A pastor has delivered a plea to protect Christianity in Britain amid claims conversion is being used by asylum seekers to bolster their chances of staying in the country.
Dwayne Lopez joined Bev Turner and Andrew Pierce on GB News about Christianity being used as a “loophole” by migrants.
MPs have been quizzing Church leaders today about the role Christianity plays in UK asylum applications.
“When we see real conversion, we see people really giving their lives to Jesus, we applaud that”, he said.
Dwayne Lopez joined Bev Turner and Andrew Pierce on GB News
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Dwayne Lopez says Christianity needs to be 'preserved' in Britain
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“What we’re seeing is a lot of false conversion, people using Christianity as a loophole to stay the country.
“The Church needs to stand against lies and deception.”
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Asked by Bev whether Christianity is enjoying a “rise” and how he feels about the state of the religion currently, he spoke on the importance of its preservation.
“We need to preserve our Christian heritage”, he asserted.
“If we do not, other beliefs, other religions and other systems will take over.
“We need to come back to the Bible.”
The 93-metre-long Bibby Stockholm reportedly housed migrants who converted to Christianity
Bibby MarineThe issue of baptism has come to the political forefront after the case of Clapham alkali attack suspect Abdul Ezedi, who successfully challenged his asylum refusal after converting to Christianity.
Ezedi is believed to have been supported in his claim by someone from a Baptist church, rather than the Church of England, but the case has prompted strong debate on the issue of conversions.
A former Church of England priest has said he was brought groups of asylum seekers looking to convert to Christianity, who then “melted away” when asked to become involved in the church first.
The Rev Matthew Firth, 41, who was a priest at St Cuthbert’s in Darlington between 2018 and 2020, gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday.
Firth left the church in 2020, and is now a vicar for the Free Church of England.
He told the committee that when he came to St Cuthbert’s in 2018 he found there was a “surprising number” of baptisms going forward with asylum seekers.
“It was a large number of young male asylum seekers, almost in a cohort,” Firth said.
He said that he started to “look into” the trend, after honouring the baptisms that were already in process.
“I started to look into it a bit further.
“After those baptisms, week-in, week-out, significant groups of mainly Iranian and Syrian young male asylum seekers were being brought to me in sizeable cohorts.”