Is it naive to believe asylum seekers?
by Giles Fraser, UnHerd:
Your local vicar isn’t to blame for Abdul Ezedi.
Elizabeth I put it best. “I have no desire to make windows into men’s souls.” In other words, who knows what people really believe? When I baptise people, I ask them — or those who stand in for them — if they turn to Christ, if they repent of their sins, if they renounce evil. If they say that they do, then I baptise them, and they are counted as a member of the congregation. How do I know if they are being sincere? I don’t. But normally there is a little incentive for people to make such claims other than that they seek to live by them. Except when it comes to the asylum system.
Abdul Ezedi, from Afghanistan, became a Christian in order to game the asylum system and gain a permanent right to remain in the UK — or so it appears. In 2018, Ezedi was convicted of a sexual assault charge at Newcastle Crown Court. Last week he was suspected of throwing a highly corrosive chemical at a mother and her children in Clapham, inflicting horrific life changing injuries. The unnamed priest who apparently admitted him into the church has come in for a lot of stick for being gullible in helping him convert. There but for the grace of God go I. I have probably baptised thousands of people. I do not know if any of them have gone on to do terrible things, but it’s perfectly possible. I do not judge this unnamed priest one bit for baptising Ezedi. Baptism is not a certificate of good character. It is an outward expression of the desire to be saved. And that is available even to the very worst of us.
But theology aside, it is important to emphasise that the church has nothing to do with assessing the validity of asylum claims. That is for the Home Office. Perhaps the Home Office did decide to take into account Ezedi’s “conversion” – but that is entirely up to them. And it is perfectly true that being a Christian in Afghanistan is a potential death sentence. There are reports that the Taliban have tortured Christians to ask them to give up the names of fellow believers – not unlike Elizabeth I as it happens. And there really are Christians in Afghanistan, and they are in grave danger. So you can see why the Home Office might take conversion to be a significant matter when considering asylum claims.
So, was the priest naive? What was he supposed to look for? Eyes too close together? Evidence of past wrongdoing? Polygraph before baptism? There is no foolproof epistemological test for sincerity.
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