The
above Arabic letter nun
(“N”) for Nasrani
(“Nazarenes”) has begun to take over the profile pictures of many on
social media. Many of us have learned that Iraqi Christians were being
targeted by ISIS and that this letter was being painted on their homes
to mark them out for extermination. It reminds of the Holocaust and the
Star of David that Jews had to wear under Nazi rule. #WeAreN
has trended recently on social media in solidarity with our Christian
brothers and sisters.
Pick up you “We are N” pin in the basket on the welcome
table.
Arabic
Christians? Who Knew?
The
following is adapted from “First Things” and is written by the pastor of St
Paul Orthodox Church in Emmaus PA.
Many
Americans are now waking up to the fact that there are Christians in Iraq (or,
increasingly, were), yet many don’t seem to realize that the whole
Middle East is home to Christians. At roughly 18 million strong, Christians
constitute 5 percent of the total Middle Eastern population (though no one is
sure of the real number), a little less than the population of Florida. Ten
percent of Syrians and of Egyptians are Christian. Forty-one percent of Lebanese
are Christian. Many of us are so used to thinking of the Middle East as Muslims
surrounding an island of Jews that it rarely occurs to them that there might be
some Christians in the birthplace of Christianity.
When
the Apostles made their missionary journeys to the uttermost parts of the earth,
history doesn’t say that they skipped the rest of the Middle East and headed
straight for Europe. No, they immediately began founding Christian communities
right in their own neighborhood. Two major Syrian cities—Antioch and
Damascus—figure quite large in early Christian history. They are mentioned in
the New Testament. They are still home to Christians.
Granted,
when many American Christians think of “the Holy Land,” they don’t usually
think beyond the borders of Israel. But Jesus went beyond those borders (e.g.,
to Tyre and Sidon, both Lebanese cities, as well as to Egypt in his youth), and
the Apostles certainly did. And who can forget the Hebrew heritage in Egypt? Or
that Abraham was from what is now Iraq? The Middle East is the very cradle of
Christianity and its Jewish inheritance.
But
even if we have a hard time wrapping our heads around the presence of Christians
in the Middle East, we can look for them right here in America. The most
numerous ethnic group of Middle Eastern people—those identifying as
“Arabs”—has a presence of about 1.7 million people in America. Of those,
63 percent are Christians. (Muslims account for only 24 percent of Arab
Americans.) The average Arab in America is a Christian. In and around Emmaus Pa
thousands of Syrians—more than any other congressional district in America,
and as the civil war in their native land continues, their numbers here are
growing. Most Syrian Americans are Christian.
For
more:
follow on Twitter @jefflampl
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