While Christianity faces demographic erosion across much of the Middle East, one country stands as a striking exception. CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Mitchell told viewers in a studio interview from 6:55 that Israel hosts the only Christian population in the entire Middle East that is currently growing — a fact he cited as evidence of a deepening and historically unprecedented bond between the Jewish state and the global Christian community.
“The Christian population in Israel is the only one growing in all of the Middle East,” Mitchell stated, attributing the observation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had made the point in a post on the social media platform X.
Mitchell offered this demographic reality as essential context for understanding why the recent controversy over an Israeli soldier smashing a statue of Jesus in a Christian Lebanese village had provoked such serious concern within both Israeli and Jewish leadership circles worldwide. The incident, he argued, struck at the heart of a relationship that both communities had invested enormous effort in building — and that carried real civilizational significance.
The IDF condemned the soldier’s conduct, launching a criminal investigation. Prime Minister Netanyahu personally denounced the act. More than 150 rabbis and Jewish leaders signed a formal letter of apology directed to Christians worldwide. These responses, Mitchell said, reflected the genuine alarm felt by those who understood how fragile and precious the Jewish-Christian relationship remained.
Mitchell traced the growth of that relationship back to the early 2000s, when he first arrived in Israel. It was during a period of intense conflict, he recalled, that evangelical Christians began to stand visibly and vocally with Israel — a development he described as a breakthrough in a relationship burdened by two thousand years of antisemitism and theological tension. Read_More…