Yesterday, The Times reported that Sarah Mullally, Archbishop of Canterbury, encouraged churches to continue to baptise and welcome asylum seekers who have come to faith. She said ‘churches ought not to feel anxious about supporting and baptising asylum seekers if, to their best knowledge, the clergy are confident that there is sincere desire for conversion, a commitment to Jesus Christ and to discipleship’ stating elsewhere ‘Clergy are not naive. We train them to do this: to discern, the best they can, through teaching, discussion, reflection, observation and prayer, whether a person, whoever they are, is ready for a public confession of faith through baptism.’

I think this is a helpful intervention at a time when conversions to Christianity are being questioned. I don’t know anybody who works with asylum seekers who doesn’t acknowledge that some will try to use this as a means of acceptance. Mullally herself notes, ‘I imagine that there are some asylum seekers who might well believe that converting to Christianity will help their asylum claim. One can hardly be surprised about that when some politicians keep implying that that is the case.’ However, I think she is absolutely right to encourage churches to continue welcoming, even baptising and joining to membership, asylum seekers who show credible evidence of faith in Christ. let me give some reasons why.

Outsourcing church sovereignty to the state

The principal reason why churches should continue to welcome and baptise those who have credible evidence of genuine faith as asylum seekers is because this is the very job Jesus gives to the church. Not exclusively welcoming asylum seekers, obviously. But exercising the keys of the kingdom and welcoming whoever shows evidence of genuine faith, be they asylum seekers or otherwise. That task has been given directly by Jesus to the church and we have no business outsourcing it.

One of the ironies of the current debate on this issue is that those quickest to bleat about government overreach and overstepping the bounds of their God-given sphere of sovereignty seem eager to insist the church should hand over the right to affirm asylum seekers to the Home Office! For that is what we are doing if we refuse to baptise and welcome anybody unless and until they have their right to remain. We are, in effect, saying the church cannot judge the faith of this person until the Home Office has determined their claim is genuine. We are making the Home Office the de facto arbiters of who does and doesn’t have faith, we are handing the keys of the kingdom that Jesus gave to us straight to them. We’re saying, if the Home Office affirm they are Christians then so can we; if they don’t, we can’t. That is a dereliction of duty by the church, a handing over of our God-given authority from Jesus to unbelievers operating within the machinery of the secular state. It is a nonsense and we should not do it!

Emphasis on credible

Whilst the church has a duty to welcome those Jesus welcomes, using the means by which he calls us to welcome them (namely, baptism and communion which equates to the signs of membership), the emphasis here is on credible evidence of faith.

No church would claim to be able to perfectly see into the hearts of professing believers. We have church discipline – the ability to remove members from the church – as a recognition that no system is perfect and we will not always get it right. We don’t pretend otherwise. However, that doesn’t stop us aiming to get it right to begin with and needing sensible procedures to adducing faith to be genuine. The churches that tend to get themselves in hot water (and it must be said there are actually relatively few who have found themselves in that situation) are those whose processes have no been robust.

Churches who are taken seriously have clear markers to discern the genuineness of faith. Typically these are things such as a credible testimony of how one became a believer, some basic understanding of vital theological concepts without which one cannot believe the gospel and some similarly basic evidence that these things have a meaningful effect on your life. Such churches will similarly have robust processes in place to discern these things, not necessarily relying on one meeting with one person, but providing opportunities for multiple people to be involved (in our case, it involves the entire membership). This minimises the problem of one person being gullible or getting hoodwinked and allows scrutiny from others who may have seen or be aware of matters that one individual has no knowledge of. Is it perfect? No. Does it make a credible judgement more likely, with clear and obvious issues more readily weeded out? Yes.

The church doesn’t grant asylum

It bears saying, churches have been given the authority from Jesus to affirm genuine faith. The Home Office, by contrast, have been given authority by the state to determine asylum claims. Whilst the church may affirm their belief that this person is a genuine believer, the Home Office decide whether they need asylum. This is important for a few of reasons.

First, the Home Office may accept that this person is a genuine Christian and yet still conclude there is no need for asylum. They might accept the view of the church but insist the grounds for seeking asylum are not met. There are plethora of legitimate reasons for this.

Second, the Home Office are at liberty to reject the view of the church. The church may say this person, as they judge it, is a genuine believer. The Home Office may demur. The final arbiter of who may join the church lies with the church; the final arbiter of who gets asylum lies with the Home Office (or, subsequently asylum tribunal judges). There are different sets of questions at play for each party in coming to their judgement.

Third, for the church to be taken at all seriously by the Home Office, they must demonstrate credible processes. We show them our process for discerning genuine faith, we show them our process for accepting people to membership, we outline our practice of church discipline and tendency to remove people from membership. We make clear our highest goal is not simply adding to our number. The Home Office take these things into account when coming to their judgement. A church that cannot demonstrate robust processes and who appear predominantly concerned with membership numbers cannot be surprised if, in the judgement of the Home Office, their claims are deemed less credible.

Evidence of a genuine problem

Sarah Mullally rightly said the following:

the Home Office had failed “to produce evidence of an abuse of the asylum system through fake conversions” and that the proposals were “motivated by a desire to make a further issue [out of] something that is not in fact an issue”.

As I noted earlier, nobody has claimed that no asylum seeker has ever tried to falsely claim conversion to bolster their case. However, the Home Office have failed to produce evidence of any genuine, systemic issue of churches affirming faith where there is clearly none and of this somehow getting through the asylum process with any regularity.

It is my experience that churches typically weed out those who are not genuine at source. Further to that, the Home Office would refuse to take at all seriously the evidence of a church that has never rejected an application for baptism or membership. Churches must demonstrate that they don’t simply wave everybody through before the Home Office will even countenance their evidence. The Home Office are not typically sympathetic to churches even after they demonstrate robust processes and evidence of refusing applications. Churches operate in the asylum system as, at best, expert witnesses and, more usually, just basic witnesses.

Will there be asylum seekers welcomed by churches who turn out not to be genuine? Of course, just as there are indigenous British people who are welcomed into churches who also later turn out not to be genuine too. That is why we have church discipline so that we may remove such people. It is also why we never make the claim to know these things perfectly. It is further why the Home Office grant temporary leave to remain and, several years later, come back to churches when a extension is requested and ask, ‘is this person still worshipping with you and are they still showing evidence of genuine faith?’ There are built in opportunities for both the church and the Home Office to rescind their original position. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that churches are routinely waving people through and getting asylum granted on the grounds of faith where it ought not to be given.

Tackle the root cause

It, finally, bears saying that the real problem here is neither the Home Office nor the church. Both are simply responding to an underlying problem. Namely, the persecution of Christians in foreign nations.

If we are serious about stopping people claiming asylum on the grounds of faith, we must tackle the root cause of the problem. It isn’t the UK church welcoming asylum seekers that is causing the issue. Nor is it the Home Office granting asylum to those whose lives are in danger because of their faith who are the problem either. The real issue is foreign nations who persecute Christians.

If we are really concerned about the numbers of people claiming asylum in the UK on faith grounds, the answer is to address the human rights abuses in countries where being a Christian convert is often a matter of imprisonment, torture or death. If we can pressure foreign governments to stop these appalling human rights abuses at source, there would be no grounds for asylum based on faith. Rather than blaming either the church or the Home Office, we need to be clear where the actual problem lies if we meaningfully want to tackle it. Until we do, churches will continue to be required to give evidence, the Home Office will continue to make decisions and people will continue to receive asylum on the grounds of Christian conversion because it is unsafe for them to practice their faith in their home country.