Pope Benedict's visit to the Middle East last week has accentuated the need to improve relations between Muslims and Christians at multiple levels. Despite sharing a common Abrahamic lineage, both faith communities have a chequered history of relations going back to the Crusades. While the Koran recognizes Christians and Jews as "people of the book," some verses of the book are often taken out of context as well by some Muslims to advocate an exclusionary theology that marginalizes other faiths.
The pope visited the Holy Land at a time when there is a major migration of minority Christian communities from the Muslim-majority region to other parts of the world. In his recent book about the "Middle East's vanishing Christians," Charles Sennott raises the significant question of why this is occurring. In areas such as Palestine, the population of Christians has declined from 7 percent in 1948 to around 2 percent in 2009.
What are the factors for such a decline? Some may argue that Christian communities have historically had higher education levels allowing them to migrate more easily during times of economic stress or political instability. However, there is perhaps also an issue of feeling marginalized in Muslim dominant countries that may need to be addressed. For example, in addition to the Christian exodus from Palestine, there is the problem of mass migration from Iraq, where the United States-led invasion has left long-standing Christian minorities prone to the threats of extremist groups.
http://newageislam.com/towards-muslim-christian-understanding---/islam-and-pluralism/d/1414
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