Occasionally, old questions rear their head time and again. One that often does the rounds concerns the baptism and/or welcoming to membership of asylum seekers. Should we spend more time assessing asylum seeker’s looking to join the church or not? Should we treat them significantly differently from others looking to join? Can we credibly ignore the glaring elephant in the room: there is a substantial ulterior motive some may have for looking to join the church? As a church that welcomes a reasonable number of asylum seekers, let me lay out a few principles that help us navigate these things.

One standard of entry to the church

Perhaps the most significant principle that ought to shape our position is this one. Jesus only gives one standard of entry to the church. As our church judges it, that is credible profession of faith in Christ – evidenced primarily through a believable story of coming to faith, understanding of the basic gospel truths without which one cannot be a believer and no evidence of a lifestyle that would render the profession incredible – and water-baptism. Those who have a credible profession may be baptised and join the church; those who have a credible profession and have already been baptised may join the church.

Your church may believe the biblical criteria are different. You may seek some other things. You must look for whatever you think the Bible says you must before admitting a person to membership. My point here is not that you should look for exactly what we do. My point is, whatever you think the Bible tells you to look for, you must look equally for it for all people on the same terms.

The Bible doesn’t reckon one form of entry for one set of people whilst having an altogether different set of criteria for other people. Rather than having one means of entry for the Jew (for example) and an entirely different means of entry for the Gentile, the Bible is quite clear that the church will be made up of Jew and Gentile alike who are all saved on the same terms, by the same means and added to the church in precisely the same way. The Bible does not give us grounds to differentiate between peoples when it comes to entrance to the church.

The same is true when it comes to judging the case of an asylum seeker. The question we must ask is the same question we ought to ask of anybody, indigenous Brit or anyone else. The question is simply this: do they meet the biblical criteria to be added to our number or not? This is the self same criteria that must be applied to everybody.

No right to outsource who belongs

Scripture is quite clear that the right to state who does and does not belong to the church rests exclusively with the church. The keys of the kingdom – the right to affirm belonging – is a responsibility Jesus gives exclusively to the church. In 1 Corinthians 5 and 6, Paul’s entire argument rests on his pointed position that the church are not to judge outsiders and, by the same token, outsiders cannot judge those who belong to the church. We have no right to outsource to other agencies who ought to belong to the church.

This is significant because some – from an understandable desire not to admit people wrongly or make judgement about people without full knowledge – have a policy of waiting on a home office decision before they will admit a person to the church. The problem with this approach is it makes the Home Office the de facto arbiter of who belongs to the church. In other words, it is to functionally outsource the decision to admit a believer to the church – to affirm someone as a believer – entirely in the hands of secular non-Christian institution. The Bible does directly (cf. 1 Corinthians 6) tell us not to do this.

Paul is adamant the church is competent to determine who ought to belong to the church. Jesus is adamant that only the church have the right to determine who belongs to the church. We have no business sitting and waiting for Home Office decisions before making a judgement of our own about whether this person appears to be a genuine believer or not.

The church is not responsible for asylum claims

This should be obvious enough, but the church is not responsible for asylum claims. We are solely responsible for affirming whether we believe this person is a genuine Christian. We have no right to grant asylum claims and an affirmation that here is a person we believe to be a Christian is not, in and of itself, an affirmation of the legitimacy of an asylum claim.

There are many factors that go into deciding whether a claim is legitimate or not. Being a Christian, in and of itself, is not a grounds to claim asylum. To affirm that we believe this person is a Christian is not the same as affirming this person’s asylum claim is legitimate.

Let’s be frank: the church is in no position to make that latter claim. We do not know all the facts. We do not necessarily know much about the person’s home country. We do not know all manner of things that might be pertinent. We have no business making judgements about asylum claims. It is not an authority we have from the state and nor is it an authority we have from Jesus. The only people in any position to determine asylum claims are the Home Office and tribunal judges. It is, to put it bluntly, not our business.

When we welcome someone to membership, it is not and affirmation of their claim. It is not an affirmation that they ought to get asylum. It is an affirmation from the church that we believe this person to be a believer who ought to belong to the church.

Lots of people have ulterior motives

One of the concerns that seems to lie behind calls for an asylum seeker policy is that elephant in the room: there is a substantial ulterior motive for claiming belief. This shouldn’t be ignored or overlooked. If we are judging the credibility of a claim, this is inevitably going to be a factor. We need some way of judging between those looking to use faith as a ticket to refugee status and those who genuinely belong to Jesus.

Nevertheless, what the calls for asylum seeker policies often ignore is that lots of other non-asylum seekers have ulterior motives for joining the church too. Sometimes just as clear and just as glaring as the asylum seekers. This is similarly an issue in missionary settings too. Ulterior motives abound!

This throws us back to the need for a robust process that is applied to all. Asylum seekers are not a unique group with ulterior motives; they are simply one among a number of groups who may have possible ulterior motives. Our process for establishing the credibility of belief has to take into account the possibility that all manner of people may have ulterior motives.

If unbelievers being admitted is a problem, it is a problem for all

The church does not – and has never claimed to have – a perfect track record in the affirmation of believers. The church knows that we sometimes get it wrong (more on which below). We sometimes baptise and admit to membership those who later fall away, drift off or later appear to show no evidence of living faith. I am not entirely sure why we hand wring over the possibility of getting it wrong with an asylum seeker when we are known to get it wrong with indigenous believers and don’t have the same worry. It isn’t clear to me what we think the material difference here is and why one is a bigger problem than the other?

For the avoidance of any doubt: I think it is a problem to admit unbelievers to the church. It is why I am not a paedobaptist and why I believe the church needs a process to ascertain the credibility of those who wish to join. I do not think it is good, right or acceptable to admit unbelievers into membership whoever they may be. What I dispute is that it is somehow more problematic to welcome an asylum seeking unbeliever than it is an indigenous unbeliever. Both strike me as equally problematic.

If we think welcoming unbelievers is a problem altogether, we must take steps to ensure we limit the possibility. But this is NOT an argument for a separate and special asylum seeker policy; this is an argument for a robust process for indigenous and non-indigenous applicant alike whatever their immigration status may be.

Your church needs an in and an out

If, as I note above, we know we sometimes get it wrong, we need a solution to that inevitable eventuality. Again – as I hope has been clear throughout – that solution needs to be equally applied to all people on the same terms. We have no grounds to have one solution for some and an altogether different solution for others.

One solution – which appears to bear the weight of calls for ‘asylum seeker policies’ – is to make sure your front door has an extremely high bar. And so, for some churches, we insist on the right to remain being granted by the Home Office as one of the criteria for membership. A neat solution that can be applied to everyone, but an unfortunate and unbiblical one that (as per the above) outsources the responsibility of who belongs to the Home Office and makes the state the de facto arbiter of who is a genuine believer.

Happily, the bible gives us a better solution. Namely, church discipline. A church that might get it its affirmation wrong must have a mechanism for rectifying its mistakes. IN this case, Jesus tells us to remove from membership those who we have previously affirmed if and when it becomes clear they are not credibly believers. This solution has the triple benefit of not assuming the church can perfectly determine who should belong, being able to rectify the problem and being able to be equally applied to all on the same terms.

So do we need a policy or not?

Creating a specific asylum seekers policy does not fundamentally resolve any problem that does not equally exist for any other kind of person. It introduces a two-tier approach to membership that is nowhere found in the pages of scripture and itself undercuts NT teaching and principle on the church. There seem to be no biblical grounds for such a move.

Rather than creating an asylum seekers policy, it is better to develop robust processes for the admittance and removal of church members that can be applied equally to all. This means having a robust process for adjudicating who is genuine and who is not. It means having clear parameters that determine who will be included and who will not. It also means being robust in the application of church discipline that actively and fairly removes those whose professions are found to be incredible.