Unlike Islam, Christianity doesn’t welcome converts
by Jane Kelly, TCW:
Since the Westminster attack, apart from a desperation to psychoanalyse the killer to find some exculpating factor, there has been interest in Muslim converts.
On the BBC Sunday programme yesterday, Ed Stourton asked why someone brought up in secular Britain might embrace Islam and wondered if there were any safeguards against them doing it for the wrong reasons. He was careful not to imply that the dead terrorist had done anything for less than worthy reasons.
An English Muslim convert told him that any white man converting was considered, ‘A prize’ by other Muslims.
Sadly it doesn’t work like that for converts going the other way. I recently met a CofE theology student who is very dejected about her treatment by the church she has joined and her fellow students. Her problems have not come from her family in Turkey who are secular, or Muslims, but from her Christian fellow students and tutors. She insisted on remaining anonymous after a difficult time, and in the hope of ever getting a job in the Church.
The most striking thing about her is the way she loves her adopted country. ‘English culture, the kindness to people and animals, the politeness and tolerance, that was my entry,’ she says. She meant ‘entry’ to Christianity. ‘English culture showed me Jesus’ she said.
‘I loved England for its free speech and tolerance, so I have been shocked by what has happened to me.’
For people who do not know the modern Church of England this may seem strange. Her fellow students, ironically in a college set up in the 19th century to train missionaries, felt that her conversion was distasteful. Why would anyone leave Islam, the religion of peace? It jarred with their multicultural, interfaith beliefs.
‘Liberal elements in the church are naturally against conversion,’ she says, ‘because of their relativistic point of view. All faiths are now seen as equal. There are not many Muslim converts and most of us feel totally let down.’
She also got into trouble because of what might be called her conservative viewpoint on British politics. ‘I became unpopular with other Anglicans when I openly supported Brexit,’ she says.
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