Article
Comment
Freedom of Belief
Gaza
Middle East
Migration
7 min read

What the Gaza conflict and the asylum seeker row have in common

Iran’s persecution drives its Christians here. This is their story.

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

Rows of soldiers march away from the camera, two in the back row turn their heads back.
Officers at Iran’s Sacred Defence Week parade, 2023.
Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Israel-Gaza war and the recent row between the church and the UK government over asylum seekers don’t seem on the surface to have much to do with each other. But they do have a common denominator: Iran.  

Iran may not have directly sponsored Hamas’ infamous attacks on Israel on October 7th but without Iranian support for Hamas, it is unthinkable that they would have happened. Iran remains on the list of those countries who sponsor terrorist organisations across the Middle East, such as the Houthis in Yemen, and are widely regarded as a force for instability and undermining democracy across the region.  

It is also one of the most repressive nations on earth. It counts in the top ten of countries where freedom of religion or belief are restricted. According to the Open Doors’ World Watch List, list, Iran is the ninth most dangerous country to be a Christian in 2024, just behind Sudan and ahead of Afghanistan. With 1.2 million Christians in the country, they make up just 1.4 per cent of Iran’s population, and yet, they are considered to be a risk to national security and a means by which the West is seeking to undermine the Iranian government. This inevitably makes life incredibly hard for the Christians who call Iran home; to be a recognised Christian means to live your life as a second-class citizen, under constant surveillance, and enduring endless discrimination. 

Given that Iran is hardly a friend of the UK, the USA and its allies, you might have thought western governments would do all they could to support people seeking to escape the country, or a movement that draws people away from the influence of the mullahs. Which makes the attack on asylum seekers seeking baptism in UK churches all the more perplexing. 

Over the past week, Seen & Unseen has spoken to several Iranian Christians in the UK. These are definitely not bogus Christians. Some came to Christianity in Iran after a Muslim upbringing. Others were born into the small Christian community in Iran. Some are training to be ordained in the Church of England, and many of them have been imprisoned for their faith in Iran before coming to the UK. 

“The persecution that Christians are facing in Iran is absolutely real. Does that mean that some of them are leaving the country? Yes. I had to. I’m here. I had to leave my home.” 

One man, Mehdi (his name has been changed to protect his identity) became a Christian in Iran at the age of 18. His older brother converted to the new faith first and Mehdi, having seen his big brother struggling with violence, anger, depression and drugs, was curious about the complete and immediate change in his brother’s life. That curiosity led him to believe in Jesus. It became immediately obvious to these two brothers that their new faith was going to make their life complicated; and at the age of 20 and 26, they found themselves being arrested for the first time.  

He explains what drew him, and many others to Christianity. “It’s the same for many Iranians. There were people around us who are who were, and still are, dealing with lots of difficulties because of the economic situation, because of the oppression and corruption of the government. It feels like there’s no hope, no solution. The only solution can be found in the hidden places. It’s Jesus. He is the hope of a new life.” 

He tells us how Iran sees Christians: “They believe that Christianity is a weapon of Western countries, with a long-term plan to convert Islamic countries like Iran so that they can alter the culture and take the power.” 

After years in prison, much of it in solitary confinement in degrading conditions and yet more threats from the authorities, he was forced to leave Iran. He is now living in the UK with his wife, and at the midway point in his training to be a priest.  

We wanted to know what he thought of the comments concerning the church and ‘bogus asylum claims’: 

“The violation of human rights, the right to both free speech and freedom of belief, in Iran is real, it’s true, it’s happening. The persecution that Christians are facing in Iran is absolutely real. Does that mean that some of them are leaving the country? Yes. I had to. I’m here. I had to leave my home. And there aren’t enough legal routes, there aren’t enough ways to seek asylum in countries like the UK.  

So, it’s true that Christians are leaving Iran. I’m one of them. And I was incredibly lucky, I got here safely and securely.”  

Another convert, Hassan (also a false name to protect identity) while at home in Iran, went though the usual teenage angst, wondering about his place in the world, and whether God really exists. He delved into Islamic theology but says it left him ‘feeling empty’.  

After a few months of praying that God would somehow reveal himself, Hassan had a dream of a figure on a cross. This was the beginning of a journey that led him to faith in Jesus Christ. Hassan talks about his experience with the immigration system: “It’s hard for the Home Office, but the church has an important role to play – to support the people who have been persecuted, who have never before had a place to learn about or worship God. Those who have never had the freedom to express their faith, or live in their faith.”  

They are habitually religious people, so are not naturally drawn to atheism or agnosticism. On arriving in the UK, which they assume to be a Christian country, they naturally want to explore the faith of the country that they have arrived in. 

An Iranian refugee Darbina, unlike the others, was born as a Christian into a Christian family. Yet she speaks of how Christians are persecuted in Iran. She says they are treated like second class citizens, unable to sell food because they are regarded as unclean, unable to enter many professions because they are Christian. She describes the open surveillance of Christians. Her father, a pastor, was imprisoned for ‘acting against national security’ by organising small groups and illegal gatherings. Eventually Daria herself was imprisoned for a year. She experienced degrading treatment as a woman in a predominantly male prison, and frequently had to listen to the torture of others.  

There is another common story. Many Iranians leave Iran not yet as Christians, but seeking a better life from an economically depressed nation and disillusioned with the form of Shia Islam found in the country. They are habitually religious people, so are not naturally drawn to atheism or agnosticism. On arriving in the UK, which they assume to be a Christian country, they naturally want to explore the faith of the country that they have arrived in, even when they find the UK church more lukewarm than they expected. Of course, there are a number of Iranian Christians already in the UK such as Mehdi, Nasir and Daria, ready to help them discover a faith which has become vital to them. This would seem a much more common explanation of Iranian Christians wanting baptism, then simply a cynical attempt to manipulate the asylum system.  

Of course, there are Iranian and migrants from other countries claiming false conversion as a means of advancing their case for asylum. No-one doubts that. Yet the problem has been exaggerated. A recent Times report found that since January 2023 only 28 cases were heard at the Upper Tribunal Court in which a claimant cited conversion to Christianity as a reason to be granted asylum – in other words, just one per cent of cases heard. And of those 28, seven appeals were approved, 13 were dismissed and new hearings were ordered in eight cases. Hardly an ‘industrial scale’ operation. Yet there is a great deal of evidence of numerous people like those we spoke to, who have genuinely converted to Christianity, either in Iran itself, or in the west.   

More significant than the comparatively small number of fake claims, is evidence of a genuine religious revival amongst Iranian Muslims, drawn to Christianity as a more attractive option than the oppressive form of Islam they find in their homeland. Attacks on Iranian and other migrants, with the implication that all Iranians seeking conversion are bogus, or at least feeding suspicion of such claims to conversion is undermining exactly the kind of movement that you would have thought that the British government would be wanting to encourage. 

If there is something of a spiritual revival taking place amongst Iranian Muslims then this should be something to be celebrated rather than penalised or tarred with the brush of deception. We owe it to these people who have risked their lives to find a better way of living and believing.  

Article
Comment
Purpose
Sport
5 min read

So we won the Ryder Cup. At what cost?

When beer flies and etiquette dies, maybe we’ve mistaken sport for something else

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A video still shows a beer can thrown at a golf amid a crows
The beer flies towards Rory McIlroy.

Phew. The Ryder Cup was an epic. After a couple of days of European dominance, fans on this side of the pond looked forward to the Sunday one-on-one single matches as a formality, only needing a few more points to wrap up the Cup, only for the American team to suddenly discover they could play a bit after all. It turns out Europeans play better together (the matches on Friday and Saturday all involved teams of two playing against each other) but the Americans excel when they're on their own. The latter nearly pulled off a famous comeback but finally fell short as the gritty Europeans stumbled across the line, Shane Lowry holding his nerve to sink an eight-footer on the 18th, and Tyrell Hatton sealing the win with a nerveless par on the last.

Much of the talk afterwards however was not about the match but the behaviour of the American fans. The European golfers, especially their talisman Rory McIlroy, were subject to some pretty vile abuse throughout the three days. His wife was drenched by a beer thrown in her direction, insults were shouted as he prepared to play a shot (you just don’t do that in golf) and some idiots seemed more keen to abuse their opponents than support their own players. It seemed strange that Keegan Bradley, the American Captain made no effort to call out his own errant supporters. Yet it was perhaps not surprising in a country where public models of leadership hardly encourage moderation and restraint.

Of course, we are used to this kind of thing in football stadiums in the UK, but golf has somehow always felt different. Football is a fast-paced, hectic game with players running full tilt for just 90 minutes and so it’s understandable that emotions get high and passions flare. Golf is more measured. It takes time, has always laid a great stress on etiquette, following the rules and respecting your opponent. Yet none of that seemed to matter in the bearpit of Bethpage.

To be fair, European fans get pretty partisan when the Americans come here - yet they do seem to stop short of personal vitriol. It seems every time the Ryder Cup is played, the rivalry just gets a notch higher. You just have to hope they rein it in in Adare in Ireland in two years’ time. As the match reached its climax, players (on both sides) leapt about like wild things, thumping their chests like cavemen on winning a point. The crowd hollered their lungs out, or continued hurling insults at the opposition.

I found myself wondering why all this seemed to matter so much? Why were grown (mostly) men reduced to appalling behaviour or breaking down in tears over hitting a small white ball around a field?

Maybe I’m just getting old and nostalgic, but Ryder Cups in the early days were different, with those grainy black and white photos of players in baggy plus-fours and tartan socks. It was the same with Wimbledon before the Open era, Wembley Cup finals back in the day, cricket matches with baggy flannels and thin bats. At the end of titanic struggles there would be a gentle skip towards the opposition, a polite shaking of hands, a wave to the cheering crowds and the presentation of the cup, which was held aloft briefly, before everyone went home. Yes, of course, people got steamed up about sport back then. There were street parties and public joy when England won the World Cup ni 1966, but then there is the famous story of Geoff Hurst after scoring a hat-trick in the 1966 World Cup Final going home and mowing his lawn the day after. Hard to imagine that today.

Nowadays, the presentation ceremony goes on forever, with microphones thrust into players’ faces with the most boringly predictable question: “how do you feel having won (or lost)?” asked every single time. Emotion pours out everywhere. Superlatives are expected and duly uttered.

My mind went back to something the theologian James K. A. Smith said to me in a conversation some time ago. “When there is no longer any Ultimate”, he said, “the Penultimate seems to matter so much more.” His point was that in the absence of a general social belief in God, or a divine order above us, with no sense of any social or divine sanction for, frankly, atrocious behaviour, then things like politics or sport become more and more charged with meaning.

When there is nothing higher than politics, electoral victory becomes all-important. And anything goes in silencing the opposition. When the most significant thing in life is a sporting achievement - even vicariously as a fan - then winning is everything. When there was a more pervasive sense of belief in God, or an afterlife, where the death of friends or neighbours was a more common occurrence throughout life, or even the task of putting food on the table was a daily struggle, such things mattered more. Activities such sport, which were once seen as mildly significant, a pleasant diversion from more onerous tasks, found their true place as something important, but not that important.

Blaise Pascal once wrote: “People are bored stiff with their normal lives and so they need perils and excitement.” He thought that we crave distraction to stop us looking into the abyss, or up into the heavens, to contemplate the ultimate meaning of our lives, the reason why we are here in the first place, and our final destiny. It is classic displacement activity. It is why we pay entertainers more than doctors, vicars or philosophers - because we need the distraction.

The Penultimate begins to matter too much when we no longer have an Ultimate to relate to. Sinking a clutch putt to win a game is satisfying. Yet it is not the reason why we exist. Sport is a great diversion. But it is just that, and realising that might make us behave a bit better towards our opponents and help us to focus on the things that really matter – the questions of meaning and purpose that humans have always asked since the dawn of our race.

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