By Kenneth Cragg. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991. Pp. ix-336.  The English-speaking world has at its disposal a great body of literature dealing with the Arab world and its dominant religion, Islam. However, books about Arab Christians are rather scarce. Kenneth Cragg’s latest book, The Arab Christian: A History in the Middle East, is a welcome contribution to the literature on this subject. This work deals with the history of Arab Christians from before the rise of Islam to the present day. But it is much more than a historical account of a minority group because it covers a variety of theological and missiological…

What is religion? This question has puzzled theologians throughout human history. But how did religion start in the first place? Why did it start? In order to understand some of these issues, let us have a look at the etymology of the word “religion” itself, and see that when and where this word was used for the very first time in the human history.

The word religion was used for the very first time in the Latin language. The actual word used in Latin was “religio”, which changed into religion when came into English. The roots of the Arabic word “Mazhab” or “Deen” can also be traced back to “religio”. In the Latin language, the word “religio” had three basic meanings; which are Faith, Trust & Belief.

If you further analyse these three words, faith, trust and belief; then you realize that there are actually three different characteristics