On 31 January 2024 a mother and her children had a highly corrosive chemical substance thrown at them in Clapham, south London, leading to what have been described as ‘life changing injuries.’ As I write this text a manhunt is going down for the chief suspect within the case, a person called Abdul Ezedi.
Mr Ezedi was originally from Afghanistan and in 2018 he was convicted of a charge of sexual assault. It has been reported that he obtained everlasting leave to stay within the United Kingdom after saying that he had converted to Christianity and claiming that he could be in peril of persecution on account of his conversion were he forced to return to Afghanistan.
It has also been suggested that his claim of conversion was a bogus one, and that his is certainly one of quite a few cases during which Christians have been duped into supporting claims for asylum made by those that have pretended to convert to Christianity with the intention to be allowed to remain on this country.
Another example that has been cited is the case of Emad Swealmeen, originally from Iraq, who went on an Alpha Course and was then baptised and confirmed in March 2017. His application to stay within the United Kingdom was, nonetheless, rejected and while waiting to be deported he killed himself by detonating a bomb crammed with ball bearings outside the Liverpool Women’s hospital in November 2021.
The two questions which might be raised by these cases, and by reports of conversions amongst asylum seekers held on the Bibi Stockholm barge in Portland Harbour are: what does it actually mean for somebody to convert to Christianity, and the way can it’s determined if someone’s conversion is real?
In response to the primary query, it can be crucial to know that Christian conversion is something greater than a single event. It is an prolonged process which has its origins in a choice made by God before the creation of the world and which finds its conclusion in a person sharing eternity joyfully with God on the planet to come back. It can be a process which involves the motion of God resulting in an appropriate human response.
This point is made very helpfully in the primary paragraph of Article XVII of the Church of England’s Thirty Nine Articles of Religion. This paragraph, which refers to conversion by way of ‘predestination to life’, draws on 4 New Testament passages, Romans 8:28-30 and 9:23-24 and Ephesians 1:4-5 and 11-12. It runs as follows:
“Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, He hath consistently decreed by His counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels made to honour. Wherefore they which be endued with so excellent a good thing about God be called in keeping with God’s purpose by His Spirit working in due season; they through grace obey the calling; they be justified freely; they be made sons of God by adoption; they be made just like the image of His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ; they walk religiously in good works; and at length by God’s mercy they attain to everlasting felicity.”
When we speak about someone being converted, we’re subsequently talking about someone being eternally chosen by God the Father to share everlasting life with him consequently of the saving work of Jesus Christ and that individual being enabled by the motion of the Holy Spirit to obey God’s call, to be justified, to be adopted as a baby of God, to turn out to be progressively more like Jesus, to do good works and ultimately to realize ‘everlasting felicity’ consequently of God’s mercy operating through the entire process.
Furthermore, the motion of the Holy Spirit within the lifetime of a person is mediated by the motion of other human beings. God’s call is made known to them through a means of religious instruction (‘catechesis’) during which the reality of the Christian message and its implications for them is explained. They turn out to be adopted as a baby of God through baptism. They receive the strengthening (‘confirming’) power of the Holy Spirit through the laying on hands with prayer at confirmation or its equivalent. They grow spiritually through participating in worship, and so they are fed spiritually by Christ through the Spirit as they receive the body and blood of Christ through the bread and wine at Holy Communion.
If that is what conversion involves, after we ask if someone’s conversion is real what we’re asking is subsequently whether or not they’re an individual in whom the method we’ve just described is going down. Obviously, if someone continues to be alive on this world the method has not yet ended, but what we will meaningfully ask is whether or not it has begun.
Equally obviously, no human being has the capability to directly see the motion of God. What God is doing spiritually within the lifetime of a person is invisible to the human eye, just because the wind is invisible (John 3:7). However, just as you’ll be able to see the results of the wind blowing, so also it’s also possible to see the results of the activity of God within the lifetime of a human being.
Someone in whom the means of conversion is going down will accept the reality of the Christian message when it’s explained to them and consequently confess Jesus as their Lord (Romans 10:9). They will get baptised and confirmed when the chance is obtainable to them (unless they’ve been baptised as an infant during which case confirmation alone will suffice). They will read the Bible, pray, attend Christian worship, and be fed by Christ through bread and wine at Holy Communion. They will manifest the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).
These are the factors which one would normally apply in looking for to discern whether a citizen of this country is genuinely undergoing the means of conversion, whether or not they have turned ‘from darkness to light and the facility of Satan to God’ (Acts 26:18) and are continuing to walk in God’s way in the facility of the Spirit. There appears to be no good reason to use any different criteria within the case of somebody who was born some other place. People are simply people wherever they’ve been born and the means of conversion is similar for everybody.
Where things get difficult is within the precise application of those criteria. This is since it is feasible for the signs of real conversion to be faked.
People can say that they accept the reality of the Christian message and Jesus as their Lord even when this shouldn’t be the case. They can undergo the rites of baptism and confirmation, saying and doing all the best things, but not genuinely looking for to receive a recent life as God’s child and strength through the Holy Spirit to live this life faithfully. They can seem like diligent in reading the Bible, praying, coming to church and receiving Holy Communion but it will possibly all be a show placed on for the advantage of others – or indeed themselves. They can seem like living a holy life while being careful to maintain their sins hidden.
Conversely it’s entirely possible for people who find themselves genuinely undergoing conversion to look to not be doing so. This is for 2 reasons.
First, people fairly often find it difficult to speak fluently about spiritual matters (as anyone who has tried to get someone to present their testimony at their baptism or confirmation will know). This is much more the case when English shouldn’t be someone’s first language.
Secondly, conversion shouldn’t be an easy ascending path of ever-increasing holiness. Rather, it’s what Jonathan Grant has called an “oscillating narrative,” a story marked by a recurring pattern of sin, repentance, forgiveness and a recent start with God. This implies that even people who find themselves genuinely undergoing conversion will fairly often backslide and will commit even serious sins due to addiction, or pressure of circumstances, or unresolved mental health issues. Consequently, we cannot take a single act of wrongdoing, or perhaps a series of acts of wrongdoing, and conclude that that person shouldn’t be genuinely undergoing Christian conversion.
If we ask what this all means within the case of Christian relations with asylum seekers, the very first thing to notice is that asylum seekers are usually not simply an amorphous mass of individuals. They are all individuals who’ve been created by God, and who’re known and loved by him and have infinite value in his sight. Christians are thus not faced just with ‘an asylum seeker,’ but with a specific individual, Hector, or Ibrahim, or Marina, or Ji-Ah , or whoever, each of whom is exclusive and deserves to be taken seriously of their uniqueness. A one size suits all approach is subsequently inappropriate.
The second thing to notice is that Christians do should be cautious about claims of conversion. People, including probably asylum seekers, do lie about their religious position with the intention to gain something from the Church (ask any member of the clergy in regards to the way that the ‘respectable middle classes’ will attempt to ‘game the system’ to get their child into a preferred church school, or secure using a reasonably country church for his or her wedding). What this implies is that Christians must do what Christians have been doing for 1000’s of years, which is to take the effort and time to get to know people and on that basis try to evaluate the genuineness or otherwise of the faith they profess.
The final thing to notice, nonetheless, is that Christians cannot move to the other extreme and refuse to take seriously people’s desire to hunt to turn out to be Christians. In the particular case of asylum seekers, it actually makes good sense that they could genuinely seek to convert to Christianity on condition that lots of them will come from countries where religion is taken seriously and on condition that it’s once they are at their most vulnerable that individuals will turn out to be aware of their need for God and can subsequently turn out to be receptive to the Christian message.
Cynicism and undue credulity are subsequently each inappropriate. Christians need to disregard the present criticism from sections of the press and from politicians and proceed to do what they’ve all the time been called to do, to welcome the stranger (Matthew 25:38) and to make disciples of individuals from all nations (Matthew 25:18). Of course, once in a while, they could be conned, but that could be a risk they simply should take.
Martin Davie is a lay Anglican theologian and Associate Tutor in Doctrine at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.
