Iranian Convert Denied UK Asylum
Iran is notorious for its intolerance and persecution of those who do not adhere to the Muslim faith and especially of those who convert to Christianity. Theoretically there is freedom of worship in its constitution, but this certainly does not apply to converts or to those seeking to preach the gospel. Reports reveal that over 100 people were arrested in the course of a week for proclaiming the Word of God. Other evidence indicates that Christians can be imprisoned for up to 10 years for practising their faith.
Although Britain is portrayed as a multi-cultural, multi-faith and very tolerant society, at least one asylum seeker from Iran – who had converted to Christianity – has not found it so. The unnamed applicant managed to flee to the UK and lodged his asylum claim in 2016, setting out the pain he had endured at the hands of the Iranian regime. He recounted the violent treatment meted out to friends, who also had converted from Islam. They were imprisoned, faced false criminal charges and were living in poverty, ostracised by their families. He knew that his own life was in danger; so he fled from Iran hoping to “find sanctuary” and “to live as a peace-loving Christian” in the UK.
Now after years of delay he has received a rejection letter from the Home Office, quoting Bible verses stating that, “contrary to your claim, Christianity is not a peaceful religion after all, and that your application for asylum is therefore refused”. The refusal letter referred to the book of Revelation being filled with “images of revenge, destruction, death and violence”, adding, “These examples are inconsistent with your claim that you converted to Christianity after discovering it is a ‘peaceful’ religion, as opposed to Islam, which contains violence, rage and revenge”. It then quotes Jesus’ words from Matthew 10, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, I came not to send peace, but a sword,” which, of course, has been taken totally out of context, as the Saviour is speaking there about the division in families and severing of ties, as a result of a rejection of Him. No reference was made in the letter to God as the “God of peace” or Jesus as the “Prince of peace”.
Extracts were revealed by Nathan Stevens, an immigration case handler, who intended appealing against this Home Office ruling. According to Stevens this is not an isolated case. A similar refusal in 2016 read, “You affirmed in your AIR (Asylum Interview Record) that Jesus is your saviour, but then claimed He would not be able to save you from the Iranian regime. It is therefore considered that you have no conviction in your faith and your belief in Jesus is half-hearted.” Mr Stevens, a solicitor from London, added: “Whatever your views on faith, how can a government official arbitrarily pick bits out of a holy book and then use them to trash someone’s heartfelt reason for coming to a personal decision to follow another faith.”
Another sympathetic voice expresses astonishment at “the breath-taking heartlessness and ignorance of whoever did this”, stating, “It’s hard to believe that someone who knew anything at all about modern Iran or Christianity could . . . decide to google a load of Bible verses, and then feel confident enough in their theological exegesis to decree [that] these are inconsistent with ‘your claim that you converted to Christianity after discovering it is a peaceful religion’.”
A Home Office spokesman acknowledged that “this letter is not in accordance with our policy approach to claims based on religious persecution, including conversions to a particular faith”. However, practice appears to depart markedly from policy, as is observed by another sympathiser: “The lid is slowly being lifted on anti-Christian Britain, and it seems like we have an institutional problem. Or rather, our civil service does. Meanwhile, Department for International Development ministers still stick resolutely to the line that no aid should be provided to particular religious groups, and the UK Government still refuses to use the word genocide to describe what happened to Christians and Yazidis under Daesh – despite Parliament voting unanimously to describe it that way”. A dark picture emerges when this observer adds, “In the first three months of 2018, not a single Christian was admitted to the UK out of 1112 Syrian Refugees, an appalling statistic made worse by the fact that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees only recommended four. We rejected even those solitary few. Either people are being led to believe that Christianity brings immunity from persecution, or we have a real problem.”
One national religious leader comments. “It is good that the Home Office has recognised that this decision is inconsistent with its policies . . . but the fact that these comments were made at all suggests that the problem goes deeper than a lack of religious literacy among individual civil servants and indicates that the management structures and ethos of the Home Office, when dealing with cases with a religious dimension, need serious overhaul”. Latest reports indicate that the Home Office will now have a second look at this man’s application.
Our world is in a perilous state and we live “in perilous times”. We need to pray for those who are being persecuted. To true believers, Jesus says. “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:10). KHM
The Transatlantic Slave-Trade and Modern Hypocrisy
In recent years the slave-trade has become a prominent topic in the teaching of history in British schools. The subject comes at various stages in the syllabus, and parents with several children at school will feel that there is hardly a year when at least one of them is not studying the slave-trade. The material on the slave-trade certainly makes sad and painful reading. Those who were brought up to think of British history as a succession of “noble admirals and glorious victories” are confronted with the profound cruelty, callousness, covetousness and blood-guiltiness of former generations. The arguments used to defend the slave-trade were particularly shameful – for example, a petition from the town of Bristol to Parliament in 1775 against the abolition of the slave-trade on the ground that “Bristol itself, one of the most prosperous towns of England, will lose three-fifths of its trade”.
The British slave-trade started on a large scale in the later seventeenth century, with the setting up of the Royal African Company in 1660 under the Duke of York (later James VII & II). This company was soon shipping several thousand African slaves a year across the Atlantic. The existence of the company gives some insight into the treatment of the Scottish Covenanters in the 1670s and 1680s, some of whom were delivered into slavery or partial slavery. The slave-trade continued throughout the eighteenth century, with the abolitionist movement not gathering strength until the 1770s.
In a famous case in 1772, Lord Mansfield declared that a slave called James Somerset who had escaped in Britain could not be re-enslaved. The case was brought to the courts by Granville Sharp, an Evangelical in the Church of England. The Evangelical Christian involvement in the abolition movement is just about mentioned in the school material that we saw, but little emphasis is placed on it. The writers were clearly more comfortable with the word “religion” than with “Christianity”. It would be interesting to know more about varying attitudes to slavery among Scottish Evangelicals, Moderates and Episcopalians in the eighteenth century, but this is beyond the scope of the school material.
The emphasis in the material falls heavily on Britain, and on her culpability in the slave-trade. There is some mention of other European countries such as Spain and France, and a snippet on Africans enslaving one another (which continued into the early twentieth century, although the school material is silent on this), but nothing on the Arab slave-trade. One does wonder how comfortable one would feel teaching this material to a mixed-race class of white, middle-eastern, and West Indian children.
To the present writer, the heavy emphasis placed on the slave-trade in the school history syllabus is part of the secular onslaught against Britain’s Christian heritage. There is no reason, of course, why the subject should not be mentioned, being a sad episode in British history, and having important consequences to the present day. But to dwell on it at such length is to give school-children the message that Britain in the past was a barbaric country, and that the sooner we leave that past behind the better. Instead of learning to retain the infinitely precious Christian element while rejecting the sins of the past, they are taught to despise all that has gone before.
In Bristol, one of the historic benefactors was Edward Colston (1636-1721), who is described as a “philanthropist and slave-trader”. Part of his wealth came from the Royal Africa Company, although the proportion is unknown, and with his money he founded “schools, almshouses, hospitals, and churches in Bristol, London and elsewhere”. The Colston Hall in Bristol is named after him, and there is a statue of him in the city centre. In recent years, there have been calls for the statue to be removed and for the Colston Hall to be renamed (which is due to happen when its present refurbishment is completed in 2020 – the new name has not yet been decided).
Meanwhile in Aberdeen, a new NHS hospital is being built, to be called the Baird Family Hospital. This is named after the gynaecologist Sir Dugald Baird and other medical members of his family. Sir Dugald Baird was a leading abortioner in Scotland before 1967, and played an important part in the passing of the 1967 Abortion Act. The slaves that Edward Colston shipped across the Atlantic will indeed rise up to testify against him at the Day of Judgement. But so too will the souls of the unborn infants slaughtered by Sir Dugald Baird and his followers, rise to testify against them, and against those who have endorsed their evil by honouring them. Was slave-trading Britain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries more wicked than politically correct Britain in the twenty-first century? Possibly not.
DWBS
Why Such Difficulties with Brexit?
No one who has the slightest awareness of what is happening at present in the United Kingdom needs to be informed of the Government’s unprecedented difficulties as it has sought to get Parliament to back its proposals for extricating the country from the European Union. (For comment on Britain’s relationship with the EU, see the note by Rev A W MacColl in the June 2016 issue of this Magazine.) But why is the Government in this position?
It is often extremely difficult to understand events in God’s providence. Yet, leaving aside political factors, it seems clear that the UK, at this point in time, has a government and a parliament which do not have God’s blessing. We can look back on more than 50 years of legislation going in the opposite direction to that which Scripture points to. And even at the close of a further week of stalemate in the House of Commons, the Government has confirmed its intention to proceed with no-fault divorce in England, another step in the wrong direction.
On April 9, Justice Secretary David Gauke announced that the Government will introduce legislation “as soon as Parliamentary time allows”. (For comment on no-fault divorce, see the note by Mr K H Munro in the January 2018 issue of this Magazine.) In his statement, Mr Gauke rejected the present law as “outdated”, but claimed, “We will always uphold the institution of marriage”. Certainly the present law is, in several respects, unsatisfactory – because it is unscriptural – not least in the provision for the “marriage” of people of the same sex. But to depart further from Scripture is decidedly not to “uphold the institution of marriage”.
What we need is a return to scriptural standards, flowing from a sincere seeking of the Lord – both on the part of rulers and ruled. Then we could expect God’s blessing on our national life in the UK, and the same holds true for other nations also.