MELANIE PHILLIPS: Just a few years ago Algeria, for example, had around 1,500 Christians; their numbers have swelled to nearly 200,000. Algerian Christians say they pray in secret for Israel and the Jewish people. In Iran, of all places, the churches are experiencing the fastest expansion in the world with estimated annual growth rates of more than 20 percent. According to some sources, the number of Iranian evangelicals has grown from a few hundred in 1979 to more than 5,000,000 today. The striking feature of these new Christians is that, because they are evangelicals and thus take very seriously what is written in the Bible, they devoutly support Israel. Westerners may feel uncomfortable about these new churches since they emphasize healing, prophecy, visions, ecstatic utterances and the supernatural. But they are amongst Israel’s best friends in the world. And their amazing growth has major global implications. Chinese Christians have now grown to at least 300,000,000. The face of Christianity is thus changing color, from white to (its original) brown and black.
