Word: christian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...sadness extends from Bethlehem to nearby Jerusalem and many West Bank towns, where Christians, who are overwhelmingly Arabs, say they too will be forgoing glittering displays and traditional festivities. Most of the country's Christian leaders see no end to the intifadeh. They fear that their flocks, already reduced by a century of emigration to the West, could gradually decline into virtual extinction, as has already happened to the once grand Greek Orthodox community in Muslim Turkey...
...prospects for peace inside and outside Israel falter, rumors fly in Christian neighborhoods about people seeking visas to move to North and South America. Since Christians are a minority, says the Greek Catholic patriarchal vicar in Jerusalem, Archbishop Loutfi Laham, they "need stabilization and peace in order to stay here." For the moment, at least, the fears of a disappearing flock appear exaggerated, judging by estimates from Israeli sources. They show that there are 103,000 Christians in Israel, including the Jerusalem area, compared with only 67,000 in 1967. During the same period, the total number of believers...
Despite such statistics, Christians have already become a minority in places where they traditionally predominated. Bethlehem, for instance, a Christian stronghold from the very earliest days of the faith, now has a Muslim majority as a result of high Islamic birthrates and an influx from refugee camps. The growing influence of Israel's Orthodox Jewish political movements adds to anxieties. Says Bethlehem's Nasser: "Jewish and Arab fundamentalism are the same. They are like sisters, and we fear the sisters are going to clash, and we will be caught in the middle...
...from Washington's Ellipse to San Francisco's Union Square, almost anywhere a reindeer might be lurking. But most Jewish groups oppose the displays. Says Sam Rabinove, legal director of the American Jewish Committee: "We're all in favor of menorahs and creches, but not in public buildings." Mainstream Christian groups agree. "We consider the display of a Christian religious symbol by a municipality to be an affront to persons of other faiths or of none," says Dean Kelley, director for religious liberty at the National Council of Churches. "As for a menorah, two wrongs don't make a right...
...satellites is not a good one, nor has our progress toward performing significant technological research in orbit been very swift. The shuttle itself may not be the optimal vehicle when war is no longer a significant threat. As James Bamford, author of "The Puzzle Palace" noted in Monday's Christian Science Monitor, "Nobody seems to understand that the principle reason for the shuttle program was servicing and repairing spy satellites." Even now, it might pay to begin concentrating on single-launch rockets coupled to a space laboratory, as the Soviets have done...