If you are looking for a book that does justice to the complex reality of the Middle East and humanizes the suffering of all its people, then look no further.

What shines through in The Last Christians is the beautiful innocence of the Syriac Christians. No, it’s not the innocence of naïfs who’ve never experienced the sorrows of the world, or of unsophisticated rubes who’ve never experienced the world’s pleasures. It is the innocence of people for whom Jesus is alive and very present. Come to think of it, maybe that’s not innocence at all. Maybe it just looks that way to hollowed out, compromised, self-satisfied Western Christians like me. Maybe what looks to us like innocence is really just faith.

What makes this book both heartbreaking and effective is that it's the account of the author's personal journey to the Iraqi land that, until recently, the terrorist group ISIS controlled. He travels from his native Germany with a refugee from Mosul to begin his story of the slaughter of Christians at the hand of radical Islamists. From there he describes in excruciating detail what has happened to Christians who have stood against ISIS…. Knapp's conclusion: "Christians from the Middle East have given up everything in order to remain true to their belief in the gospel. They come from the homeland of Christianity and remind us of our own origins and values. By opening our doors to them, we have it in our power to preserve this precious legacy and ensure a more humane future for humanity.

An extraordinary book. What it makes it so riveting is that Knapp had a dramatic change of direction… God took him on an unexpected journey. He saw the persecution of Christians firsthand and rather than turn a blind eye, or have it just be a momentary experience, it changed his life.

Knapp, a German priest who works with Christian refugees, writes despairingly about the plight of Assyrian Christians currently being forced from their homes in northern Iraq and Syria 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. Knapp is most effective when providing historical context for the eyewitness accounts he shares from the refugee community he serves. 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. This passionate book will provide much-needed anecdotal testimony for readers interested in the plight of Christians throughout Iraq and Syria.

In his book The Last Christians, Andreas Knapp reports on the tragic decline of Christian communities in Iraq and Syria. His book is a harrowing report on the demise of Christianity in the territories of the Middle East ruled by the Islamic State.

Knapp is especially impressed that Aramaic Christians have remained nonviolent and peaceable, despite centuries of continual violent oppression. Yousif, the refugee Knapp accompanies to Iraq, comments, ‘For the terrorists, it is an honor to kill. Shouldn’t it be an honor for us Christians to pray for and love our persecutors?’

Knapp’s book The Last Christians is a historical narrative written from the victims’ perspective. It seeks to explain why the once flourishing culture of Christianity in the Middle East has been steadily decimated over the course of centuries, and why, in light of the Islamization of the entire region in recent years, for many Christian refugees the hope of returning to their homelands has dwindled.

This book is alarming, suspenseful, and stirring. The Last Christians: Stories of Persecution, Flight, and Resilience in the Middle East takes stock of the precarious situation of Christians in the Middle East. Every so often the reader will need to pause and reflect. Inevitably, the question arises: How would I have reacted in that situation? How would I have behaved? What would I have done? Yet the book’s narrative compels one to keep reading. … One would wish to give this book as recommended reading to all Christians, and especially to all politicians. Many eyes would be opened.