February 2024’s newspapers and current affairs programmes featured quite a few articles and segments on English churches making a concerted effort to convert willing migrants in search of Asylum.

Although the Church of England is top dog in that department, the Baptists are at it, too.

Chemical attacker a ‘Baptist’

On Tuesday, February 6, Britons were shocked to discover that the Newcastle man suspected of being responsible for the horrific and heartless chemical attack on a mother and two daughters in Clapham, South London, had become a Baptist beforehand. Neighbours and police also suffered chemical burns of varying degrees. The mother, still in hospital, is too unwell to speak with police.

It is thought that the man became acquainted with the woman online. She is also thought to be from a non-EU country.

The Telegraph carried the story, ‘Clapham attack suspect Abdul Ezedi “converted to Christianity” with Baptist Church’ (emphases mine):

The suspect in the Clapham chemical attack converted to Christianity with a Baptist church which “welcomes strangers”, The Telegraph understands.

Abdul Ezedi has been on the run for six days after allegedly dousing a 31-year-old woman and her two daughters, aged three and eight, with an alkaline substance and trying to run them over with a car before fleeing the scene in Clapham, south London.

Ezedi was convicted of sex offences in 2018 in Newcastle but was allowed to remain in the country because the sentence was not severe enough to reach the threshold for deportation.

It has emerged that Ezedi, 35, was twice refused asylum before being granted leave to remain in the UK after a priest vouched for his conversion, arguing that he was “wholly committed” to his new religion.

The Church of England and the Catholic Church in England and Wales both vehemently denied that Ezedi was converted to the faith via their denominations.

However, a spokesperson for Baptists Together, a movement of more than 1,800 local churches supported by regional associations, colleges, and national specialist teams, has now spoken out saying that it will “always adopt a posture of welcome and compassion to those fleeing war”.

Asked whether Ezedi was specifically converted via the Baptist denomination, a spokesperson declined to answer any further questions specifically referring to Ezedi “as it’s an ongoing police investigation”.

Their statement comes after the Daily Mail quoted a government source as saying that a reference from a Baptist chapel in the North East, where Ezedi was living, was crucial in persuading an immigration tribunal that he had converted from Islam to Christianity. This statement led to him being allowed to stay in Britain on the grounds of human rights.

The source said: “The one that really made a difference was from the Baptist church. One personal written submission talked of knowing Ezedi for four years, he had been attending church and they thought he was a genuine convert.”

It remains unknown which Baptist chapel helped Ezedi convert to Christianity. The Telegraph has contacted every Baptist church in Newcastle and every suburb that Ezedi was associated with, asking if they knew him and they either said that they did not, or did not respond.

The comment from Baptists Together comes after an evangelical church leader spoke out on Monday saying that priests must look for “red flags” when baptising Asylum Seekers because some are faking conversion …

In their statement in response to questions about Ezedi’s conversion, Baptists Together said: “We are fully aware of the questions being asked of our churches surrounding Abdul Shokoor Ezedi and broader queries around supporting asylum seekers.

“One of the most consistent and explicit teachings in the Bible is to ‘welcome the stranger’. In recognition of this, Baptist churches around the UK and across the world have always, and will always, adopt a posture of welcome and compassion to those fleeing war, persecution, famine and the consequences of climate change, irrespective of any intention to convert to Christianity.

“Listening to their stories, their experiences and their needs is a fundamental aspect of this welcome and, on occasion, as relationships develop between churches and refugees and asylum seekers, enquiries will be made to churches about issues of faith and belief.”

The statement was quite long; the article has the rest of it.

A pastor who is not a Baptist and who has taken part in migrant conversions sounded a bit of an alarm bell. I say ‘a bit’, because I have seen him on television news programmes, and he still seems committed to the project, by and large:

Pastor Graham Nicholls, the Director of Affinity, a network of 1,200 evangelical churches and ministries in the UK, said that church leaders “need discernment” to “test whether people are genuine in their beliefs”, adding that in some cases, some prospective converts are “faking it”.

He said “red flags” may consist of large numbers of people presenting as converts, an undue haste from people to receive some credible sign of being a Christian like baptism, a “rather mechanical assent to believing but without any obvious heart change”, and a general sense they might not be genuine.

He acknowledged that “these things are hard to judge” and that “we cannot see into people’s souls”, but added: “There seems to be a problem of asylum seekers claiming to have been converted to Christianity to support their applications.”

On February 9, it emerged that a Baptist minister was working with migrants being housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge, which once was used for oil industry workers. It is now docked at Portland on the south coast.

The Mail reported:

Dave Rees, an elder at Weymouth Baptist Church, defended its decision to carry out a mass conversion of residents of the Bibby Stockholm – with six already baptised and a further 36 to follow.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4 on Sunday, he said his church had a Farsi-speaking minister who knew the asylum seekers’ language and cultural practices.

‘Because we had this link we felt confident that the measures we put in place and the scrutiny we have, there’s no reason we would doubt these asylum seekers,’ Mr Rees said.

He said some of the men claimed they had been Christians in their home countries, while others had completed a 11-week Alpha [Anglican] course, which seeks to introduce possible converts to the basics of the Christian faith. 

‘Obviously, we need to make sure that they believe in Jesus, they believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, they repent of their sins and also they want to start a new life in the church,’ he said.

‘And they have to give a public testimony at their baptism, which they did in a native language and was translated into English.’

On Wednesday, February 7, Conservative MP Tim Loughton raised a question about this to Rishi Sunak at Prime Minister’s Questions:

MPs have raised concerns that migrants from majority Muslim countries are converting to Christianity in order to claim they are at risk of persecution in their home nations due to their religious beliefs. 

Sussex MP Tim Loughton raised the issue in Parliament on Wednesday, asking Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury has admitted that since taking office, the attendance at the Church of England has dropped by 15% and in the 10 years to Covid, the number of baptisms in the Church of England has fallen from 140,000-a-year to 87,000.

‘So Christianity in the UK seems to be on the wane unless apparently, you are from a Muslim country in the middle of an asylum claim. We’re now told one in seven occupants of the Bibby Stockholm have suddenly become practising Christians.

‘Can I ask the Prime Minister that given that the Church of England has now issued secret guidance for clergy supporting asylum applications for these Damascene conversions, who is the church accountable to and are taxpayers being scammed by the Archbishop?’

Mr Sunak replied that Mr Cleverly [Home Secretary James Cleverly] had requested more information on migrants converting to Christianity.

So far, this is what we know:

The Home Office has admitted it has no idea how many asylum seekers have been allowed to stay in the UK after converting to Christianity, as the hunt for Ezedi continues.

It is believed that Afghan sex offender Ezedi persuaded churches to support his claim, and was even given a written testimonial by a Baptist minister as well as additional backing from the Catholic church, sources told the Mail.

The findings of Mr Cleverly’s investigation are set to form part of an internal review that he commissioned following the attack in south London last week.

Home Office sources said that officials in the department have struggled to find data relating to how many asylum seekers have cited their apparent conversion to Christianity.

A source previously told the Mail that a reference from a Baptist chapel in the North East, where Ezedi was living, was crucial in persuading an immigration tribunal that he had converted from Islam to Christianity. This led to him being allowed to stay in Britain on the grounds of human rights.

‘The one that really made a difference was from the Baptist church,’ a government source said. ‘One personal written submission talked of knowing Ezedi for four years, he had been attending church and they thought he was a genuine convert.’

Further backing was provided by the Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, the source claimed.

The Home Office has said caseworkers are trained to only grant protection to those in genuine need by assessing claims ‘in the round’ and not taking priests’ testimony as ‘determinative’. 

Archbishop of Canterbury strikes back

The Mail article says that the Archbishop of Canterbury issued a statement following Loughton’s question in Parliament:

Following Prime Minister’s Questions, the Archbishop of Canterbury issued a statement hitting out at the ‘mischaracterisation of the role of churches and faith groups in the asylum system’.

‘It is the job of the government to protect our borders and of the courts to judge asylum cases,’ he said. 

‘The church is called to love, mercy and do justice. 

‘I encourage everyone to avoid irresponsible and inaccurate comments – and let us not forget that at the heart of this conversation are vulnerable people whose lives are precious in the sight of God.’

The Church of England has recently come under fire for allegedly ‘facilitating industrial-scale bogus asylum claims‘, with former Home Secretaries Suella Braverman and Dame Priti Patel accusing church leaders of ‘political activism’. 

Regardless of what the Archbishop of Canterbury says, this is what many Britons are thinking:

Former Anglican vicar tells his story

On Thursday, February 8, The Telegraph‘s Allison Pearson posted a column on a former Anglican vicar who got in touch with her about his experience in Darlington, in the north of England, ‘”I refuse to be complicit in baptism dishonesty” says Free Church of England vicar’.

Firth, 41, left the Church of England in 2020 and now serves as a vicar for the Free Church of England, established in the 19th century.

It should be noted that the Free Church of England is separate from the Church of England. The Free Church of England is part of GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference), a group of Anglican churches that have broken away from Canterbury’s spiritual leadership.

The article has a photo of the Revd Matthew Firth wearing a dog collar and a rugby jersey. He seems affable.

He told Pearson his story about the time when he was still a Church of England priest in the Diocese of Durham:

In 2018, when the Reverend Matthew Firth took up his new post at St Cuthbert’s, the church which has been at the heart of the north-eastern market town of Darlington since the 12th century, he was eager to bring new souls to the faith he passionately believes in.

It didn’t take long, however, for Matthew to figure out that there was something suspicious about the large number of souls from the Middle East who were queuing up to be converted to Christianity.

“When I arrived, lots of adult baptisms were already booked in, which was highly unusual. The vast majority, if not all of them, were asylum seekers who had already failed in their initial application for asylum. Clearly, if you were rejected, the next step was to book in for baptism,” Matthew told me on Thursday on the phone from his home in York.

All of the candidates for baptism at St Cuthbert’s were men, mainly from Iran and Syria. The new vicar decided to allow some of the services to go ahead – “I felt I had to honour them, I wasn’t going to just cancel” – but, when they took place, he says the baptisms felt like a kind of performance.

The photographs taken afterwards confirmed his suspicions:

“I got the distinct impression that people were trying to put on a sense of emotion that their baptism had happened. So, when the photos are taken, it looks as though they’re absolutely overwhelmed with emotion. To create a situation where it looks as though this is totally above board and genuine.”

Usually, the relatives of the newly baptised take a few discreet photos. A vast number of pictures were taken at the baptisms of the asylum seekers. To the astonished reverend, it looked like a professional job. “All of a sudden, literally, a couple of hours later, you’d spot on Facebook that all of their Facebook banner pictures and profile pictures have been changed to the baptism photos. All of them, just flooded with baptism photos.

“And, again, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that this is to present a case. It’s to say, ‘Look at my Facebook profile! It’s full of Christian stuff. I’m a genuine Christian.’ But this was literally overhauling a Facebook profile to create a new brand [for themselves].”

The Cambridge astrophysics graduate discovered more while in post at St Cuthbert’s. According to him baptisms were turning into a racket there:

… he had stumbled upon “a conveyor belt, a veritable industry of asylum baptisms”. It was a blatant transaction.

As Matthew recalls, “There was one particular individual who was a Muslim who had gained permission to stay in England. He wasn’t seeking baptism himself, because he’d been granted asylum. And he was always around and he would bring cohorts of these people seeking asylum to the church. It would usually be after the service.

“So, I’d be at the back shaking hands with the regular congregation as they were leaving, and this Muslim guy would bring these people to me and he would immediately say, ‘These want baptism, these want baptism, these want baptism’.”

On occasions, Matthew claims he even saw money changing hands. “I observed things, you know, quietly slipping in the pocket, people slipping him money.”

Good grief. You mean actual physical cash? “Yeah, I saw that happening. Now, it’s obviously never as overt as, ‘Here you go, here’s the money, get me baptised.’ But you see people going away into corners and slipping money to the middleman who is bringing loads of them into the church.”

Then he discovered he was expected to give a written reference of sorts for these newly baptised migrants:

Once the asylum seekers had ticked baptism off their How to Win the Right to Stay in Britain list, approaches were made to Matthew to provide evidence for an immigration tribunal that their conversion to Christianity was genuine.

“I’d immediately get a letter. As soon as those baptisms happened, literally a couple of days later, I hear from their lawyer saying, ‘Right, can you tell me about this person’s faith and church involvement, their evangelistic work and what they do for the church’.”

The lawyers specialised in immigration law and Matthew got the impression that “a lot of it was on legal aid”. Was he under any pressure to provide a more convincing picture of these so-called Christian conversions?

“Yes, absolutely. So, when I sent emails to these lawyers saying all I can tell you is that such and such attends Sunday service, the reply came back, ‘Well, yes, but can you please say that our clients do evangelism? And please can you say that they help the adults around the church? Try to fill out a picture of them being really active Christians’.”

Matthew refused point blank. “Well, no, sorry, I’m not going to say that, because it’s not true. Or I don’t have any evidence of it.”

… he got the firm impression that immigration lawyers expect CofE vicars to be helpful and supportive to their clients …

The reverend put a brake on the asylum/baptism conveyor belt at St Cuthbert’s, although he never denied anyone the chance to be baptised. “What I did say is, ‘Well, great! Come to church for six months.’ And then they all just drifted away, because it’s not genuine.” He points out that a couple of the men who were granted asylum were never seen at church again.

He told Pearson that there were a few ‘progressive activists’ (his words) in his church who were working with refugees and objected to his approach:

He was subject to what he calls “low-level bullying” and interpersonal hostility.

Firth says that these frequent baptisms occur where asylum seekers are being lodged pending their claims’ outcome:

Actually, I’m aware of it going on in many parishes in England, I know of so many examples where it’s happening. It’s in the areas where the Government places people who are seeking asylum.

As for senior clergy, Firth said that whatever boosts baptism figures in a sluggish denomination pleases them:

It’s very encouraging for them to have lots of adult baptisms, he says, “Because it gives a sense that they’re being successful, that the faith or their ministry has been successful in winning converts”.

“It’s very good for their pride. And, of course, it is wonderful when you have lots of people who are adults who have come to faith. But, in their heart of hearts, I think they know that a lot of these people are not genuine.”

He cites Mohammad Eghtedarian, a former curate at Liverpool cathedral who fled Iran as a refugee and was a brave and genuine convert to Christianity. “He said to me that, in his experience at Liverpool cathedral, probably over half of the asylum seekers were not genuine in terms of their baptism requests.”

One of Liverpool cathedral’s asylum-seeker converts was Emad Al Swealmeen, who was taking a bomb in a taxi to a maternity hospital on Remembrance Sunday in 2021 when it detonated, killing him. Al Swealmeen had been refused asylum in 2014 and lost an appeal three years later before going through a Christianity course run for asylum seekers.

However, it was the Abdul Ezedi story that prompted Firth to contact Pearson:

That, and the disingenuous response from the Archbishop of Canterbury, which infuriates him. “I think the church is allowing itself to be used by people who do not have pure motives, in fact, people who have pretty terrible motives.

“It’s not a direct thing, but it’s a sense of naivety; turning a blind eye. Vicars are acting in a way that increases the likelihood of many people who don’t have strong claims actually getting over the line. And a certain proportion of those people will be here with a background of criminality. So while it’s not direct wrongdoing from the church, there is complicity, which is not right. You know, it’s simply not right.

“I’m not saying that all clergy that conduct these baptisms are doing that, but there is a significant element. And when Justin Welby says it’s not the church’s responsibility to judge asylum applications, that’s the Home Office, that’s not being truthful.”

Firth was also unhappy about Welby’s criticism of people who say the conversions should be conducted with more discernment:

It is insulting. There are a lot of Christians who are discerning and wise, and they can see what’s happening. And they are concerned about our culture and our society and the impact of huge, huge levels of illegal immigration on those things. They are rightly concerned about that.

And for Justin Welby to sort of tar them all with this brush of being unwelcoming and uncaring and so on is frankly unacceptable. He’s suggesting the clergy shouldn’t be discerning. Well, we should; we have to administer the baptism in a discerning way.

Pearson and Firth then discussed Church of England policies in general:

I mention a document called “Supporting Asylum Seekers – Guidance for Church of England Clergy”, which teaches vicars how to assist asylum seekers.

“Of course, again, they’ve been clever there. They’ll just say clergy are facing these situations and all we’re doing is producing a document to support those who asked us for advice. But there is an ideological support for the culture of mass immigration that we’re seeing.”

Matthew compares the situation with the Civil Service, where there is resistance to enacting Conservative policies like the Rwanda plan. “Actually, there’s an equivalent civil service at Church House, Westminster, which is producing all of this guidance.”

Firth then gave his views on asylum, excerpted below:

He speaks eloquently about the need to be hospitable to people who genuinely need asylum. “But I liken national hospitality to the home. You could welcome people into your home and show the sacrificial hospitality and that’s fine. But if the hospitality that you’re showing fundamentally undermines the functioning of the household, then actually we’re not called to that in the Church …

“So if people are receiving our national hospitality and then they commit crimes, or they go on huge marches or do something that undermines the values that our particular national home espouses, then the equivalent is somebody being welcomed into your private home and messing up the house. Or damaging our national home. And if that hospitality is being abused in various ways, then you have to look again and say, No, no, we can’t do this.”

As for the mass migration we are currently seeing, legal and illegal:

He adds: “Also, there’s a cultural aspect, when you have very large population movements in a short space of time which we have had since 1997, then that does undermine the culture of the host nation.”

Matthew asks me if that makes sense. It really does. In a bitter irony, the Church of England may hasten its own demise by carrying out hundreds, possibly thousands of fake baptisms of men who remain devout Muslims.

He laughs. “I don’t think the Church of England has really thought that through. The House of Bishops and the vast majority of clergy in the Church of England are aligned with Left-wing politics. And they are very comfortable with what we’re seeing in terms of the levels of immigration. And they would regard somebody like me as being Right-wing and unkind.

“But actually, all I’m doing is just not misusing a sacrament. And also choosing not to be complicit in dishonesty. And also choosing not to be undermining of culture that happens with mass immigration, you know, I think I care about the people who are already here, you know, as well as people who may be genuine asylum seekers” …

“I am going on the record here because there’s a national untruth being told,” he says. “The churches say, ‘There are no faults. No, we’re just trying to welcome people. Nothing to see here.’ Well, there is something to see here. And Justin Welby, I think he’s been untruthful in the way he’s presented things. ‘Our vicars are just getting on with being welcoming,’ he says.

“But, actually, the story is one of being used by bad men like Abdul Ezedi who hurt innocent people. The Church of England needs to be exposed for its shameful part in all this.”

That day, The Telegraph posted a rapid follow-up article, which Allison Pearson co-authored with Charles Hymas, ‘Church of England has become “conveyor belt for asylum seeker fake conversions”‘, in which the Diocese of Durham took exception to Firth’s criticisms. The diocese said he had not told them anything about his experience with regard to baptisms:

Mr Firth – a self-avowed traditional evangelical Christian – said the asylum seekers “drifted away” after he introduced the six month rule but alleged he was “cold shouldered” by the senior clergy, which culminated in his departure from his post and decision to join the Free Church of England …

A spokesman for the Diocese of Durham said: “We do not recognise the picture these allegations present and have not seen any evidence of such claims.

“Mr Firth no longer ministers in the Church of England, however at no point during his time in office did he raise any of these claims as a concern or an issue. Had he done so, we would have looked into the matter. We would query whether he has ever raised his concerns with the authorities.”

Regardless, I saw Allison Pearson on Patrick Christys Tonight (GB News) either that night or the next and she had nothing bad to say about the Revd Mr Firth.

On February 9, Telegraph readers had their say in ‘It’s not for the Church to act as immigration officials’, excerpted below, with each paragraph representing a different reader’s opinion:

It’s not called religious conversion, it’s called playing the system. You can’t blame them for trying. We can however blame the fools who are naive enough to let them.

Islam forbids Muslims from leaving their faith. Apostasy can mean a death sentence so it is very rare that they convert to another religion. This is just another ruse to remain in the country.

Surely churches have a duty of care to their own community which overrides specious asylum contrivances? Or so I would hope.

The Church should not be converting asylum seekers to Christianity until they are granted the right to stay here. This is all a scam promoted by immigration lawyers and asylum charities.

The reasoning behind the granting of asylum has been inverted and the safety of British citizens is of no account, it is only the welfare of fit, healthy, young men that pay £3,000 to cross illegally from a perfectly safe country that we should consider?

On Saturday, February 10, The Guardian had an article about the Diocese of Durham’s response to Firth’s comments in The Telegraph, ‘C of E refutes claims of “conveyor belt” of asylum seeker fake conversions’:

The Church of England has refuted a claim that it operated a “conveyor belt for asylum seeker fake conversions”, saying parish records disproved the eye-catching allegation …

Lee Anderson, the former Conservative party [deputy] chairman, said: “The Church of England is in my opinion encouraging people to lie about their faith in order to claim asylum.”

On Thursday, a former C of E priest claimed the church was complicit in a “conveyor belt and veritable industry of asylum baptisms”. Matthew Firth, who was a priest in the north of England, told the Telegraph that about 20 asylum seekers had sought baptisms at his church to support their applications, and he believed there were “probably” thousands of asylum baptisms in the C of E.

Paul Butler, the bishop of Durham, has said Firth’s claims were “imaginative” and “some distance from reality”.

In a statement, Butler said: “Mr Firth does not offer any evidence to support these claims, however a check of the parish records quickly reveals … a total of 15 people (13 adults, 2 infants) who may have been asylum seekers have been baptised over the past 10 years. Of these, seven were baptised by Mr Firth himself.

“As priest in charge, he will have been aware of his responsibility to check the authenticity of candidates. If there was any sign of anything amiss, Mr Firth should have reported this. Had he raised any concerns at any point with senior staff … they would of course have been taken seriously and investigated. He did not do so.”

I find the bishop’s baptism number from St Cuthbert’s interesting, unless Firth managed to stop the bogus baptisms quickly.

Misplaced concern: the wrong people are being accommodated

That day, the former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey — Lord Carey — sided with Britons in his opinion piece for The Telegraph, ‘The Church must not turn a blind eye to the impact of mass migration on Britain’:

… the Church of England’s opposition to the Rwanda legislation for example has disturbed me by its ferocity and intensity. The Rwanda plan has been denounced from pulpits up and down the land. And in my increasingly long memory, I have never known the Peers Spiritual – the 26 bishops who sit by right in the House of Lords – lay down such an array of detailed amendments.

My disagreement with the Archbishop and bishops in the House, therefore, is not with their compassion and Christian care for others, but their blindness to what migration is doing to our country – our culture, our infrastructure and our common life.

We have been here before and we have failed to do anything about it. In 2010, I joined Parliamentarians including former Speaker, the late Baroness Boothroyd, and the great Labour MP, Frank Field, in signing the Balanced Migration Group’s Declaration. This called on the major parties to make manifesto pledges to prevent the UK’s population reaching 70 million in under 20 years, as it was forecast to at the time.

How wrong we were. Not, as it turns out, in making the declaration, but in trusting official projections. According to the Office for National Statistics, we will reach that 70 million figure at least four years early. By mid-2036, we are now projected to grow to 73.7 million.

So my concern and attention is also for those affected by a severe lack of housing and services, a situation which is reaching breaking point in poorer areas. The elites are well-protected, but Britain’s poorest have a different experience. An experiment in mass immigration has been foisted upon them without their consent, changing their lives and their communities.

I’ve been surprised therefore by the thin-skinned nature of the church’s response in this latest controversy. When you raise your head above the parapet you must expect to be criticised. I know I will be over this article. But the Church hierarchy seems to be denying that there is a problem at all, or anything questionable about its own actions and statements.

One result of this is that churches stand accused of boosting the credentials of asylum seekers and gullibly accepting insincere conversions. This is not in fact so, because it is the Home Office and the judiciary’s job to apply the asylum rules – not the Church.

But the Church of England’s guidance gives information to clergy on how to “mount a personal campaign” if an application is refused. It does not give much advice on how to discern whether these conversions are authentic, long-standing and life-changing. While it is true that most clergy are experienced enough to deal with these sorts of pastoral situations, the Church should do more to insist that baptism preparation is rigorous.

The truly depressing thing about this is that Christian converts in some countries are among the most persecuted minorities in the world. Genuine converts in countries where a considerable risk is taken by “apostasising” find themselves undermined by a handful of false cases where people are gaming the system.

In recent years, church leaders have been slow to come forward to join me in making representations to the Home Office and the UNHCR, to ensure that flows of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan have included persecuted Christians. I am Patron of Barnabas Aid, a charity founded in the UK, which has supported hundreds of persecuted Syrian and Afghan Christians in gaining asylum in countries like Australia and Brazil. But the UK government has never accepted a single one of these most persecuted Christian converts living in daily fear in hostile environments …

… Our politicians and church leaders should do much more to listen to the voices of those struggling communities which feel alienated and marginalised by unprecedented rates of immigration.

And those seeking asylum should only be given that honour on the strict understanding that they must leave behind the political and moral structures of their former societies that are incompatible with the open, democratic values of their new homes.

Well said!!

On Monday, February 12, Christian Today had an article about the Bishop of Chelmsford Guli Francis-Dehqani’s appearance on the BBC Sunday Programme. Francis-Dehqani is an Iranian refugee herself and has been vociferous in the House of Lords on the Safety of Rwanda Bill, which was still being debated there yesterday, the 14th. Debates will continue when the Lords reconvene.

Christian Today stated:

Bishop Guli Francis-Dehqani appeared on the BBC Sunday Programme to discuss claims that the Church of England has been complicit in asylum seekers gaming the system with fake conversions.

She said that “inevitably” there would be “a small number of cases” of people trying to “scam us”, but that preparation for baptism was “very rigorous” and that some people even abandon it because it takes too long.

“We take seriously our responsibilities, but we also know that as Christians, our primary responsibility is one of welcome and hospitality and support and teaching, but we need to do that in a way that is that is wise and, and is aware that occasionally there are people who might try and scam us,” she said.

The bishop, who came to Britain as a refugee from Iran, said she was open to a review of the Church of England’s current guidance for vicars around conversion, but added that there could never be complete certainty.

“It’s very difficult to look into the hearts of people ever and be 100 per cent. And that goes for whether that person is from Britain or an immigrant from elsewhere,” she said …

Later in the discussion she said that the onus was on clergy to “be as confident as they possibly can be” that a candidate for baptism is sincere and understands what it means.

“Preparation is in most cases very rigorous and that’s right and proper. I think, God forbid, you do take that seriously regardless of where people are coming from. It’s just that in the end, it’s impossible to prove 100 per cent,” she said.

… she said it was “wrong” that attention was being focused on “a very small number” of alleged abuses because “it’s diverting attention away from the systemic problems, which is that we have an immigration system that’s overwhelmed and inefficient”.

Seriously, I do not think that preparation for baptism in the Church of England is ‘in most cases very rigorous’. I don’t believe that for one second. It probably is in my church, but seeing how woke our clergy are, it probably isn’t elsewhere.

You can read more about Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani’s views in her Telegraph article of February 5.

Bogus conversions are key in avoiding deportation

The biggest showstopper came on Monday, February 12, with The Times‘s article, ‘Revealed: How judges let criminals use Christianity to escape deportation’:

Murderers, sex offenders and drug dealers are among migrants who have escaped deportation by claiming they have converted to Christianity, The Times has found …

In one case, a Bangladeshi man who had served 12 years in prison for murdering his wife successfully appealed against the Home Office’s attempts to deport him, saying he was a Christian convert and that he would be at risk in his predominantly Muslim community in Bangladesh.

A judge allowed him to stay in the UK based on rights enshrined in Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which prevents removal where there are substantial grounds for believing that an individual would face serious harm from torture or from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment …

The findings come from a Times analysis of asylum judgments that lays bare the scale of the abuse of Britain’s immigration system by foreign criminals who claim they are Christian converts to escape deportation …

Analysis suggests that Iranians have been the most successful in avoiding deportation. In several cases, a claimant’s deportation was blocked even when the judge hearing their appeal concluded that their conversion was not genuine. Judges said that even the “perception” of being a Christian could result in lashes in Iran.

One case involved an Iranian who had been sentenced to 18 months in prison for assault in the UK and was scheduled for deportation by the Home Office. The man appealed and a judge ruled that he could not be deported, despite concluding that he was “not a Christian convert”, because he had covered his arms in tattoos “dominated by Christian imagery” and the Iranian authorities would believe he had converted.

In another case an Iranian man convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to seven and a half years in jail successfully appealed against deportation on the grounds that he had converted. He said that he had a tattoo of a cross, and would therefore be at risk in Iran. An Upper Tribun