By Gary Lane
Watch Low Ban CBNNews.com - BETHLEHEM - Each day, children around the world make their way to school. Many are eager to learn how to read and write and become productive members of their societies.
In contrast, in the Palestinian territories, recent kindergarten graduates - most no more than 5 years old - were demonstrating what they had been taught.
The children, dressed in battle fatigues and carrying toy automatic rifles, chanted their replies to the instructor:
"What is your path?" They were asked. "Jihad," they answered. "What is your most lofty aspiration?" "Death for the sake of allah," they replied.
Because of the aggressive spread of extremist Islamic ideas like this, thousands of Palestinian Christians have fled Palestinian-controlled areas like Bethlehem.
Bethlehem is the birthplace of Christ and was once a Christian city. But today, Christians are only about 10 to 15 percent of the population here. Some observers say that if the mass exodus continues, within another generation it could become a city of Christian holy sites without any Christian residents.
Justice Weiner of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs believes that is happening. He has spent years investigating persecution and the exodus of Christians in Palestinian territories.
"The Christians who were once the dominant commercial and economic force in these towns have seen their numbers dwindle," Weiner said. "They've seen their land stolen and expropriated. They've been forced to sell or to close their businesses, they sense hostility walking down the street. They're afraid to wear crosses, and they sometimes are abused verbally when they go to church."
Despite this mass exodus, members of the First Baptist Church in Bethlehem have chosen to stay, to be a beacon of light in this community. And for that, some have paid a high price.
That's because not only do they share their faith with others, they embrace the Old Testament along with the New - the entire Bible as the word of God, including the promises to the Jews.
"We are born-again Christians; we believe in God's promise with Abraham," First Baptist Pastor Steve Khoury said. "It's an everlasting covenant from God, it's an everlasting covenant with Abraham. He made it with him and his offspring. That is not very well respected in our culture, in our territory that we live in, the Palestinian territory."
For that, they are persecuted not only by Muslims who see them as Zionist supporters of Israel, but by traditional Christians who embrace a belief known as "replacement theology."
Replacement theology is the idea that Christians have replaced the Jews as God's chosen people. And like the Muslim majority, many say God gave Israel and the Palestinian territories to them, not the Jews.
Churches that teach otherwise are attacked because they are viewed as Zionists, betrayers of the Palestinian cause.
First Baptist Church has been fire-bombed 14 times. Also, two young women were shot to death for inviting non-Christian children to vacation Bible school.
"Persecution has made our church stronger," Khoury said. "I've been beaten up and shoved in trash cans just for one simple reason: for discipling other young men who are from another faith. My father's been shot at three separate times for one simple reason: carrying a cross and walking every day and professing Jesus Christ and Him alone. Our church family gets persecuted every day."
CBN News reported the story in September 2003, just days after Pastor Naem Khoury was shot. Today, he's back in the pulpit, but he's receiving continuous death threats.
Pastor Khoury has an entire congregation standing beside him. But many Palestinian Christians, Muslim and other Arab converts to Christ, suffer alone.
Like a man we'll call Mukhtar. His family disowned him, called him a snake and threatened to behead him when he became a Christian. He explained what happened one night when several men came and knocked on his door and asked him if he loved Jesus.
"I tell them, yes, of course, I love him," Mukhtar said.
he men responded, "Ahh, you love Him, huh? You are a snake!"
Mukhtar said the men told him, "We want to kill you, you are a snake."
Then they beat him up. Mukhtar was hospitalized with several cracked ribs and vertebrae as a result.
Arab converts to Christianity like Mukhtar and many Palestinian believers say they know God is with them in their suffering. They pray that the body of Christ around the world will not forget them.
Steve Khoury said, "We believe it is time to cry out to the Christians around the world that you have born-again Christian brothers and sisters who are existing in Israel, in the Palestinian territories that need your prayers, that need your help. Galatians 5:6 tells us to do good unto all, but especially to those who are of the household of faith."
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