BY STEWART SLATER

“F**k you, Nigel. You f***ing ghoul.” My faith (if it ever existed) was long gone by the age of 9, (the Almighty’s weekly unwillingness to answer my prayer that enough snow would have fallen to prevent my parents from attending church seemed, to my childish mind, conclusive and irrefutable proof of his non-existence), but even I know enough about our ostensible national religion to recognise this as a not-notably Christian sentiment. Yet, there it was on Twitter (X) posted (and subsequently, to be fair, deleted) by one whose biography proudly proclaims his allegiance to the religion of Jesus.

The Nigel in question was, of course, Farage, British politics’ immaculately-tailored, perma-tanned Kermit (an image you will now never be able to unsee) who, in the aftermath of the Clapham alkali attack, had disapprovingly tweeted out the Church of England’s guidance for clergy on “Supporting Asylum Seekers”. Not, I imagine, for kicks, or out of a new-found interest in the intersection between law and theology, but because the suspect was discovered to have been assisted in his claim by a priest who had vouched for the sincerity of his “conversion” to Christianity, turning him from convicted sex-attacker to potential victim of religious persecution.

In this it transpired, he was not alone. Reports soon emerged that asylum seekers up and down the land had, like “Joliet” Jake in The Blues Brothers, seen the light despite the average Church of England vicar bearing little resemblance to James Brown’s “jive-ass preacher”, the Rev. Cleophus James. About 15% of the residents of the Bibby Stockholm had, since their arrival, come to Jesus – just about the only hard evidence for the church’s missiological success in this area since the Home Office does not collect data on the number of claimants who change their religion.

As with most issues in the modern world, the revelation immediately became a new front in the culture war. To some on the right, it was further proof that the Church was a nest of pinko globalists who would erase national borders in an effort to replace the West’s indigenous populations. To those of a different political hue, it was merely further proof (not that such was needed) that their side of the divide was inhabited by the caring and compassionate (and, despite the prevalence of atheism in that part of the spectrum, God) while their opponents were at the very least nasty and quite probably racist.

Both sides were, of course, attacking the other’s motives. The Church’s decision to vouch for asylum seekers was not, to some, the outcome of its belief in compassion and care for the needy, but because, having lost faith in God, it had started to confuse empathy with virtue. Or because, the new converts were a good solution to what might, indelicately, be termed its “bums on pews” problem. Or because, institutionally hostile to Brexit and the Conservative government, it had spied an opportunity to thumb its nose at both. On the other side, it was simply incredible that anyone could wish to criticise the Church for assisting a man who already had a criminal record to stay in the country and commit further offences resulting in “life-changing” injuries to at least one party. No reasonable person could honestly believe that the priest in question had messed up, so their criticism must arise from darker impulses.

Arguments from motivation are, I think, rarely a good idea for the simple reason that very few actions are ever the outcome of a single impulse. Human beings are a web of differing desires, many of which may have a bearing on the issue at hand. The exact contribution of each to our decisions is usually opaque, not least to ourselves and it is entirely possible for us to rationalise our choices so we believe them to spring from pure motives, when actually they owe at least as much to our baser instincts. Did the priest act purely out of compassion for a victim or did he see him as a way of sticking two fingers up to Boris Johnson and his hateful Brexit? We (and probably he) will never know. Nor will we know whether Farage got involved out of righteous fury at the injustice suffered by the victims or because he thinks fanning outrage will further his political aims. Both sides can plausibly claim to have been acting honourably and both sides’ opponents can plausibly claim they were not.

Rather than each side spattering the other with mud in their fervent fight for the moral high ground, better to focus on the facts. A crime has been committed in the country by a man who appears to have been here (at the time of writing, he has not been found, let alone tried and convicted) in part because a vicar thought he had become a Christian. This horse may have bolted, but it is still worth thinking about closing the stable door if, as it is reasonable to assume, there is a chance others will do the same.

It would, of course, be intolerable for the government to tell the Church of England how it should behave. But the Church must admit that, in its efforts to make one man’s life better, they have been involved in a chain of events which have made many people’s lives worse, in at least one case, substantially so. Dr Johnson, that devout Anglican, may have said, “You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don’t trust enough.”, but America’s most overtly faithful recent President (no, not Donald Trump) said, “Trust but Verify”. If the Church wishes to avoid such episodes in the future – as surely it should, unless “Blessed are the Alkali Attackers” is in one of the less read appendices to the Sermon on the Mount – it should itself see the benefit of reconsidering its processes. It may have been deceived, but a lady in Clapham is currently in torment. Never slow to tout its solidarity with ever more abstruse categories of “victim”, it should surely be keen to avoid creating any more. Unless it believes some victims are actually more “victim-y” than others.

At the moment, however, it appears more interested in circling the wagons than displaying contrition. A bishop took to the Telegraph to pronounce herself “saddened” by the reaction and defend “well-meaning” priests. When the Archbishop of Canterbury took to X ( a mere eight days after the attack – he has, to be strictly fair, been in Ukraine) he too was, like prep school headmasters the country over,  “disappointed”. Not in his priest, but in the “mischaracterisation” of the Church’s role in the asylum system. It was, you see, all the fault of the government and the courts. There was, as far as the Church was concerned, “nothing to see here”. It had weighed itself in the balance and not found itself wanting so, like a certain Roman governor, it could wash its hands of the matter. It even attempted to get on the front foot by reminding everyone that “at the heart of this conversation are vulnerable people whose lives are precious in the sight of God”, a slightly surprising line to take in a tweet which avoided all mention of, and evinced no “compassion” for, the most vulnerable person in the whole saga, the victim.

For its part, the government (or at least, the Home Office – not always the same thing) needs to take a look at itself. There are reasonable grounds for believing that, in at least this case, the Church has failed in its task of discerning a “true” conversion. How much weight, then, should it place on future claims of the same. All it took, it was believed, for MI6 to bring a hasty and permanent end to the “talent-spotting” role believed to have been undertaken by one of the tutors at my old college was sending for interview a single communist…

Believing there is “neither Jew nor Greek in Christ”, the Church’s job is to save souls wherever it finds them, but there are British citizens and there are non-British citizens, and the government’s duty to the former is substantially higher than to the latter. Thus, while it may be a source of joy to the Church that a Muslim can transit through countless Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant lands but only experience “late-onset” Christianity when his feet touch Dover, given its advantages to him, it should be a source of suspicion to the authorities. What is sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the gander.

Nor is religious persecution even necessarily a coherent reason for granting asylum. An Afghan Muslim who seeks it on the grounds that he faces persecution by the Taliban will, if he is correct in what he claims, face persecution if he is deported whether or not he has converted during the interim. His new religious beliefs will not, like Blackadder, turn his “fate worse than death” into a “fate worse than a fate worse than death”. If his circumstances merit asylum before his conversion, they merit it regardless of his conversion.

For, just because he has told the British authorities that he is a Christian, does not mean he needs to tell those in his home country. I write this the day after the feast of St Paul Miki, one of Catholicism’s Japanese martyrs. He undoubtedly did suffer persecution but the story of the religion in that country is one of underground success, house groups keeping the faith alive so successfully that, when it reopened, the first missionaries discovered that many whom they assumed would be pagan were actually word-perfect in the catechism – a case, perhaps, of Japanese Whispers. Religion can be believed and practised and not be seen to be believed and practised. If the Church believes that everyone who cannot freely and openly follow the tenets of their faith should be granted asylum as a victim of religious persecution, then it should, on grounds of consistency, campaign for Britain to grant it to French Muslims banned by law from wearing the veil. And Chinese Christians. And Chinese Muslims. And Chinese Buddhists. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Asylum is a difficult issue, about which reasonable people may reasonably disagree. But, whatever your view of the theoretical issues at stake, you cannot overlook its consequences in practice. A crime was committed in this country by a man who had no need to be in this country and who was assisted in staying here by the Church. It may give every appearance of being content to have been deceived, but there is a woman in hospital with life-changing injuries who would almost certainly prefer it to have been untrusting.

Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.