The letter from the Home Office now making the rounds on social media uses out of context Bible verses from books like Revelations to disprove the Iranian national's claim in his 2016 asylum request that he abandoned Islam and converted based on the peaceful nature of Christianity.
The letter describes the Bible as being "filled with imagery of revenge, destruction, death and violence," and therefore "inconsistent" with the asylum-seeker's claim that Christianity is peaceful "as opposed to Islam."
Nathan Stevens, the asylum-seeker's caseworker, tweeted an image of the rejection letter, stating he was "genuinely shocked" to read such "unbelievably offensive diatribe."
He is not the only one who found the letter distasteful. The Church of England has even gotten involved, stating its "extreme concern" over the "profound misunderstanding" of biblical texts.
The Church also said that the religious literacy of Home Office staff needs to be improved considering how critical religion is to the asylum process."To use extracts from the Book of Revelation to argue that Christianity is a violent religion is like arguing that a government report on the impact of climate change is advocating drought and flooding."
"It is good that the Home Office has recognised that this decision is inconsistent with its policies and that its staff need better training. 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.The Home Office has responded to the widespread outcry, promising to investigate while noting the letter "is not in accordance with our policy approach to claims based on religious persecution."
"I look forward to hearing what changes in training and practice follow from this worrying example.
Comment: Part of the problem of immigrants vs natives in a country is the clash of values. Yet here was a refugee professing the values as the country applied to (Christian), and yet was turned down. What is really going on here?