The Disappearing People: The Tragic Fate of Christians in the Middle East by Stephen M Rasche

Hardback: Persecution of minorities in the Middle East.

Western indifference and complicity.

The looming end of Christianity in the Middle East.

Until this hour we are hungry and we are thirsty, we are naked, we are abused, and we have no dwelling place. And we toil as we labour with our hands. They dishonour us and we bless; they persecute us and we endure. They accuse us and we beg them. We are as the scum of the world and the offscouring of every person until now. - 1 Corinthians 4:11-13 (Translation from Aramaic Bible)

For 1400 years, the Christians of the Mideast lived under a system of sustained persecution as a distinct lower class of citizens under their Muslim rulers. Despite this systemic oppression, Christianity maintained a tenuous - even sometimes prosperous - foothold in the land of its birthplace up until the past several decades.

Yet today, Christianity stands on the brink of extinction in much of the Mideast. How did this happen? What role did Western foreign policy and international aid policy play? What of the role of Islam and the Christians themselves? How should history judge what happened to Christians of the Mideast and what lessons can be learned?

After nearly two millennia, the world's first Christians stand on the edge of disappearing from much of their ancient lands in the Mideast. Based on experience from over ten years of living and working among these communities - including the duration of the ISIS war in Iraq - Stephen M Rasche tells a tragic tale from a firsthand view. The story ranges from the wartime atrocities of ISIS to the halls of Western governments, from the perils and suffering of refugee camps to the UN and the Vatican. Rasche places the reader inside the lives and desperation of a people who have become the modern world's acceptable collateral damage.

The Disappearing People (2020) examines these questions based on the firsthand accounts of those who are living it.

About the author: Stephen Rasche is a recognized international expert on persecuted Christians and has served since 2010 as counsel to the Chaldean Archdiocese of Erbil, Iraq. He holds a BA from Boston University and a JD from the University of San Diego.