Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

After 1,500 years of continuous Christian service, the world's oldest monastery is being forced to close its doors.

According to several news sources, St. Catherine's monastery will now be annexed by the Egyptian government and turned

into a museum and a tourist attraction. Though the monks won't be kicked out yet, the ruling is

the latest incident and the already precarious situation of Christians in the Middle East. Founded

as a respite for wandering worshippers under Emperor Justinian in 527, St. Catherine sits at the foot of Mount Sinai.

It's been a center of Christian identity since, shortly after the fall of the Western Roman Empire,

at 70 years before the first Archbishop of Canterbury, and nearly a full century before the

founding of Islam. And of course, it sits at one of the most significant

places in all the Old Testament. Now, a claim at the heart of the case was whether or not

Christianity is a Western intrusion into an indigenous Muslim area, and therefore, if foreign

Christian monks are occupying Egyptian land. Now, of course, it's true. After Christianity

made the West what it is, missionaries were sent around the world. Now, of course, it's true. After Christianity made the West what it is,

missionaries were sent around the world. However, Middle Eastern and African Christians were

building churches when the ancestors of Western Christians were still worshiping pagan gods.

The areas that now make up North Africa, Egypt, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey were once

the heartland of Christianity,

and were only lost after centuries of conquest and persecution by Muslim overlords. Today,

and almost all these nations, Christians are in real trouble. And yet, as Philip Jenkins

noted in his book, The Next Christendom, the church is a global phenomenon that spans cultures,

languages, and history. Last year, on Pentecost Sunday, I asked our youth Sunday school class

...