the last christians -- a book review

Christian Knapp's The Last Christians:  Stories of Persecution, Flight, Resilience in the Middle East gives voice to some of the West's most neglected stories about Christian persecution in the land of Christian origins:  Northern Iraq and Syria.  A German priest who works with Christian refugees, Knapp captures the exasperation and desperation that these brothers and sisters in Christ share as a result of religious persecution.  The rise of ISIS and the heightened violence between Islamic sects has made the survival of these Christian sects, some of whom still speak Aramaic dialects that date back to the time of Jesus, a tenuous proposition. 

Perhaps the most important contribution of The Last Christians is the historical context that Knapp explores -- a context that most of us in the West remain oblivious toward.  His background material on the Armenian and Assyrian genocides by the Ottoman Empire, aided and abetted by the Germans for tactical reasons during World War I, is most fascinating.

What Knapp does best, though, is present the early Christian "just war" practice.  And contrasts that heavily with the Islamic State's practice of violence.

This is a book full of anecdote, but these stories are important voices for hearing what Christian persecution in the modern world really looks like.
______________________
I received a free copy of this book from Plough Publishing in exchange for my honest review here.