When Reverend Firth spoke in the Telegraph last month of a “conveyor belt” of baptisms for asylum seekers, his voice was rather isolated.
At the time, I spoke with many priests and organizations that work with asylum seekers. They emphasized that they approached the issue of conversions carefully and were able to discern whether someone had ulterior motives for seeking baptism.
It’s a process that the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, spoke about today at the Home Affairs Committee hearing.
Unlike the Catholic Church, which has a long, highly structured preparation process leading up to baptism for new converts, the Church of England does not have a central policy in place. Usually, people have to take preparation courses that last between 10 and 12 weeks.
But the Bishop of Chelmsford, who was heavily questioned during the hearing, stressed that clergy were very careful and honest in their assessments.
“How do you judge what’s in someone’s heart? We use the language of discernment,” she said.
She said she knows of clergy who have refused baptism to asylum seekers when they were unconvinced that they had truly converted.
She also noted that the number of baptisms in the Anglican Church has declined over the years.
