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Abdul Ezedi is still at large.
Elizabeth I put it best. “I have no desire to make windows into men’s souls.” In other words, who knows what people really believe? When I baptise people, I ask them — or those who stand in for them — if they turn to Christ, if they repent of their sins, if they renounce evil. If they say that they do, then I baptise them, and they are counted as a member of the congregation. How do I know if they are being sincere? I don’t. But normally there is a little incentive for people to make such claims other than that they seek to live by them. Except when it comes to the asylum system.
Abdul Ezedi, from Afghanistan, became a Christian in order to game the asylum system and gain a permanent right to remain in the UK — or so it appears. In 2018, Ezedi was convicted of a sexual assault charge at Newcastle Crown Court. Last week he was suspected of throwing a highly corrosive chemical at a mother and her children in Clapham, inflicting horrific life changing injuries. The unnamed priest who apparently admitted him into the church has come in for a lot of stick for being gullible in helping him convert. There but for the grace of God go I. I have probably baptised thousands of people. I do not know if any of them have gone on to do terrible things, but it’s perfectly possible. I do not judge this unnamed priest one bit for baptising Ezedi. Baptism is not a certificate of good character. It is an outward expression of the desire to be saved. And that is available even to the very worst of us.
But theology aside, it is important to emphasise that the church has nothing to do with assessing the validity of asylum claims. That is for the Home Office. Perhaps the Home Office did decide to take into account Ezedi’s “conversion” – but that is entirely up to them. And it is perfectly true that being a Christian in Afghanistan is a potential death sentence. There are reports that the Taliban have tortured Christians to ask them to give up the names of fellow believers – not unlike Elizabeth I as it happens. And there really are Christians in Afghanistan, and they are in grave danger. So you can see why the Home Office might take conversion to be a significant matter when considering asylum claims.
So, was the priest naive? What was he supposed to look for? Eyes too close together? Evidence of past wrongdoing? Polygraph before baptism? There is no foolproof epistemological test for sincerity.
Take the case of Emad Swealmeen. He arrived in the UK from Iraq in 2014. The following year, he started visiting the Cathedral in Liverpool. He took an Alpha Course to learn about the faith and was baptised then confirmed as a Christian in March 2017. The Cathedral didn’t put obstacles in the way of his conversion. It had no reason to. But the Cathedral is more cautious in supporting claims for asylum. “We would expect someone to be closely connected with the community for at least two years before we would consider supporting an application” explained a spokesman from the Cathedral. That seems about right — the best test of sincerity is consistency of behaviour with professed belief over time.
But despite many in the church community writing in a private capacity to support Swealmeen’s asylum application, the Home Office rejected it. Perhaps they knew things that the church didn’t. He had been detailed under the Mental Health Act in 2015 and later arrested for wandering around town openly carrying a knife. In November 20231, and facing immediate deportation, Swealmeen detonated a bomb with several hundred small ball bearings in a taxi outside the Liverpool Women’s Hospital. He was the only fatality.
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Subscribe“The Conservatives have been in power for 14 years with a thumping majority.” As a matter of actual fact, the Conservatives had no parliamentary majority at all for half of that time, and a majority of 12 for another two years. Given MPs such as Tobias Elwood, Caroline Nokes, Alicia Kearns and Eliot Colburn, it is highly debatable whether there is a Conservative majority in the House of Commons even now. It is difficult to accept that churches could possibly believe that most of these converts of expedience are genuinely Christians. The suspicion must be that they frequently vouch for them purely to thwart immigration control, regardless of the potential risk to host communities here, while passing responsibility when things go wrong back to the Home Office. And that frankly is unChristian.
Quite. This article is peppered with journalistic omissions, ellisions, distractions and obfuscations. It is quite shocking to read from an otherwise honest and insightful writer. Sadly I suspect this is simply what ‘circling the waggons’ looks like.
I still cannot be sure whether Giles Fraser nurtures a poisonous hatred of his own country or is just a naive fool. At least with ex oil industry senior executive Justin Welby you know what you are getting.
To be technical he is suffering from Oikophobia*, and thus is an Oikophobe or Oik for short.
(*One who hates his own hearth and homeland.)
It is instructive to contrast the cool and ironical, almost Gibbonian, detachment with which he considers British national interests, with the passionate intensity he displays when The State of Israel is the subject of discussion.
Quite curious.
He is a Jew by origin is he not? So completely explicable.
Not So. Married to an Israeli, I believe. Doesn’t stop him being an eejit.
The Jewish Chronicle claim him as one of theirs.
I stand corrected. They should know. As the Irish proverb has it: Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile.
I think his father was a Jew and , if so , the Jewish Chronical should not say he is Jewish because that’s passed down through the mother .Technically !
I don’t think so, I think he believes what he says like he believes there is a god.
I like the term Oikos as used by Roger Scruton and oikophobe from that but oik has been used a long time ,especially at public schools, as a term of derision for common people or yokels .Posh people with left wing or woke views can be Oikophobes but not Oiks .
Giles is part of the Awfully Nice Brigade I’ve described above. He sets an example for the asylum seeker to follow and so gain his ‘right’ to stay. It’s all very, very nice for the moment until my granddaughters have to cover up and obey. 2034?
That is a terrifying thought.
It should hardly be beyond the pale for churches to refuse to baptise a migrant who’s has an on going asylum application or has been refused one in the past, on the very reasonable grounds that it directly interferes in the process and is extremely likely to be a disingenuous one.
Perhaps what is less Christian, is selling asylum in exchange for attendance at their emptying church’s. It should not be too much to ask that the church not actively participate in the exploitation and misery of the global international people trafficking and yet here is a member of the clergy arguing that it is so.
I am a Christian, and in my church we have seen two instances of asylum-seeker conversion. One, an Iranian, promptly disappeared from view when his application was granted. The other, an Afghan, is still with us, long after his application was successful. Both appeared to be sincere. There were no tell-tale signals to the contrary. As Giles says, we are not mind readers.
Incidentally, I recall instances of vicars who happily married foreign men to native women, even when it was clear the bride and groom had never clapped eyes on each other before. The church is not entirely innocent.
As usual Shakespeare had a few apt phrases covering the issue of false conversions.” There is no art to find the minds construction in the face” and as advice to the bogus asylum seeker “To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t.”
Unfortunately both Church and State are in the business of turning a blind eye to the bogus nature of many conversions. The rush to support applications by vicars is part of the liberal compassion that provides a substitute for religion and the State’s functionaries are similarly motivated and additionally desperate to find an excuse to admit asylum seekers rather than face the tricky problem of trying to deport them.
Giles Fraser is a liberal vicar on immigration issues in the Uk , hiding behind a veil comprised of Roger Scruton and , now , best quotes of good Queen Bess .
How does Roger Scruton fit in?
He doesn’t.
He no more fits in than Elizabeth 1 . However he often refers to him while deprecating Georgia Meloni for supposedly misapplying his teachings .
I have no idea who Georgia Meloni is, but I recall that Roger Scruton had a very simple formula when it came to immigration:
Your country is your oikos, your homeland.
Do you want to invite xenoi, guests, into your house or not?
If you do, then the least you can expect is that they will follow the rules, nomoi.
If they don’t, kill them (well, that’s the ancient world…) or exile them (we say deport)
Giles is a big fool..
Yes Giorgia Meloni is the correct spelling (I hope) and should be recognisable as the fairly new Prime Minister of Italy . If that’s what Scruton said I completely agree .
I think he cherry picks bits of Scruton which he can then misinterpret .
Perfectly put sir! Exactly as one might expect from Balliol!
And the islamophiliacs are oikophobes . ( incidentally Giles called Tommy Robinson a ‘horrible little man’ . A hundred years ago he’d have called him an oik )
And who is he?
Come off it, you’re bluffing Ms Knight.
You know your Shakespeare!
Yes but the vicars probably hope they’ll fall in love at the altar , just as they probably tell themselves that they will become genuine Christians while attending church to enact their scam . In some churches asylum seekers probably make up most of the congregation .
Jesus loves you, yeh yeh!
Too bad he’s dead.
Since when did any thinking person believe the church was ever innocent?
The nature of religion, the belief in the supernatural, sets the stage for exploitation and abuse, as seen in all cults of which Islam and Christianity are the most prominent. Judaism isn’t interested in conversion.
The problem is that the UK’s asylum tribunals conflate two issues: (a) the applicant’s circumstances when he left his country of origin and (b) complications that have arisen, since the applicant’s arrival, in returning him to that country. IMHO asylum decisions should only be based on the former. The latter includes not just bogus religious conversion but also sham marriages and claims about sexual orientation changes and gender transitions.
The real problem is that the asylum tribunals are looking for any excuse to grant asylum, so the proportion of successful applications is far higher here than in France. Hence the small boat crossings. I agree with Giles. Don’t blame vicars for being gullible. Blame the asylum tribunals.
An excellent point that only point a) should be relevant.
I disagree. They are all complicit in this game to fill the country up with these men.
But why?
Clare, that is a crucial question. There must be an agenda, but we don’t know what it is.
Because they hate and despise the native population. Once you understand this, everything begins to make sense.
Their motivation is malice.
Whilst Giles rightly points fingers at the Home Office and the government, the church in question isn’t some private organisation disconnected from the political situation. It is the Church of England whose Supreme Governor is the head of state. The Church of England that has 26 Bishops in the House of Lords. The Church of England whose highest religious authority was appointed by a Prime Minister. The Church of England whose Archbishop is unwaveringly political and very pro-immigration. The Church of England that is led by managerialists not theocrats, following not Christian teachings of the Bible but radical social justice theories. The Church of England whose Christian denomination barely features in the hot spots of the Middle East and Asia and whose home congregations have evaporated to nothing in so many of its parishes (as other Christian congregations grow) yet somehow finds itself baptising 100% of the most dangerous immigrant converts to have made the news (that’s over 50 criminal cases that I’ve been able to count in the past hour). There is no mystery here, there is no innocence. The Church of England is actively part of the immigration machine and no lesser authority than its Archbishop has publicly made it so.
An excellent synopsis of this malignant beast otherwise known as the Church of England’s. It should be disestablished forthwith and its enormous assets including its 175,000 acres*of England redistributed among more worthy recipients.
(* 273.4 square miles or nearly twice the size of GAZA for example.)
It long ceased to be a church. It is now a managerial sinecure for the well connected. Like all state industries, it is utterly dismissive of its actual customers. Managers run it for the convenience of themselves.
Many vicars abstain from attending to their often elderly flock. They fixate on their personal preoccupations. The monthly sermon in the half closed, mostly empty church will with racing certainty be a lecture on one of the topics of climate change, EDI, or sexuality.
Funded by huge endowments taken from earlier Christian churches and real Christian believers, its cathedrals, bishoprics, and Lords disguise a shrivelled church that speaks for no one but itself. Those endowments are being raided to fund this extravagance and soon its liabilities will vastly outweigh those extensive assets.
In short we need another Thomas Cromwell. His destruction* of the Monasteries meant a 65% reduction in the church’s estate, a good start that sadly was not followed up.
(*Architecturally it was a disaster that was sadly was unavoidable.)
I am not surprised to read this but have you actually experienced it?
I can confirm this is frequently the case.
I’m afraid that I can, too.
Yes. I can confirm this too.
Well I cannot. In the (Anglo-Catholic) church I attend a young and inspiring parson preaches the Gospel and celebrates the sacraments.
So what’s new?
A sweeping generalisation that is completely at odds with my personal experience. Since becoming an active C of E member in 1975, attending three different parish churches, I cannot recall a single sermon about climate change, EDI or sexuality. I agree that it is not well served by its managerial hierarchy – rather like the UK’s parties and governments at the moment.
You are very lucky. Climate change is very strong in my Church, the others much less so.
I didn’t realize the Church was still a part of the state in the UK. That’s gotta be all kinds of awkward for those secular technocrat types. Forgive this American if I am committing a faux pas, but why is this still a thing? Wouldn’t it have made sense to make the church fully independent at some point in the last couple of centuries? I get that I’m biased here. Separation of church and state is kind of a big deal over here, but it’s as much to keep government from messing with religion as it is the opposite. When I here that Sunday sermons about EDI and climate change are common, I’m thinking that maybe the government is messing with the religion just a wee bit on your side of the ocean.
So much simpler if we were all Americans, I suppose. Which is why so few Americans understand the rest of the world.
Beneath you to post such a snide comment to a relevant question
It was snide but it was also a fair observation.
I think it was meant as a compliment.
No, the churches have little real power here (like the monarchy) and therefore the state isn’t interested in them. For historical reasons the Church of England is woven into the fabric of state and royal tradition (we don’t have a Constitution, it’s accretion of precedent). Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby gets air/print-time when he says the correct woke stuff. The C of E (at least the top tiers and what I’ve seen of urban churches) mostly gave up on the nation-state years ago, embracing do-goody one-worldism.
Fascinating that in America, the opposite is true. The churches by and large have not embraced do goody one worldism, (aside from the Catholics but Catholicism always had elements of that with the church being international in nature), and they remain politically influential through the evangelical vote, which is actually thriving. It’s commonly believed that secularism is advancing and religion is retreating but that picture is incomplete. Highly engaged, highly participatory evangelical Christianity is actually growing. The reason religion on the whole is perceived to be in decline is because the people who were ‘default’ Christians and joined churches because that’s what everyone else did and it was the primary method of neighborhood socialization simply have less reason to ‘go through the motions’, as it were.
I take it you mean those assets should be returned to the Benedictines, Friars etc?
Hardly , are they not under the control of a gangster Pope ?
Popes (especially Jesuit ones) don’t control the religious orders
The CofE is not Catholic! We do not have a Pope, although Welby would like to think himself as powerful, with his own State!
Not to the Mendicants as they weren’t supposed to have any assets in the first place.
As to Contemplatives they did sign a Deed of surrender, so no.
Privatisation now with free shares for everyone ! Everyone who’s a legal citizen, that is.
Like a rerun of PM Thatcher’s building society demutualization but applied to church assets?
Will going to church on Sunday and singing hymns result in bonus CoE shares? I can foresee a huge increase in congregations.
Something like that. Free shares obviously since it would be a demutualisation. Also, we’d only want to privatise any actual assets like excess land and buildings and not take on any liabilities.
Obviously, Scots, Welsh and Irish wouldn’t qualify (unless resident in England). So a satisfying bonus in winding up the SNP.
Now I think about it, we should do the same with all the excess land and property still owned by the MoD, ex-British Railways, the NHS, government departments, …
I disagree. The C of E just needs different bishops at the top. There are sound bishops – the Bishop of Oswestry for instance. We just need to get the Woke Bishops out of the top spots.
It is always a bad decision to make radical moves – like disestablishment – when we could just change the top people and return the institution to its original purpose of providing parish priests to offer the holy sacraments, spiritual guidance and succour to parishioners.
So many Establishment and Quango positions are at the disposal of the PM (perhaps with a bit of arm-twisting of trustees etc). It is a travesty that no Tory PM has chosen to use these tools. By now we could have had a traditionalist-minded Archbishop of Canterbury, BBC Director General, Director of the British Museum, set of Law Lords etc. This would have made the total capture of the blob by the Wokerati much more difficult.
Better the devil you know, otherwise the journey the UK appears to be taking in blind ignornance towards Islam will happen much faster.
I agree but Lack of Moral Fibre (LMF) from the PM downwards has done for us I’m afraid.
In the case of the CoE, the ‘blob’ have wangled it so that it would be very unusual for the PM not to rubber-stamp their choices. How else would the spectacularly unqualified Welby have shot up the hierarchy like a rat up a spout?
Yes you are quite correct. It would take a PM of unusual vision and strength of purpose to take on the church hierarchy and get their way. I’m not holding my breath. (Though perhaps Kemi could do it).
I think it is genuinely tricky for a PM, especially one who isn’t especially religious, not to rubber stamp. There is a real feeling of interfering in the church in an illegitimate way, and if the choice a PM made seemed both unpopular and ut of step with members, it would be endlessly criticized. Probably by everyone. It’s a lose lose thing.
The power of the Wokerati radiates formally from the State via its outmoded twisted Equality and Human Rights laws… and informally through a BBC-mediated DEI obsessed culture. Here groupthink and terror of social ostracism for any expression that could be deemed ‘discriminatory’ delivers a Soviet style progressive conformity in our Establishment.
Asking as a former Investment Analyst in the 70’s, I was surprised at some of the companies the CofE invested in. It must, I thought, make a ton of interest annually….
Yes helping fanatical Muslims game the system seems to be the only thing Giles Fraser and his Archbishop Welby agree on .
The Hagia Sophia was the greatest church of eastern Christendom, until it was made a mosque.
Is Archbishop Welby content that Canterbury cathedral goes the same way? Is he going to do anything to prevent it?
I doubt they will like the cross floor plan of Canterbury Cathedral. More likely to rape the daughters of the local lady vicars and bishops on the high Altar(see Constantinople 1453 ) and then burn it down .
Doubt Giles would feel the same if those Muslims were Palestinian or vocal supporters of. He appears to have a bias, however the UK isn’t it.
I bet he’d love to offer refuge to all the inhabitants of Gaza in the UK if it made life easier for the Israelis .
Last year while on holiday on the Kent coast I attended a Sunday service. The vicar gave a sermon favourable to the Channel migration.
Using Scripture and quoting Hebrews 13, he said that in entertaining strangers many have unknowingly entertained angels. There was a lot more in similar vein. Selectively quoting Scripture and laundering it to suit his theme.
For these vicars, Jesus of Nazareth is the wish-fulfilment of their 21st century liberal egalitarianism. There’s nothing in the Gospels that would support the idea that Jesus would have stood on the white cliffs at Dover welcoming migrants. Even though the Bishop of London reminded the Lords that every person is made in the image of God, and despite the Bishop of Dover declaring that the Channel migrants are ‘our brothers, sisters, and mothers’.
The Church of England has been torturing congregations for some time with these trite sermons, simple-minded hymns and Janet and John translations of the Bible.
I was once acquainted with a woman vicar who gave accommodation in the vicarage to an asylum seeker. He eventually disappeared, taking some of her possessions with him.
Did she convert to Islam?
“He eventually disappeared, taking some of her possessions with him.”
Oh well, I cannot summon any empathy for her. Some people need to fall flat on their faces to learn their lesson(s).
I’m sorry to disappoint you and Mr Stanhope but there are many congregations ,Church of England and others, who are active, vibrant and growing. There are churches planting new congregations also. You won’t hear about this in the secular media because it contradicts their preferred narrative. My own church has grown from a congregation of 10 to 53 in the last couple of years. However much of what you say about our leadership is true. We are being let down by our bishops over many issues because of compromise with the “elite” culture which is predominantly left of centre and woke. There are some, all too few, exceptions however.
I’m delighted to hear that, but my complaint is NOT against the troops but the simply appalling management of the CoE.
We used to JOKE that the CoE was the “Tory Party at prayer”. Looking at today’s ‘shower’ the joke is on us!
Exactly. An unusually disingenuous article from Fr Fraser. He must know perfectly well that for years now senior posts in the CoE have gone to administrators who are fervent – sometimes fanatical – adherents of the full range of far-Left, ‘woke’, doctrines, certainly including unrestricted immigration. Since most of their choices are usually dictated by ideological rather than theological considerations, it’s probably safe to assume that their encouragement of these ‘conversions’ is no exception. Their motives are just as much – perhaps more – in need of scrutiny as those of the ‘converts’.
Yes, what are the motives?
In over 35 years of regularly listening to sermons preached in the Church of England I have never heard a single one warning the faithful about the dangers of the ‘traditional’ sins of sloth, gluttony, avarice, wrath, envy, pride, and lust (where lust meant any strong attraction, even to golf or stamp collecting).
Avarice might be alluded to if it can be used to introduce some sort of socialist or, more lately, social justice topic. Indeed, the man who become bishop of Durham in the Edwardian era noted that by the 1890s Christianity in England had become almost solely thought of as social improvement, albeit under the direction of Christ.
Evidently, in the age of science and democracy, and with its Scriptures subjected to the sort of literary and historical criticism that would be inadmissible in other religions, it was impossible for most people to believe in whatever else was in the Gospels and the Epistles. Even if someone should rise from the dead, it would be dismissed as a psychological delusion. As the notable Professor Alice Roberts recently declared confidently, dead people don’t live again.
Unsurprising then, that after yet another century of science and democracy but in greater measure, the Church of England should promote later developments, such as social justice, and believe in other sins.
At first sight it appears that a Church is hot that champions social justice. Especially when ecological and racial justice causes are added. It seems that a Church is hot against the progressive sins of racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, islamophobia, failing to give succour to every stranger who arrives on the Kent coast, and voting to leave the European Union; all sins that cut across a society of equalities.
Christianity was radical when first introduced. Yet the purpose of Christianity was not to create a perfect civilisation. The congregations of today are soothed with assurances that they are not as other men are – the ‘far right’, the sexists – having not committed any of the progressive sins. Are they saved therefore? Are they saved by ‘works of the law’? It is not indifference that is fatal to the Christian. It is being lukewarm.
Meanwhile, outside the Church of England, the greater outside, people come to think that there is a ‘right side of history’. History becomes an entity that, like God, can judge. It separates the sheep and the goats.
Settled Science becomes another omniscient deity. Unlike Jehovah, it cannot be argued or negotiated with, and whose priesthood uses it to exert power over their congregation.
A third person is added to make a triune god. The State. An entity that does not exist apart from its actions; omnipresent, unseen, only-wise, it is felt, like the wind, a pantheism of force. An Unholy Spirit.
Now wait a moment.
There are no directives which come to parishes from Lambeth Palace or the diocesan bishops. Parishes are left to work it out for themselves, so it would be much truer to say that parishes have been left in the lurch, rather than having fashionable views on immigration thrust down their necks. (This does not apply to gay rights though, where fashionable lefty views are foisted on the parishes ad nauseam.)
So Nell Glover’s theorising is wide of the mark.
A rather more likely culprit is the proliferation of law firms which specialise in immigration. Is it they who put the idea in asylum seekers’ heads?
Did you read the Bishops contribution to the Rwanda debate ? I am sure the vicars did and can work out what’s expected of them , if they ever wish to disport themselves in a lovely yellow cope and mitre .
State Churches are unbelievably prone to getting taken over by secularists that turn Church doctrine into Gnostic Liberation Theologies. You see this all across South America with the Preferential Option for the Poor. These are Poverty Ideologies that look Christian but actually function something like Church Communism.
Well said. The archbishop holds a crosier – a symbol of his role as shepherd to his flock, the role of a shepherd is to protect from wolves.
Given that the archbishop, and I hope all his vicars, are aware of the nightmare of the flagrant and cruel persecution faced by Christian minorities in many Islamic countries it is astonishing that they feel their role is to facilitate and encourage undocumented young men arriving in this country illegally to stay.
Since 2009, in Nigeria alone, over 52,000 Christians have been slaughtered and over 18,000 churches destroyed by Fulani Islamists. Knowing this, and knowing the extent of atrocities perpetrated by Islamists against Christians and other minorities in other parts of Africa, Pakistan and the Middle East one really had to wonder at what our church leaders are thinking of.
I’m sure there are genuine converts amongst them but given that one vicar admitted that he has never baptised a British Muslim into the faith one has to question and question thoroughly.
Another point this raises for me is the fact that, despite the authorities clearly accepting that to be a Christian in an Islamic country is to risk death, why have they been facilitating mass, demographic changing from such countries? I really don’t wish to offend nor to accuse all of that religion, far from it, but it is a question that should be asked.
Well said. The archbishop holds a crosier – a symbol of his role as shepherd to his flock, the role of a shepherd is to protect from wolves.
Given that the archbishop, and I hope all his vicars, are aware of the nightmare of the flagrant and cruel persecution faced by Christian minorities in many Islamic countries it is astonishing that they feel their role is to facilitate and encourage undocumented young men arriving in this country.
I’m sure there are some genuine converts amongst them but given that one vicar admitted that he has never baptised a British Muslim into the faith one has to question and question thoroughly.
Another point this raises for me is the fact that, despite the authorities clearly accepting that to be a Christian in an Islamic country is to risk death so it’s a reason not to deport, why have they been facilitating mass, demographic changing immigration from such countries? I can’t help but wonder, when Christians become a persecuted minority in this country where will they be able to flee to?
But why? What is the payoff?
I am beginning to understand what this means.
During the previous lengthy comment thread at Unherd on the CoE I decided to walk up to my local church to investigate the PCC. I initially thought the Unherd poster had made a typo and was referring me to the Parish Council which is very active locally but no I am now wiser, there is something called a Parochial Church Council.
The outer church door was open and there was a PCC notice board. The contents were a big disappointment, some faded notice about plastic flowers on graves being banned and then there was the major centre-piece notice. FX: drumroll, the PCC had a brand new GDPR policy attached to the notice board in its full multipage glory.
Do these people have an institutional death wish? The CoE is hanging on by its fingernails trying to maintain some sort of relevance in this country, yet the only thing they can communicate with any enthusiasm is a new GDPR policy.
Looking forward to his vicar, under oath, testifying to Ezidi’s character in court, for doesn’t God love a sinner?
This is highly disingenuous. A major reason why deportations take so long is the organised “industry” of legal challenges, appeals and campaigns. Usually supported by the likes of church groups, community groups etc. Well-meaning in many cases, I’m sure, but often integral “useful idiots” in frustrating the deportation process.
That said, in a sense Giles Fraser is correct. Blaming churches for being naïve misses the point.
The real point is that the asylum system is no longer fit for purpose. It was never intended as a mechanism for facilitating mass migration of people who (perhaps understandably) simply prefer to live somewhere else. It is being abused as such by the asylum industry who have no interest in the individual merits of any case. Their desire is that every claim should be allowed and that every attempt at deportation should be frustrated. They don’t care if the claimant lies about having converted to Christianity or being gay or whatever else makes that more likely.
They are of course supported by politicians and activists, predominantly on the political left, who are ideologically committed to what are essentially open borders. And even if they have qualms about individual cases, will rarely stick their head above the parapet to say so and risk angering their base.
I think the issue here isn’t the church.
I don’t believe that any body thinks it is.
The issue here is a system processing asylum seekers and the massive loop holes that exist within it.
If the stories that I’ve seen are to be believed, and yes they could be bogus. Claiming to be gay or Christian mean you are very likely to be met with the death penalty on returning to the country of origin for many asylum seekers. As a result, it appears we are unable to deport them.
Spot the rather easy loop hole to use anyone?
Add to that, a conviction of rape appears to also be met with severe penalties.
The issue here is the Home Office’s inability (or desire) to protect its citizens. And that definitely needs investigation.
This is true across the Middle-East and North Africa where the indigenous Christian population has declined from around 20% of the population to less than 5% in the last 100 years. Christians are openly discriminated against by the state and persecuted, often violently, by religious extremists, usually Islamic.
But isn’t it ironic how little this long drawn out pogrom typically features in the priorities of the lawyers, politicians, activists and community supporters who will move heaven and earth to help people like Abdul Ezidi falsely claim asylum.
If I were cynical I would suspect that they don’t actually give a crap about persecution of Christians in the Middle East. It’s just another means of subverting the asylum system to them so that a convicted sex offender gets to stay in the UK.
Oh wait, I am cynical . . .
I doubt there is a single official at the Home Office who has heard of the Church of the East.
Based on my recent experience, I fear you are correct.
How would the Taliban know he was a “Christian” unless he was stupid enough to tell them?
He might be informed on by a grudge-holding neighbour who saw him with a Bible. There are many, many routes to authorities finding out. Dig around https://www.opendoorsuk.org/
He would not be attending Friday prayers.
You’re quite right they don’t give a fig for the persecuted Christians, often members of Christian communities whose existence predates the arrival of Islam. It is extraordinary that they know of the horrific persecution such minorities suffer in Islamic countries and yet feel mass uncontrolled immigration from such countries is what this, at least still nominally, Christian country needs. How long before British Christians find themselves a vulnerable minority in the U.K.? When that happen how can anyone think that somehow it will be different?
“If I were cynical I would suspect that they don’t actually give a crap about persecution of Christians in the Middle East.”
You are not cynical, but realistic. I recently mentioned the Maronite Church to a UK government official I met whilst holidaying in Vienna, and he tried to correct me by saying that it’s Mennonite! I gave him an icy stare as I thought he was pulling my leg! He had truly never heard of the Maronites. The lack of knowledge demonstrated by our government employees is deeply disturbing.
“Is it naive to believe asylum seekers?”
Yes, it’s exceptional naivety. Frankly, it’s scarcely believable to read the question.
Quite.
This is pathological altruism, and pure, distilled, performative narcissism.
Duncan Mcauley and the Action Foundation (the priest and “charity” involved here) should be ashamed of themselves.
Their pathological stupidity and naiveté has nearly cost this woman and her 2 children their lives. Another lady who ran to help is now blind, according to her husband’s update yesterday.
Shame on them, destroying our country and endangering the innocent, all so they can virtue-signal about how compassionate they are. Disgusting!
They should have some compassion for the women and children of this country — their country — who are the true innocents, and should not have to live in fear.
It makes me angry that they are using God’s name when engaged in this vainglorious, subversive activism. They do this for their own ego, not for God. They are the handmaiden’s of misery and unholy chaos.
What’s even more risible is that from checking the charity accounts I can see that they took in circa 250k last year of taxpayer’s money. Infuriating!
The biggest threat to democracy and freedom we face here is the rise of Islam and the support it gets from the champaign socialist middle classes. The Awfully Nice Brigade, the Grauniad readers. If we show them how nice we are and how lovely it is to be nice, they too will see the light and be nice.
No regonition that the it’s the third generation Pakistani men who are still raping our children. (Well, not the nice children. There are limits to what we will tolerate here.)
Completely agree.
This level of (wilful) naïveté is flat out dangerous. The west has lived in a civilised and ordered manner for so long that we forget that we are able to live as a flock of innocent lambs, because of strong and wise men who came before us and erected protections (in many forms) around our little ‘farms’ to spare us from predation.
The deluded idiots who have seized the levers of power now, have forgotten that most of the rest of the world is not a peaceful and happy farm, with a kindly farmer tending to the lambs. Much of the world is composed of wolves that hunt and terrorise the unprotected sheep in their locale, with not a kindly farmer in sight to stop this.
The champagne socialists, and the globalists, are now actively inviting wolves onto the peaceful farm. And then they act terribly shocked when a wolf devours one of the lambs. But they continue importing more wolves, in the deluded belief that wolves will become lambs, if you just let them onto the happy farm. Dangerous, dangerous lunacy.
“Awfully Nice Brigade” — puts me in mind of what Mark Twain allegedly said: so-and-so “is a nice man in the worst sense of the word.” Nice; but awfully so!
You need to learn how to spell champagne
The typo clearly does not undermine the point she was making.
But it does tend to weaken one’s credibility. To be taken seriously it’s worth making the effort to proofread. There were a couple of things that Giles said………” normally there is a little incentive for people to make such claims” should have been, “There is little incentive” one letter making all the difference in meaning. And then…..” Generally speaking regular attendance at church for two years is just too much for those who want to get on their knees to avoid fees” should have been “Those who must get on their knees to avoid fees” Just saying………….
You need to learn what’s relevant when attempting a lame deflection from a serious point.
Simon, I’m dylexic, but not thick. Some people think it’s the same condition. I’m surprised how few misspellings I make. Quite pleased with myself actually. I do try to spare those for whom this condition annoys as I try to spot where I’ve made a spelling mistake, but without a proof reader by my side I can’t spot the problem. I’m sure you’ll be able to cope. You are capabe of intelligent guesses enough to get the gist of what I want to say I assume? If yes, well done you.
Very succinctly stated.
The word you’re looking for is taqiyyah/taqiyah (both variants are accepted).
As for those who encourage and enable the mass immigration of men from non-Western societies, I am not sure if naïveté is the explanation. I often wonder if it isn’t something more sinister, such as hatred for their own societies and cultures. Frankly, after everything that happened naïveté simply doesn’t suffice as an explanation anymore.
There are 40 on the Bibby barge who have suddenly just found Christianity to be very appealing.
They know what fools we are.
The CofE does not just get it wrong about asylum seekers. In 2017, it was support from the Archbishop of Canterbury that got Paula Vennells on the shortlist to become the Bishop of London. Church of England priests have no special insights into character and their recommendations should be given no credence by asylum tribunals.
OOps! They got Paula Vennals wrong in a big way.
If the church does not wish to be held responsible for distinguishing real from feigned belief, it should not support asylum applications. Doing so under the pretext of compassion when the Rice-Davies defence would apply to the application could be thought not merely naive but dishonest on the part of the clergy.
I am a CofE vicar and more than happy to acknowledge the managerialism of the denomination. It is far worse than that, but a discussion for another day.
Often, asylum seekers have very little English. They have left some of the most traumatic situations in the world (I realise there are some who haven’t and are seeking to play the system) and have travelled by whatever means, through countries where they are neither welcome nor understand people, to get here. We have a hotel full of asylum seekers (AS) in the next village. The locals don’t want them and the AS know it. But the church has moved towards them, got an interpreter and has sought to provide language lessons, clothing and practical support. Many of them feel loved for the first time. They are drawn to the church.
That doesn’t mean lots claim to be Christians. You would think that, if conversion was so expedient, they would all do it. They do not.
But some do. And this can be very hard to disentangle. Do they understand what Christianity IS? Do they just want to be part of the community that has welcomed them? How would you tell the difference with someone with broken English who doesn’t grasp the deeper theological ideas?
For myself, I never baptise anyone without knowing them for six months; time to get to know them and their situation and attempt to minister into their trauma. But here the asylum system fails us. We have had people with us who have fled as Christians from Iran, who I would stake my life were real Christians. But they were moved on after four weeks, and again a month later, and again two months after that. I lost track of them at that point. They can move from church to church, but no one church can know them well enough to say for certain ‘these people are definitely believers’ because that takes a long time (and even then, people can look and sound Christian without meaning it; and that is the point Giles makes).
It is a fact that lots of AS are becoming Christians. There is probably a Farsi speaking church near each of you because of the growth of the church in Iran and persecution there. The vast majority of these are genuine converts.
But, as is true with ALL converts, one has to wait a long time to see whether they will stick it out. Jesus told the parable of the sower in Mark 4 for this very purpose – there are three responses to Jesus that look good to begin with but only one proves fruitful in the end. Must we have the AS in our church for ten years before we can say ‘this person appears to be a believers’?
Finally, it seems to me that we are missing an obvious point here. Christian or not, many AS have been deeply traumatised. Of course we can ask whether they should be HERE. But we have to know that some of them will have become unstable because of their experiences. Some of those will do terrible things. And some of those might actually be real Christians, especially if they are new Christians. I hope they wouldn’t; I trust that conversion is a genuine aid to getting a proper perspective on the world and interacting with other people.
BUT the true naivety would be to assume that conversion suddenly fixes schizophrenia or psychosis or heals a trauma that has driven someone from their home. It is possible to be a Christian and do terrible things. A genuine conversion means that it is unsafe for the person to return to their home country (and it really does; more Christians are killed around the world for their faith every year than any other group) but that DOESN’T mean that they are safe to remain in the community at large. And that is not the church’s job to assess.
All good points.
Still – why do we never (or VERY rarely) hear the church leadership campaign against Christian persecution overseas? And how many AS “conversions” take place amongst those who have already been granted asylum?
Do you not read the Barnabas Fund web-site ? I am sure there are bishops who do. Their “speaking out” against Christian persecution overseas would surely exacerbate the problem.
The ones we see getting off the boats are primarily men. Frankly I don’t care about their claims of trauma , I care about the trauma they can inflict on British Citizens – the rapes, the murders, the mugging….Yes, `Christians’ can do terrible things, but that is not the point. The point is the wilful naivety, stupidity, of trusting people who wandered through several safe countries to illegally roll up on the British coast destroying their documents along the way.
Good points, Ash
Thank you for commenting here. I found it moving and informative. However, forgive me, but selfishly I am concerned for the future of my children and any grandchildren that might come.
As you say in your comment, more Christians are killed around the world for their faith: we know that Christian minorities do not fare well in islamic countries. One day my children may well be part of such a minority and where might they be able to find safe haven?
Thank you for introducing a breath of reality into these bloviations.
If the asylum seekers don’t have enough grasp of English to understand the deeper theological ideas, should they be baptised at all? Shouldn’t it wait until they are fluent enough to understand? How can they be a committed Christian if they don’t understand Christian responsibilities?
I take your point about Iranians who were Christians before they left Iran and sought asylum. Their cases are more credible as the Iranian theocracy is known to be hostile towards anything other than Shia Islam.
Why does ‘sticking it out’ mean anything . Some will undoubtedly be agents of the regime in Iran . Precisely the people you would expect to stick it out .
Giles conveniently washes his hands like Pontius Pilate and is also forgetting the duty to “render unto Caesar”. Just another version of the Nuremberg defence really.
I like most of Giles’ articles, but feel he’s got this one seriously wrong.
He knows perfectly well that a “conversion” to Christianity scores extra points with the Home Office. As does the C of E in general. In fact, there was a leaked C of E document only yesterday detailing how vicars could assist and promote asylum seekers’ applications.
Yet at no point in any of this have I ever heard any acknowledgement of widespread illegal immigration and abuse of the asylum system. Nor any such similar effort going into serving and protecting the “England” that the Church of England was statutorily created to serve.
The C of E should have been disestablished at least a century ago. It should certainly be removed from the House of Lords. They are the ultimate “cakeists” – they want all the rights of being part of the establishment without seriously taking responsibilities.
Wait and see what comes after.
If you think that out go the Lords Spiritual and in come the tribunes of the people then you haven’t been paying attention these last few decades.
The Earl of Burford was scorned and manhandled when he mounted the Woolsack during the debate on the House of Lords Act in ’99 and cried out “What we are witnessing is the abolition of Britain… Before us lies the wasteland… No Queen, no culture, no sovereignty, no freedom. Stand up for your Queen and country and vote this bill down.”
Cassandra never spoke so truly.
Every constitutional move is towards the consolidation of the Liberal Monolith now. The democratic moment has passed away. Brexit was its last snarl. Never to be permitted again.
Strange to say but only the King and the Bishop remain in hand now. A stalemate can be played out as perhaps the best that can be hoped for in our lifetimes, with prudence and clarity of purpose. But the hour is late and the stakes are perilously high.
Some of us recall a time pre-Blair when the standard of debate in the House of Lords was deemed to be better informed, not to mention more courteous that that of the House of Commons. Nous avons changé tout ça.
Isn’t it a bit curious that they are all C of E converts? Other denominations are available. Could it be by any chance related to the Established Church’s publicly-stated stance on migration/asylum?
I believe that Mr. Abdul Ezedi sought help from the RC Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. One cannot help wondering two things a) if the Press and the BBC pick on the CofE because it is part of the ‘old’ Establishment which the Woke Establishment is in the process of supplanting or b) if immigration lawyers direct clients to the CofE because (believe it or not) it has a network of parishes which encompasses the whole of England.
https://diocesehn.org.uk/news/statement-from-the-diocese-of-hexham-and-newcastle-relating-to-abdul-ezedi/
I may be wrong about this so am happy to be corrected: my issue is that I have yet to hear any Bishop’s stand up in the HoL and discuss the dreadful atrocities which are regularly being committed against Christians in Africa and the Middle East.
I seemed to recall that when Rowan Williams (who knows the Christian East very well indeed) was asked about this, he pointed out that public pronouncements by him as a western Christian leader would be very precisely counterproductive, draw attention to potential Christian victims and identify them with “the West” in ways which would not benefit them. He did however have an apocrisarius, an envoy who ran a very well-informed blog bringing information to those of us who were interested about the fate of Levantine Christians.
If they did that they would have to ask themselves why they are busy helping to create such a potential future for British Christians in a few short decades…
This is a weak and simplistic straw man. The sort of thing we might expect from a Journalist or a Politician but not from a Theologian and a Clerk in Holy Orders.
As the the Rector of Kew surely knows, from Elizabeth I’s time until very recently a Christian was expected to know the Creed, the Ten Commandments and the Catechism by heart at the time of his confirmation. They were then legally obliged to attend divine worship at least once a week under pain of fine, foreiture and imprisonment.
We misuse the past when we think strictures and forms of this kind can be simply dismissed as ‘unequal laws unto a savage race’. The Elizabethans knew the stakes and understood the reality of the danger of rebellion and subversion far better than we do. The Rector notes, with exquisite condescension, that Elizabeth I had men tortured. He must also know she faced at least four mortal plots aginst her life and state.
While we cannot (and may not) make windows into men’s consciences we can and should demand that they make conspicous outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace before they are admitted to the Sacraments of the Church. The same apostle who tells us that “by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified” also said “Let all things be done decently and in order”. To suggest that a minister can do away with forms and ceremonies and leave the spiritual condition of his parishioners unsifted before admitting them to the Lords Table is a dereliction of a sacred charge. It shows a spirit of complacency that can only come from the Rectory armchair of an Established Church.
England is on the anvil from the Severn to the Tyne once again and we will learn the hard way that it was this outward conformity which made the space for Elizabethan lattitude of conscience. As ever it is obedience and outward conformity which creates room for tolerance and diversity.
“As ever it is obedience and outward conformity which creates room for tolerance and diversity”
Interesting claims and as an American lapsed-Anglophile I’ll defer to your native knowledge. But your last sentence is a piece of tacked-on opinionating, revealing an arch-conservative nostalgia and an outsize faith in the value of obedience and conformity. How rigid does that conformity need to be before adequate space for tolerance and diversity/difference is created? I hope it can do without the level of religious persecution and suppression that characterized the 16th-century heyday you seem to look back upon so fondly.
Thank you for taking the trouble to respond.
The conversation between liberty and order, conscience and conformity is a bright thread which runs through English Political History (and every English political life) from the Conquest to our own time. And in fact its energy is religious more than it is political. Its negotiation is a lifes work.
It is the basis of our greatest works of art and letters, Shakespeares History Plays, MIlton’s Paradise Lost, Donne’s Holy Sonnets, Wordsworth and Shelley and onwards. It is also the crucible of our modern history and constitutional settlement, fought out in the 17th Century.
While I am reluctant to engage in the first person on these platforms I must state plainly that I have no nostalgia for the period when the Test and Corporation acts were needful. I am only too grateful to have lived at the end of a brief window of time when hard conformity had given way to responsible liberty. I just about remember when ‘Public Decency’ could be lauded unironically. But I don’t flatter myself that our civic peace, prosperity and freedoms, such as they are. stem from any ‘self evident rights of man’ or virtue in the ‘breed’ but are rather down to a grim 800 years of fine, forfeiture, rack, gallows, transportation, Forest Law, Black Acts, and the Lord Chamberlains office. And, yes, the Church Catechism.
We can all see the signs of the times are rolling back and England is returning to the Anvil. If I try to live in obedience and conformity to the powers-that-be it is because it is the only hopeful path to temporal and spiritual peace this land has ever known. Rebellion and Revolution being infinitely worse. Look at the anguish America is in having made a founding principle out of civil disobedience.
As the Bard of Avon put it – ‘Civil dissention is a foul worm that gnaws at the bowels of the commonwealth’.
I recommend reading (or praying!) the Prayer for the Kings Majesty in the Book of Common Prayer. It is Empson’s ‘fourth type of ambiguity’ as a spiritual exercise in power relations.
Best wishes.
WA
Thanks for your clarification and thought-provoking response. I’m glad you ventured to use the first-person point-of-view, despite understandable reluctance in this format.
I’ll pray for King Charles if you’ll pray for President Biden, and then for whomever is elected here in the States in November of this year. (Perhaps you meant to refer to your sovereign’s cancer, which I was sorry to hear about and hope he recovers from). I have particular esteem for the literary and scholarly achievements of the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages, including the Book of Common Prayer. But especially, after Shakespeare’s body of work, the enduring achievement of the Authorized Version, undertaken with an astounding combination of reverence and rigor. Let’s remember that the kingdom Jesus speaks of is not of this world.
I found it noteworthy that you referenced Milton, whose masterwork I’m glad I finally read all the way through for the first time a few years back (after having memorized, with a few slips, most of the first several dozen lines decades ago). In some ways Milton is justly regarded as deeply conservative or reactionary. But he was also a rebel, a Puritan Revolutionary, with forward-thinking views of divorce in light of his unhappy marriage. I understand him to have been, at least for a while, in strong support of the Regicide and Puritan Commonwealth. So, not a full-fledged conservative or traditionalist.
Like Milton, the lesser but still important poet Shelly suffered from a great deficit of good-humor–that’s what I detect anyway. I regard Shelley as the ultimate example of the self-serious, gushingly sentimental, walking tragedy of a poet. Not only, but in large part. He has little of Wordsworth’s profundity (granted, Wordy Bill was thin on robust humor too) and next to none of what characterized the “[b]ards of passion, and of mirth” that Keats so admired, and at times channeled in his own verse. I like his Percy Bysshe’s A Defense of Poetry best of what I’ve read from him.
“Look at the anguish America is in having made a founding principle out of civil disobedience”…a convenient oversimplification, but not utterly false. The founding principles of the USA were in large part exported from England, with a circumspect eye toward ancient civilizations as well as the previous few centuries of European history (and with some Native American influence too). They were not all a rowdy & revoltin’ rabble in the way some Little Englanders like to imagine. Many feared lasting mob rule as much or more than the often entrenched and oppressive hierarchies of Europe.
I’m glad that my somewhat “unprovoked provocation” elicited such an informative response. I detect a well-read, overall-but-not-automatic social and cultural conservatism that is sincere and earned. I’m in strong sympathy with your aversion to violent revolution and its bloody mornings-after, which tend to roll on or re-dawn for generations. And I love many old books and other living cultural remnants (music, art, buildings, etc.).
I tend to think the unextinguishable push toward greater liberty happens in spite of “fine, forfeiture, rack, gallows, transportation, Forest Law, Black Acts, and the Lord Chamberlains office. And, yes, the Church Catechism”, or in tension alongside it, rather than by virtue of those things. Heydays of liberty and order are intermittent, typically acknowledged only in retrospect. Did you appreciate the Era of Public Decency (1950-1965?) while it was happening?
“The conversation between liberty and order” is indeed a special strength of the British tradition, but that essential tension or dialogue has existed since the Athenians at least, and probably for much, much longer.
In future I’ll accord you a greater baseline benefit of the doubt, which is something I ought to do better about in general.
Have a good evening on your side of the Atlantic.
AJ MacKi—-
I suspect it is Gilea Fraser being naive on this occasion. I defer to the many excellent comments above.
Naive, or wilfully ignorant?
Faux naïf
It seems that Paris, and now London, is indeed worth a mass.
Funeral Mass?
Or even Coq au Vin once a week?
The starting point for the vicar is thst Moslems very rarely convert. Thats all they need to know really
Many churches here in the US are abetting the invasion of illegals, providing money, maps, clothing and equipment (as is the Red Cross). Since they long ago lost sight of what their purpose and mission was, congregants fell away. Now they take money from government to replace their former flock. They are a very large part of the problem.
The involvement of the Red Cross and a UN agency are eye-opening, each providing illegals with maps on how to get here and what to do next. Imagine a nation funding – wittingly or not – its own destruction. That’s what we’re doing while Congress dithers over a meaningless bit of legislation.
Oh, they’re doing this wittingly. That whole “build back better”? The plan is to utterly destroy the systems of prosperity and build a world for elites and slaves.
Look at how the U.S. Catholic Bishops conference is in all but name a NGO with millions of taxpayers’ dollars diverted for Catholic Charities for ‘migrant’ and ‘refugee’ and ‘asylum seekers.’ If it wasn’t for Latin American arrivals, pews would be practically empty. Even though these economic opportunists are increasingly Pentecostal and evangelical, or Mormons as a fast ticket to Yanqui prosperity.
“Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.” Gramsci, 1915
If claiming to be Christian means the claimant cannot be deported to his country of origin this means the term “christian” becomes a valuable currency,
In the same way African claimants claim to be homosexual and thus at risk if deported. Even if they have been convicted of sexual offences- against women.
So should one do in such cases ?
My view is you cannot pick and choose which bits of law suit you. If you have put yourself in the legal position of being deported then this comes first. The consequences of deportation were known to you before you offended. So you cannot then plead dangerous country defence against deportation.
I would argue that `asylum’ seekers even when granted refuge status should be on parole for at least 10 years. Commit a crime, your status is automatically revoked and you are deported, immediately, no waffling by the HO. Ten years should give you time to integrate into the community, learn English and become self supporting. Frankly I don’t care about their risks if they return, I care about their risk to us.
My feeling is that if Islamic countries are mortally unsafe for gays, Jews and Christians then why are all our institutions from church to academe to government at all levels seemingly fixated on seeing Britain become and Islamic majority country within a few decades time – if not sooner?
Come off it, Giles! The priest in question didn’t just baptise Ezedi, he vouched for him to the Tribunal.
This is worrying: why does the CofE even have a policy for helping asylum seekers?
https://image.vuukle.com/55984aee-8a01-42e7-9efa-7ac101b33c8f-96eab2cb-5ba2-43a2-bfb4-9a52803265e2
Meanwhile, the ABofC seems to have no interest when helping the persecuted and shrinking Christian communities in Islamic countries.
I once encountered a young woman vicar at a crematorium who was happy to think that the UK would eventually become an Islamic country. If so, these asylum seeker converts might have made a mistake.
These converts are also perhaps unaware that, while Christians are not persecuted in the UK, they can be harried on occasion.
I don’t expect clergy or anyone else to be perfect, but once such a person has committed a crime – as with Ezedi in 2018, six years ago – it’s a different story. Or should be. A govt’s first responsibility is to its citizens, not those of another nation, no matter how messed up that nation is. In the US, we’ve made a mockery of “asylum,” as if the entirety of Central and South America are political killing zones. They’re not.
The refugees, and it strains the language to call them that much, are moving for economic or unknown reasons, at least the ones from Spanish-speaking countries. The Chinese are a different story. Same with the Middle Easterners. We’ve lost count of how many have been allowed through the turnstile at the southern border and one of our parties acts as if it’s a crime to wonder about the number.
People of all sorts work to game systems, not just Muslims. The West often makes the gaming easy, allowing bad actors to take advantage of our compassion, empathy, and liberal values. Maybe a throwback to Reagan is in order – trust, but verify. A lesson my own country refuses to learn as each day seemingly features a story of a criminal illegal who’s been arrested a second or third time.
“Baptism is not a certificate of good character. It is an outward expression of the desire to be saved.”
No Giles, you are wrong. Baptism is an outward sign that a person has been saved.
Acts 2:38-39 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
“Asylum seekers” should be a no-go area for churches to encourage/agree to becoming a baptised member of the flock. Give them support, care and succour, if they so wish. Their status should not be altered while being assessed. In any event Churches have a vested interest in expanding their flock which may well fit in with an asylum seeker’s hidden motives. Once an accepted member of the country’s civil society, that would be the time for becoming a member of a church.
I get so tired of listening to “do-gooders” talk about the illegals. They are not here for asylum. Most who support illegals have NO IDEA what the criteria for asylum are. Hint: They are not related to gang threats, or the hunger of children.
So, this article gives them a complete pass on the luxury belief signaling of the support of illegals. I won’t go along. If you support illegals, you must accept the responsibility of the murders, rapes, thievery, drunk driving, welfare cheating, and the multiple other problems that the illegals bring in.
I’ll tell you what is naïve, Mr Fraser expecting us to believe that he and his conspirator’s are innocents abroad and that they are not knowingly engaged in a scam to pervert the course of justice.
I wonder whether there is anything in his previous posts that would found a complaint to the police?
Oh come on Giles, how can you conflate sharp-elbowed middle class mums with violent sexual offenders!
If you have an asylum-seeking Muslim from a country where apostates are put to death, you must see how it would be advantageous for him to “convert”? If your suspicions are not raised, then they really should be. And to claim that the Church is not deciding asylum cases is disingenuous – the Church knows full well that a Muslim who has converted to Christianity can claim to be at great danger if he is sent back to Afghanistan or somewhere similar. You are giving him a get-out-of-jail card.
The Church is to blame for this man’s actions, at least as much as the government or the Home Office is.
Giles. That is a cowardly pathetic disgraceful article. Your Church is – like our Leftist/Illiberal State and these Quisling Tory spokespeople – a shrivelled limp progressive political operator which has betrayed both its religion and its few remaining believers. The Church connives with total cynicism in the Asylum racket and must share in the responsibility for the Fake ‘convert’ violence it has permitted. You quite literally shut the doors on belief in Anglicanism by denying us sanctuary during lockdown. Now you dance with the Islamist Devils. Goodbye and goodnight.
Even shutting the churches during lockdown was out of deference to Islam . No need to close churches since they were built for ten times the current congregations . Mosques on the other hand .
No need to ‘make windows’ into anyone’s soul . We know these conversions are fake because if they weren’t there would be howls of outrage from the Muslim Council of Britain and other Islamic organisations . After all many Muslim scholars think apostasy is an offence worthy of death .
In my opinion the issue is nothing to do with belief; the question is whether a church (and it’s membership) should be in the business of supporting asylum claims or any other business of a primarily political nature. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but don’t try to rule his empire.
In the above asylum case, involving the acid throwing and religion conversion, I understood the vicar give supporting evidence at the asylum hearing.
Gave, not giving.
Let me bring a fact which the church itself has admitted to Mr Fraser’s attention.
The number of settled muslims in this country who have converted to Christianity is zero. Naive? Don’t flatter yourself.
Welby’s church would never try to convert settled Muslims . Far too redolent of colonialism and white supremacy . However they have permission to give fake conversions to asylum seekers to help more Muslims settle and eventually take over .
Take away any preferential treatment for new Christian “converts” and then see how many of them actually then choose to convert. Ditto with supposed “gays”.
Exactly.
Naive, doesn’t really do it justice. How about gullible, malignant even complicit. Their belief system is “Left is right”
The only time theology is quoted is when they are clearly wrong and then they look to the giants of the Church of England from the past, They are not giants they are managerial pygmies. The sooner they are disestablished the better, maybe a joint Act of Parliament could cover the C of E and the BBC
We live in a secular state. As a UK-born Brit, there is NO interaction with the British state whose outcome would be influenced by my religious beliefs or my stated religion. This should also apply to asylum-seekers. It should not be our concern that the barbaric, medieval religion called Islam automatically confers the death penalty upon ‘apostates’. Asylum seekers need to be informed, as they disembark their rubber boats and/or their stowaway lorries, that their religious beliefs will have no bearing on decisions made when their asylum application is considered.
I think Giles is hopelessly naïve. Gullible, credulous clerics are duped by canny illegals, and once the latter have the Christian badge of approval, they can’t be deported as every civil rights lawyer will claim sending them home will result in instant torture. So the clergy’s stupidity gives cynical lawyers the tool they need. To say all this is not the church’s fault is laughable.
Yes, they can’t go back,perfect excuse.
I thought that asylum seekers who were convicted of criminal offences would be deported. Why was he still in the UK 6 whole years after his appeal rights had been exhausted? As far as I’m concerned, the responsibility lies firmly with the Home Office. Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. One of the Rochdale men convicted of child sexual exploitation was reported to have still been living in Rochdale years after he should have been deported to Pakistan. I’m sure there are more cases.
It seems to me that the Home Office is not fit for purpose if it is allowing criminals to go free when they should have been deported. Yes, it’s possible some clerics were guilty of aiding and betting the gaming of the asylum system, but the system as it stands lays it wide open to exploitation. I don’t know if this is due to international law being in need of some changes, or if it’s all down to maladministration in the UK system. Claims of conversion to Christianity by Muslim asylum seekers should be subject to the deepest scrutiny, especially when it happens soon after they arrive in the UK.
Michael Martin
Vicar Giles Fraser asks the question, “Is it naïve to believe asylum seekers?” Within the context of his article dealing with Muslim asylum seekers, I believe the answer to his question is “yes,” it is naïve for two reasons.
First, his concept of baptism as a possible indicator of truth is entirely wrong. In his second paragraph he says of baptism, “It is an outward expression of the desire to be saved.” That is not true. Baptism is not an expression of desire; it is a public expression or witness by the person being baptized of their genuine conversion to Christianity. As such it is a statement of inner fact, not desire. Many scriptures attest to this truth. Two examples, Gal 3:27, “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Titus 3:5, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” Both examples are in the past tense indicating something that has already been done, not merely a desire for something future. It is quite evident in human behavior that desires can change from day to day. Baptizing a person based on a momentary desire is not only naïve, but also a dereliction of duty on the part of a church officer.
Secondly, and specifically to the question of naivete, Vicar Fraser ignores the Islamic doctrine of “Taqiyya.” This is the doctrine that allows, indeed encourages, lying and deceit to non-Muslims if it advances the cause of Islam or if it is done for self-protection. The Qur’an promotes this practice where it says that those who forsake Islam will be doomed to Hell, except for those who do so under compulsion, so long as they remain faithful to Islam inwardly. We read in the Qur’an section 106.6, “Whoever renounces faith in God [Allah] after having believed – except for someone who is compelled, while his heart rests securely in faith – but whoever willingly opens up his heart to disbelief – upon them falls wrath from God [Allah], and for them is a tremendous torment.” Over the centuries this doctrine of “Taqiyya,” coupled with other sections of the Qur’an, has been expanded to allow millions of the most ardent Muslims to lie, cheat, steal, murder, and commit all manner of atrocities against non-Muslims so long as it advances the cause of Islam. To overlook these behaviors, demonstrated in blood for centuries, is naivete in the extreme. More likely it is just plain willful ignorance, or “virtue signaling” on the part of Vicar Fraser.
Vicar Fraser has discovered his own form of Taqiyya , pretending to be a conservative .
Ironically, this is one of the few areas where the Church of England needs a bit more bureaucracy, not less. Or at least, a policy. It could be a simple one really – no letter of support for an asylum seeker without conditions. The conditions could be two years of regular attendance at church service, and some voluntary work. Not all congregations are lucky enough to have a star vicar such as Giles Fraser: sitting through two years of bog-standard sermons, drinking cups of milky tea with old ladies after church, cleaning gutters and manning the plant stall at the church fete would be proof enough of conversion – and nobody but the most sincere would have the staying-power to go along with it.
Although there are varying attitudes towards churches, or at least towards some of them, as social and cultural phenomena, there is a profound anti-Christianity to the philosophical basis of neoliberalism and neoconservatism, as well as to what look like the Old Right revival movements of the present moment, with their links to the church-burning spitters at priests in the Holy Land, and with their roots in the likes of Guénon and Evola, of Nietzsche and Heidegger, and of a Konservative Revolution that was called “neoconservative” at the time. Giles Fraser writes as these trends are articulated, if that can be the word, by such as Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman.
I question the parallel being drawn between the ridiculous barriers to accessing CofE schools & immigrants converting so they can have their status changed by immigration & be given freedom to remain. I would contend that if a school is state funded then it should be open to all & parents shouldn’t be forced to adopt a religion so their kids can get educated. I would go even further to say that religious proselytising should not be part of any state funded education system.
It seems the Church of England has become Pontius Pilate, washing its hands of the blood shed by its new ‘converts’.
TBH, having worked for many years on nationality and statelessness, I would just not accept asylum claims anymore.
People will try to game any system, and once all the lurks have been sniffed out, the system exceeds its use-by date.
The crazy aspect of the case is that the man’s apparent religious conversion since coming to the UK was even a relevant factor. People who flee Christian persecution are obviously in a different category.
And of course another relevant question is why this country sends aid to countries that discriminate against any religious group, or atheist , or gay or woman?
“But clearly, there are asylum seekers from certain Muslim countries who are encouraged to convert to Christianity in order to game the system.”
Taqiyya, anyone? Perhaps some tawriya, kitman, muruna, darura, or taysir?