Asylum Seekers and Muslim Converts. # 147. 13/02/2024.

Out of Many, One People

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Asylum Seekers and Muslim Converts

On reading of Abdul Ezedi’s horrific acid attack on a woman and her two children, I drafted a blog with the above title. But then came Suella Braverman’s ‘revenge’ attack on the Church of England in the Sunday Telegraph of 4^th February, since when the response of churches to the request for baptism from Muslim asylum seekers has drawn comment from a whole range of sources.

So here is my personal attempt to provide an orderly, godly response.

1. Pastoral Issues.

a) It is not always easy to recognise genuine faith.

Making ‘windows into men’s souls’ (to quote Queen Elizabeth 1) is always a difficult and dubious enterprise, doubly so when it is hitherto unknown  parents wanting baptism for the child, or accreditation for entry into the church school. Or a Muslim asylum seeker wanting to be baptised. Nor will the question ‘Is this person genuine or not’ often get a straight answer. Just as, for many of us, following Jesus can bring perhaps unrecognised ancillary benefits, as well as costs.

A few days before the Abdul Ezedi case blew up, I asked an Indian colleague whose church has several Iranian members how genuine he thought their faith was. He thought that whilst their main concern and topic of conversation was the progress of their claim to stay here, nonetheless they had gone through preparation in the faith and seemed genuine in their participation. For Suella Braverman to describe this as ‘churches around the country facilitating industrial-scale bogus asylum claims’ is simply provocative hyperbole.

Nonetheless, former Tory Chairman Lee Anderson did ask a serious question: “I wonder how many of these newly converted Christians will turn up on a Sunday morning once their asylum claim has been approved’. My own personal experience with that question is 1 out of 1 - but the sample may be thought too small. It would be interesting to get a more general answer. My overall impression is that it is a significant number, but a minority. (See my suggestion for a survey below). Meanwhile, Lee might also do a check of his constituents and ask how many made promises to bring up their children and god-children as regular worshippers in a church and likewise never turned up to church once the baptism had happened.

As with the range of enquiries mentioned above there is a need to balance a dove-like innocent belief that God works strangely, often slowly and in ways we can not anticipate, along with a serpent-like wisdom that is willing to test, interrogate and make demands of people. No one ever gets it perfectly right.

An added complexity is that many asylum seekers have been through traumatic experiences, whether before, during or since their migration, so that they can be prone to depression and erratic, violent behaviour. A counsellor in a GP surgery noted that those who had suffered persecution could become affected by serious depression after feeling settled in this country for some time, but then had depression kicked off by some entirely unrelated trauma such as an accident at work. Whilst church leaders ought to carefully scrutinise the integrity of asylum seekers’ requests for baptism, they can not be held responsible for the convert’s subsequent behaviour.

b) It discredits conversion to Christianity, not least amongst the wider Muslim community.

There is a reputational issue at stake here. This involves both squandering official respect if clergy act carelessly or naively, and a decline in public estimation – creating impressions that clergy are undiscerning do-gooding liberals (so Rod Liddle’s refererence to ‘a mithering, hand-wringing jackanapes of a priest’ – Sunday Times 04/02/2024). Clergy do need to be stringent in their judgements.

More seriously, as the trickle of Muslims, especially Iranians, becoming Christians has turned into a flood so the currency of that conversion is at risk of being devalued. To the wider Muslim population it may no longer be seen as a courageous life-changing decision to follow Jesus come what may, and instead becomes a deceitful way to swing a positive Home Office judgement. In times past, the open generosity – whether wise or unwise – of Christian missions in South Asia to give people material support in times of hardship eventually led to the jibe of ‘rice Christians’, so that the reality of Christian conversion could be dismissed as merely a crafty way to get material benefit. There is now a danger of fuelling amongst Muslims in Britain a myth of ‘citizenship Christians’, so that any profession of faith can simply be airily dismissed as a ruse to fool the Home Office.

c) It obscures the remarkable growth of Christianity in Iran.

The spread of the Christian faith in Iran over the past thirty years or so is one of the most remarkable passages in all of church history, but largely unrecognised, perhaps because no westerners are involved. It is a church that has grown with very little outside agency and despite severe persecution, with large scale imprisonment, and several martyrs, including the brother of the Bishop of Chelmsford.

An article by James M Dorsey of the National University of Singapore in 2020 was headed ‘Iranians move into the front-line of the Middle East’s quest for religious change’, and reported ‘a stunning rejection of state-imposed adherence to conservative religious mores as well as the role of religion in public life’. Thus 51.8% of 20-29 year olds had gone from being religious to being non-religious, whilst of 30-49 year olds 6.4% had gone from ‘one religious orientation to another religious orientation’, with Christian converts quite possibly forming the bulk. It will be a tragedy if this story of very costly discipleship and church growth in Iran, and the overspill of persecuted Christian asylum seekers coming to this country is obscured by a narrative of easy and beneficial ‘conversion’ to Christianity to secure the right to remain in this country.

Whilst a few decades ago it was still costly for Muslim refugees here to become Christians, the situation has changed. For an Iranian Muslim to start going to church now arouses less hostility from a religiously disillusioned community. Further, they were socialised into regular religious observance in childhood, so some sort of faith in the supernatural is a given for them, whilst the behavioural challenges of Christianity in England are considerably lighter than the Islam they knew. Meanwhile, with time on their hands helping with odd jobs at the church can boost their chances of Home Office acceptance.

d) Finally, a proposal: The Church of England needs to formulate a coherent policy.

We need, as with several issues concerning ministry in a multi-ethnic society, to be serious about developing ‘institutional memory’. When approached out of the blue by an Iranian who wanted to be baptised, I approached a friend who was a leading Iranian Christian as well as Elam Ministries, who support Christian ministry in Iran and amongst the diaspora. Clergy need access to a network, not needing to reinvent the wheel and work out their own response. Iranian converts (and to a much lesser extent Afghans) now form a significant slice of the Church of England, as instanced by our provision of a Farsi liturgy.

There also needs to be some central agency both giving guidance, support and fellowship to Iranian Christians, and in consolidating experience – both good and bad – in order to give advice to clergy on how to how to respond to requests for baptism or other approaches.  A report on the presence of Iranian/Afghan (Shiite?) converts in our churches – statistical, anecdotal and evaluative; numbers and distribution; leaders, and training of leaders; lessons learned – could be very useful. Can CMEAC or one of the mission societies such as CMS or USPG do this?

2. Political Issues.

a) We need to recognise the great ‘win’ in getting to stay in Britain.

Traditional British modesty and current British grumpiness alike can hinder us from seeing what an enormous ‘win’ it is for asylum seekers to get the right to remain in this country. Being safe, having the prospect of a job and sending money home, even bringing family to come over here are enormous benefits. Whilst some asylum seekers are heroes of conscience and others covert crooks, it is likely that a large (though unknown) proportion are very largely economic migrants. They didn’t have to come. BBC News recently featured the tragic story of the 14 year old Syrian boy who was drowned in the Channel. He wanted to see Arsenal, and get a job like his older brother already here. Worthy ambitions, but not what the asylum system is designed for. Both idealism and paranoia are unsuitable responses, simply realism. The present situation where those with money, and readiness to break the law and be dishonest are rewarded is unjust and needs changing.

Meanwhile, there are people making money from this. When an Iranian Christian approached me to support his asylum application he showed me a draft letter to the Home Office provided by his solicitor. It said how much he felt at home as soon as he entered a church. And now he could not help but witness to faith in Jesus and so would be in great trouble if he had to return home. It read to me very much like a standard pro forma letter taken from the solicitor’s filing cabinet. I asked my friend if this was all true. Yes – the church really did feel like a spiritual home where he met with God. No – he was a very shy person and didn’t easily talk about his faith. (He amended his letter to be honest, and was granted asylum).

b) It is hard for the Government to solve the asylum mess.

Partly, they are to blame. They need to appoint yet more staff to clear up the backlog and the delays, which harm the asylum seekers, increase costs and makes fair decisions difficult

But there are more wide-ranging issues. The administration of asylum applications is unwieldy and too lengthy. Difficult legal questions about the length of the appeals process need resolving. A system designed for post-war refugees is simply inappropriate to deal with the very different situation now surrounding issues of migration. What can we do after we turn down the applications of undocumented asylum seekers? How should we respond to those who have changed their appeal since arriving in Britain to make themselves ‘unreturnable’? Not just Christian ‘converts’ (or the man of no faith but who covered his arms and hands with ‘Christian’ tattoos), but also including Nigerian ‘homosexuals’.

c) The Conservative right are out for revenge.

Suella Braverman’s inflammatory, populist rhetoric about ‘industrial scale’ baptisms by the Church of England to ‘help people ‘game the system’ is ignorant and disgraceful. She is wrong because she discredits the integrity of Anglican clergy who are trying to respond positively to requests for baptism. If there are cases where baptisms, or even recommendations have been done casually or irresponsibly she should provide evidence, not make inflammatory generalisations.

Further, in her desire for revenge on the Church of England because of its opposition to the Ruanda policy, she has Trump-like trampled over the facts. The asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm are going to a Baptist church, whilst yesterday’s Times referred to Baptist pastor (with a ‘parish’, sic) who had baptised 1500 asylum seekers. We don’t know who baptised Ezedi, but Roman Catholics and Baptists have been mentioned. Do Baptists get the converts; the Church of England gets the blame?

d) The Government has grounds to be aggrieved with the Bishops of the Church of England.

They are exhibiting ‘luxury beliefs’ when they play heavily on the Christian themes of welcome and hospitality. In effect they are welcoming asylum seekers into homes due for other people. With a population exceeding earlier forecasts and now likely to reach 70 million alongside an extremely serious housing shortage, then the costs of being hospitable to asylum seekers are being paid chiefly by the poor and the young. Serious moral theology, rather than easy virtue signalling, would seek to balance the call to welcome strangers with close attention to those in the country who are the losers from such policies.

Equally aggrieving is the Bishops’ readiness to criticise Government policy whilst only producing vague and generalised alternatives. Sending people to Ruanda feels wrong, is costly, and unlikely to have substantial impact. So what should the Government do? There are times when simple humility calls us to say ‘I don’t know’, rather than criticise. The Bishops’ eagerness to ‘speak truth to power’ on immigration needs setting against their reluctance to publicly criticise Netanhanyu’s de facto ‘from the river to the sea’ ambition for an all-Israeli state

e) Finally, a proposal: We need to work for Reconciliation.

The church’s stiff, straight-bat reply to criticism that ‘it is the role of the Home Office, and not the Church, to vet asylum seekers’ is true but inadequate. For a Church that has latterly laid great stress on ‘Reconciliation’, here is a prime issue where it is very much needed. Can there not be open and friendly dialogue about what how we might evolve fair policies in what is a seemingly intractable and complex dilemma?

The Home Office can be rightly being criticised for the woodenness of its interrogation of converts from Islam, for example rejecting an asylum seeker who confused Lent with Advent. (A typical Baptist?) As noted above determining the genuineness of a person’s faith is often difficult for a pastor, let alone a civil servant. In particular, is it not possible to draw on the experience and advice of Iranian Christians in this area, perhaps particularly from Iranian churches who generally have learned from experience to be more stringent about these issues than most Church of England clergy? It is in the interests of both the Home Office and the British churches to reduce the confusion, ignorance, scandal and abuse which currently mark the issue of Muslim asylum seekers converting to Christianity. Co-operation not combat is for the good of all.

Related blog: ‘Emal al-Swealmeen + Azeem Rafiq’ # 55.

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Drawing on Scripture

Deuteronomy 10:19: ‘You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt’. This comes in a section headed ‘The Essence of the Law’ (NRSV), not amongst more obscure parts of the Law. How is that deep and loving recognition of our identity with strangers to be worked out in the complexities of large-scale, worldwide and at times illegal migration?

‘Greetings from Bury Park’ by Sarfraz Manzoor.

My Kindle is clogged with 99p buys from Amazon that I will almost certainly never read, but reading this book delights my underground journeys. It is a rich account of Manzoor’s experience growing up in a traditionally Pakistani Luton home, but its’ highlight is his (rightful) infatuation with Bruce Springsteen – portrayed in the film ‘Blinded by the Light’. For Christians his dramatic overnight conversion to become a Springsteen fan will ring bells, as will how his ethnicity became transcended by his far stronger identification with fellow Springsteen fans, even possibly borderline Islamophobic and racist ones..