Both Judaism and Islam acknowledge that Jesus was a great prophet, but deny his divinity. Consequently, one basic way that a Christian reading of the Old Testament differs from that of Judaism and Islam in that Christians see another level of meaning in it, namely a Christological one which interprets texts in the light of the paschal mystery.
Q: The Christian tradition comprises three major expressions of the life of prayer. Vocal prayer, such as praying aloud the Our Father, engages our senses and seeks to translate our feelings into external expression.
Meditation is more a prayerful quest that involves thought, imagination, emotion and desire in an effort to appropriate a subject of faith by confronting the realities of our own life. What is the third expression? A: Contemplative prayer. It is a gaze of faith fixed on Jesus, an attentiveness to the Word of God, and a silent love.
The Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio states that the Eastern Churches hold a special position in terms of their relation to the Church.
The East and West are bound together in a communion of faith and sacramental life that extends beyond the lamentable split that occurred centuries ago over disputes about dogmatic formulations and the dissolution of ecclesiastical communion between the Eastern Patriarchates and the Roman See. The document acknowledges how the West has in fact drawn from the riches of the East in terms of liturgy, spiritual tradition and jurisprudence. It mentions the traditions expressed in Eastern monastic life that became the source of Latin monastic life.
The worsening conflicts in Palestine increased Jewish-Muslim conflict in the Arab states, where Jews were seen as both foreign and instruments of Western colonial designs. Rulers in predominantly Muslim countries no longer had a constituent Jewish population.
While deploring the problems in Palestine, they separate the Arab-Israeli conflict from discussions about Jews and Christians. This, too, has proved to be an intellectual challenge. Armstrong, K. New York: A. Knopf, Brinner W. Ricks ed. Studies in Islamic and Judaic Traditions. Atlanta: Scholars Press, Brown Judaic Studies, no. Burrell, D. McGinn ed. Creation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Cohen, M. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Cutler A. Ellis, Kail C.
The Vatican, Islam, and the Middle East. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, Firestone, R. Goitein, S. New York: Schoken Books, McAulliffe, Jane. New York: Cambridge University Press, Newby, G. Columbia, S. Peters FE. Princeton: Princeton. Stillman, N. Wassenstrom, S. Portland, Or. Watt, Montgomery W. Muslim-Christian Encounters: Perceptions and Misperceptions. London and New York: Routledge, Christianity started as an offshoot of Judaism in the first century C. Until the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in C.
The development of Christian groups derived from major and minor splits. In the 16th century, Martin Luther, upset at the corruption of the Catholic papacy, spearheaded a reformation movement that led to the development of Protestantism. Christian missionaries proselytize all over the world, and there are large populations of Christians on every continent on Earth, although the forms of Christianity practiced vary.
Many early Christian saints lived in the Middle East. The tradition of asceticism denial of physical pleasures in order to come closer to God developed first in the Middle East, and the monastic tradition has its roots there. These groups have different liturgical languages, rituals, and customs, and different leaders who direct their faith. The Coptic Church, the dominant form of Christianity in Egypt, arose from a doctrinal split in the Church at the Council of Chalcedon in The Egyptian government supports the Copts' rights to worship and maintain their culture, but there has been some violence against the community by extremist Muslims.
The Maronite Church was started in the fifth century by followers of a Syrian priest named Maroun. The Maronite Patriarch, based in Lebanon, guides his followers in the teachings of Maroun and other saints. Maronites are still one of the most powerful political communities in Lebanon.
There are also Christian communities of different sects living today in Syria 10 percent of the population , Jordan 6 percent , the West Bank 8 percent , and Iraq 3 percent , with smaller percentages in other Middle Eastern countries. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Christians from what is now Syria and Lebanon then the Ottoman Empire emigrated to the United States and other countries.
Although Christians are a minority in the Middle East today, more than 75 percent of Americans of Arab descent are Christian. Christianity developed out of the monotheistic tradition of Judaism; Jesus, its founder, was a member of the Jewish community in Roman Palestine.
Its holy scriptures are the Old Testament the Jewish Torah with additions , and the New Testament written by the followers of Jesus after his death and containing the life story of Jesus and other early Christian writings. Jesus is considered the son of God, born to the virgin Mary and come to Earth to offer redemption for mankind's sins.
After Jesus was crucified and executed by the Romans, he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. This event is celebrated at Easter, while the birth of Jesus is celebrated at Christmas. Christians believe in an afterlife where those who have lived a good life will reside in heaven with God, and those who have lived an unrepentant life of sin will be punished in hell.
Although Christianity developed out of Judaic texts, Christians do not follow Jewish law. Instead, they believe that the ritualistic Jewish law was abrogated in favor of a universal gospel for all of humanity and the Christian teaching, "Love thy neighbor as thyself. Relationships between Jewish and Christian communities have often been difficult, particularly in Christian Europe.
There, Jewish communities were often subject to discrimination and violence at the hands of Christians. Christianity has also had a problematic relationship with Islam. Christians do not accept Muhammad as a prophet. While many Christians in the Middle East converted to Islam during and after the seventh century, the Church hierarchy in Rome and Constantinople considered Islam to be both a political and theological threat.
The Crusades were an unsuccessful attempt to reverse the Islamic conquest of the eastern Mediterranean and the holy places of all three monotheistic religions. Islam arose in the early seventh century C. It developed from both the Judeo-Christian tradition and the cultural values of the nomadic Bedouin tribes of Arabia. Islam expanded into areas controlled by the Byzantine Empire largely Greek-speaking and Orthodox Christian, but with a diverse population and the Sassanian Empire officially Zoroastrian and Persian-speaking, but also diverse.
As Islam expanded, the new Islamic societies adapted and synthesized many of the customs they encountered. As a result, Muslims in different areas of the world created for themselves a wide array of cultural traditions. The culture of Islamic Spain, for example, was so cosmopolitan that some Christian and Jewish parents complained that their children were more interested in developing their knowledge of Arabic than in learning Latin or Hebrew, respectively.
Many elements of Islamic society became integral parts of medieval and Renaissance European culture, like the notion of chivalry, and certain forms of music the lute, the arabesque and poetry.
On the eastern end of the Islamic world, many Indonesians converted to Islam between the 15th and 17th centuries. Preexisting animist beliefs were often incorporated into the local practice of Islam. Within Islam, there are many different communities. Adherents of Islam may be more or less observant, conservative or liberal.
Sufism is the mystical tradition of Islam, where direct experience of the divine is emphasized. The 13th-century poet Jalaluddin Rumi is a well-known Sufi figure whose work has become popular in the United States today.
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