In Bethlehem this Christmas, a brave band of believers has launched the Nativity Encounter to put the real Christmas story back where it belongs — in the town of the Savior’s birth and in the hearts of the people who live there. The immersive, shepherd-perspective walk-through is aimed not at tourists alone but at local families, schoolchildren, and even the Muslim neighbors who, shockingly to some, have not been steeped in the biblical account of Jesus’ birth.
Pastor Steven Khoury and his team are doing what too many in the West have stopped doing: proclaiming the truth plainly and lovingly in the public square. Khoury has watched Bethlehem’s demographics shift dramatically and sees a mission field in his own hometown where Christians have dwindled and the story of the Prince of Peace has been forgotten by many residents.
This project isn’t a gimmick; it’s part of a larger, strategic effort to build a biblical discovery center and create sustained outreach in the very place history testifies the Messiah was born. Organizers have been fundraising and hosting nationwide events to support the Nativity Encounter and to raise the resources needed to keep the Gospel visible in Bethlehem year-round.
Conservatives should admire and emulate that boldness. While coastal elites and secular institutions spend their energy erasing our heritage, people on the ground in Bethlehem are reclaiming it through witness, education, and hospitality — exactly the kind of faith-driven public engagement that should be celebrated, supported, and multiplied.
What’s striking and hopeful is how open local Muslims and schoolchildren have been to seeing the story for the first time; eyewitnesses describe children asking questions and families engaging with the nativity scenes with genuine curiosity. Those encounters are not about political correctness or cultural pandering; they are about truth meeting hearts, and that kind of influence changes lives quietly and durably.
Americans who love religious freedom and the Judeo-Christian roots of our civilization should take notice and act. Give to projects that put the Gospel on the line where it matters, pray for pastors like Khoury, and demand that our leaders protect the ability of faith-based ministries to operate openly and boldly at home and abroad.
Bethlehem ought to be a city of light and hope, not a place where the very story its name evokes is fading from local memory. This Nativity Encounter is a reminder that faith endures when believers are willing to stand for the truth, to teach it to the next generation, and to reach out to neighbors with confidence in the saving name of Jesus — and patriotic Americans should stand with them.
