GDPs) and largely controlled by the government. Both Saudi Arabia and Qatar are economically oil-driven Wahabist kingdoms; however, Qatar 's lack of reliance on Wahhabism coupled with its acceptance of its own ephemerality has
...commit to the Islamic beliefs. As of right now money is the main attraction and concern for he Saudis instead of religion beliefs.
As ancient Rome began to fall, Christianity began rising. Around 2,000 years ago, Jesus of Nazareth was born, later to be known as the Messiah or Son of God. When people of the Roman era began to hear of such a powerful being, they began to convert to Christianity. Why did Christianity take hold on the ancient world; Christianity took hold on the ancient world because it offered immortality, equality, and it was spread like wildfire.
The Islamic revival trend of the late 20th century forged the intellection that the ‘resurrected’ Muslim nations were akin to Islamic states. The region considered to make up the Muslim world indisputably comprises nations that maintain majority Muslim populations. The extent to which these nations may be labeled Islamic, however, is dubious. As the omnipresent uniformity ascribed to Muslim nations has intensified with heightened media attention, the variance among systems of governance in these countries has continued to be overlooked. The Islamic presence in these countries, in fact, ranges vastly, from Islamic social groups that strive to revive social morality and eradicate Western culture to established political systems that endeavor to enforce Islamic law.
Both religions share a history of Abrahamic faith based off the myth and history of Judaic peoples in the Levant region of the Middle East, however modern Judaism is just as distinct from that time period as Christianity: the identity of modern Jewish believers comes from their following of the rabbinic tradition, and emphasis on the rabbi as a central figure in the local community. This is distinct from the nature of Jews before the first century, who followed a religion-wide authority and offered sacrifices at the Holy Temple. Likewise, the people that became Christians were distinct from these Jews—though in more immediately obvious
Christianity is an older religion, it started ____ in Judea, which is now Israel. Jesus Christ was a jew while he was 30 he traveled with other jews to a town, teaching those and healing the suffering. His teachings created instability and moved the minds of the people. He started to gain followers, sharing his beliefs about God, and humans. The group began to spread the gossip about hope throughout the town. With a small group formed, the religion Christianity formed also, spreading their beliefs throughout the world. After Jesus was sacrificed for our sins, the Christian religion lived on, (History Of Christianity, sec.
The fact is that no matter where you turn, religion is a major part of culture and influences everyone on some level. While I don’t agree on any particular religion, it is important about learning what types there are in the world.
Today, Islam is alive and vibrant. The future looks promising, though there are challenges it must conquer if it wishes to persist. The internal challenges include divisions and factions rising up either through power struggles or to justify a strong held belief. The external challenges include misinterpretations about its beliefs and practices; scare because of its extremist followers; or outright hate for the Islamic religion. If history were to be give us a hint, however, there need not be anything to be concerned about. As in the past, Islam will survive and thrive in any environment. If Christians want to be part of a world that could very well soon be one with more Muslims than Christians, they need to begin to understand their beliefs and practices and work alongside each other for the good of humanity. Only then will they flourish.
The Saudi Arabia is a country with a huge culture and with many traditions. The culture is mostly influenced by their religion that is Islam. An example is that the women there is not allowed to drive a car, they can only got delivered by a family member or a driver. This Law is being used because of the holy Mekka Al-mukara...
There are a lot of women’s human rights violations in Syria. According to the SNHR, the percentage of women deaths has dramatically increased in 2013, reaching nearly 9% of the total number of victims on April 30, 2013, and at this date, at least 7543 women including 2454 girls and 257 female infants under the age of 3 have been killed, including 155 women who remain unidentified at this date. The SNHR documented the killing of 55 foreign women. In 2013, the SNHR estimates that the number of rapes of women approximately reaches 6000, resulting in numerous cases in forced pregnancy. (Sema Nasar) This shows that some families will lose their mother and some husbands will have difficulty with their wives, and maybe there is population imbalanced. Also a young Syrian girl was stoned to death by Islamic extremists in 2014. Cause of it was a facebook account. Fatoum Al-Jassem, aged 14 or 15, was taken to a Sharia court in the city of Al-Reqqah after the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants caught her ...
...gely by religious values: Conservative dress, conservative literature, and conservative behavior. Freedom of political and religious expression is not allowed, and diversions like dancing, or movies, activities are almost nonexistence in Saudi Arabia. As it has been for centuries, the cultural and political life of Saudi Arabia continues to be expressed in terms of Islamic principles.
The ancient Israelite text as well as some New Testament verses have been used by many contemporary Christian denominations to condemn LGBT persons to hell and to provide “moral reasoning” for supporting legislation that makes LGBT people second class citizens. Missionaries during the imperialist period of European history have also used these verses to spread hate around the globe, and many of these anti-homosexuality sodomy laws that were backed by Christian colonial monarchies are still on the books in former colonies in Africa, Asia and Oceania. The spread of Islam, a religion that also considers the Hebrew texts to be holy scripture, has also had the same effect on the Swahili Coast, Horn of Africa, Persia, and Southeast Asia. These religious texts have been the basis for anti-LGBT laws across the world, and as Abrahamic religions spread, the tolerance for LGBT people in other societies declined. Although the doctrine and head clerics of Abrahamic religions have made clear their opposition towards LGBT lifestyles, many adherents to these religions do not share the same views regarding LGBT issues.... ...