Free Republic

Syria is home to the world’s oldest existing Christian communities, which trace their lineage back to Apostolic times. According to Syriac Christian tradition, the Syriac Kingdom of Osroene was the world’s first political entity to declare Christianity as its state religion. King Abgar V — known as Abgar the Black — adopted the Christian faith after being healed from a devastating illness by the disciple Thaddeus in 33 AD. * On the road to Damascus, the former persecutor of Christians, Saul of Tarsus, was transformed into the Apostle Paul, further rooting Christianity in Syrian soil. * Syria has played a...

MEMPHIS— We're out looking for hookers. This great big bulldog of a man, George Kuykendall, leans over the wheel, eyes leveled at the street. He's a tall guy with big hands and a round, ruddy face. We're in the ugly part of Memphis, near the airport: all gray and brown and dried-up in the mid-winter afternoon. Carol Wiley is in the backseat. She's a small woman with the humblest little head of dark brown hair. She doesn't look mean. She looks like a preacher's wife, because she is. "Tell him what we're looking for," Mrs. Wiley says. Mr. Kuykendall takes...