A former Church of England priest has claimed that interest in baptism amongst asylum seekers “melted away” after he asked them to show their commitment to the church.
Rev Matthew Firth was giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday about his experience as a priest at St Cuthbert’s and Holy Trinity in Darlington, where he served between 2018 and 2020 before joining the Free Church of England.
The committee was hearing evidence on asylum seeker conversions to Christianity after it was suggested that churches – and specifically the Church of England – could also be complicit in the usage of fake conversions to game the system.
Rev Firth said that in his two years at St Cuthbert’s, “cohorts” of around six to seven mainly young Iranian and Syrian men were being dropped at him for baptism every few weeks.
He told the committee that after his arrival to the church, he honoured baptisms that had already been booked but “pressed a pause button” on any others because he found the numbers “surprising”.
“You spot a pattern and you’re thinking that, hang on, there’s something occurring here,” he said.
He said that after introducing a more “rigorous” process to be sure that they were coming to church repeatedly and getting involved within the lifetime of the church, the numbers showing an interest in baptism “fell off a cliff”.
“That was the thing that sort of made the numbers fall off a cliff in a way because those people sort of melted away really. They weren’t really wanting to get entangled with the lifetime of the church a lot after I requested them to accomplish that,” he told the committee.
Speaking later on the hearing, the Bishop of Chelmsford, Guli Francis-Dehqani, denied that the Church of England was allowing asylum seekers to scam the system but said she would really like to see clergy guidelines reviewed within the near future.
“It’s definitely true that there are some churches which might be experiencing a bigger variety of asylum seekers than others – places like Liverpool and others … I think that is largely because that is where asylum seekers are themselves placed,” she said.
“Our churches reply to local needs nevertheless it presents itself and if it happens to be in an area where there are large numbers of asylum seekers – who incidentally, within the sort of increasingly hostile environment, it’s perhaps not surprising that in the event that they discover a place of heat and welcome may possibly be drawn to it.
“But that is a completely separate issue to saying that we’re sort of quickly and simply and freely baptising large numbers so as to scam the asylum process which is correctly the responsibility of the federal government, the Home Office, the courts, the tribunals.
“We must play our part truthfully and truthfully but with that extension of Christian warmth and hospitality and welcome that’s our responsibility.”
