{"id":328,"date":"2010-12-23T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/middle-east-christians-christmas-crisis-2010.html"},"modified":"2010-12-23T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-23T08:00:00","slug":"middle-east-christians-christmas-crisis-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/middle-east-christians-christmas-crisis-2010.html","title":{"rendered":"Another Christmas Eve Eve in Crisis in the Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll have to&nbsp;post an extra Fun Friday tomorrow to make up for all the grim religion news this week, but the plight of Christians in the Middle East is important, especially at this time of year (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.getreligion.org\/2009\/12\/another-dangerous-christmas-in-iraq\/\">once again<\/a>):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/faithworld\/2010\/12\/22\/no-christmas-festivities-for-some-iraqi-christians\/\">No Christmas festivities for some Iraqi Christians <\/a>(Reuters)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2010\/OPINION\/12\/21\/ahmed.chane.christians.muslims\/index.html\">Christians senselessly tormented by extremists in Muslim world <\/a>(CNN)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2010\/12\/23\/christians-face-rising-persecution-experts-say\/\">Christians face rising persecution, experts say <\/a>(CNN)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Fortunately, there&#8217;s still some hope, too:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2010\/12\/10\/turkey-reaches-out-to-greek-christian-minority\/\">Turkey reaches out to Greek Christian minority <\/a>(CNN)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.christiantoday.com\/article\/bethlehem.is.still.the.centre.of.christian.spirituality.says.minister\/27281.htm\">Bethlehem is still the centre of Christian spirituality, says minister <\/a>(Christian Today)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll have to&nbsp;post an extra Fun Friday tomorrow to make up for all the grim religion news this week, but the plight of Christians in the Middle East is important, especially at this time of year (once again): No Christmas festivities for some Iraqi Christians (Reuters) Christians senselessly tormented by extremists in Muslim world (CNN)&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Another Christmas Eve Eve in Crisis in the Middle East - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/middle-east-christians-christmas-crisis-2010.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Another Christmas Eve Eve in Crisis in the Middle East - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;ll have to&nbsp;post an extra Fun Friday tomorrow to make up for all the grim religion news this week, but the plight of Christians in the Middle East is important, especially at this time of year (once again): No Christmas festivities for some Iraqi Christians (Reuters) Christians senselessly tormented by extremists in Muslim world (CNN)&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/middle-east-christians-christmas-crisis-2010.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-23T08:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Another Christmas Eve Eve in Crisis in the Middle East - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/middle-east-christians-christmas-crisis-2010.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Another Christmas Eve Eve in Crisis in the Middle East - Belief Beat","og_description":"I&#8217;ll have to&nbsp;post an extra Fun Friday tomorrow to make up for all the grim religion news this week, but the plight of Christians in the Middle East is important, especially at this time of year (once again): No Christmas festivities for some Iraqi Christians (Reuters) Christians senselessly tormented by extremists in Muslim world (CNN)&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/middle-east-christians-christmas-crisis-2010.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-12-23T08:00:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/middle-east-christians-christmas-crisis-2010.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/12\/middle-east-christians-christmas-crisis-2010.html","name":"Another Christmas Eve Eve in Crisis in the Middle East - 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