April 5, 2003
THEIR LOSS IS OUR GAIN:
Are Most Arab Americans Christian?: The Detroit News reports that 75 percent of Arabs in the U.S. are Christian. Why is that? (Todd Hertz, 03/25/2003, Christianity Today)The Detroit News recently reported on new ethnic sensitivity training courses for Michigan police departments in highly Arab American communities. As part of the training, one counselor reminds officers that most Arab stereotypes have no grounding in fact. As an example, the counselor says few people realize that most Arab Americans are not Muslim. In fact, the News reports, 75 percent of Arab Americans are Christians.Does it make sense the percentage is that high? According to Roy Oksnevad, director of the Department of Ministries to Muslims at Wheaton College, it does.
"There's always been a high percentage of Christians among Arab U.S. citizens," Oksnevad told Christianity Today. "The majority of them come here because they were minorities in their native countries. Much of the reason they leave is the hard life under Islam but recently there has been a mass exodus due to renewed nationalism and an Islamic resurgence."
Is there any number more in dispute than the total of Muslims in America? If most of our Arabs are Christian, then the enormous numbers (like 6 million) being bandied about immediately after 9-11 seem awfully hard to believe. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 5, 2003 2:02 PM
I think to some people Muslim is an ethnicity. Its how they treat it.
Posted by: RC at April 5, 2003 6:12 PMI heard 2 million was the most accurate estimate.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at April 5, 2003 6:18 PMAs I understand it, Muslim Arab-Americans are a minority in both communities, as most Arab-Americans are Christians (I have an uncle in this category) and most Muslims are Black.
Posted by: Kevin Colwell at April 5, 2003 10:10 PMAs I understand it, Muslim Arab-Americans are a minority in both communities, as most Arab-Americans are Christians (I have an uncle in this category) and most Muslims are Black.
Posted by: Kevin Colwell at April 5, 2003 10:10 PMI'm curious as to where most Arab-Americans lived. There were plenty in my high school--mostly Iraqi refugees, actually, including at least one (probably more) whose father was killed by Saddam's regime. But they were, if the head scarves were any indication, almost entirely Muslim. So, I am curious.
Posted by: Timothy at April 5, 2003 11:57 PMMichigan from what I've heard.
Most Iranian-Americans live in L.A.
There were Melkite and Maronite Lebanese
Catholics in Atlanta, of all places, in the
1950s. Enough of them that that's who my
religious teachers were.
A good deal of my understanding of western
Asia is based on what I learned from Father
Haddad -- which was not necessarily what he
was trying to teach me.
His favorite saying was that Catholics were
better off than "the poor pipple who worship
the snekes."
It was only some years later that I learned
that he was not being funny.