The Liverpool Bomber and Fake Muslim Conversion to Christianity

Michie said:

The case of Emad Jamil Al Swealmeen, 32, highlights the danger of Muslims fraudulently converting to Christianity.

Swealmeen came to public attention on Nov. 14, when he (probably inadvertently) detonated an improvised explosive device outside Liverpool Women's Hospital at 10:59a.m. as he rode in a taxi, just seconds before the national two minutes' silence for Remembrance Sunday at 11a.m., killing himself and wounding the taxi driver. The police believe he was an Islamist and a jihadi. His biography is worth noting:

After arriving legally in Britain from Iraq in 2014, Swealmeen, in the words of the Times of London, "was taken under the wing of a retired senior British army officer after visiting Liverpool's Anglican cathedral and expressing an interest in converting from Islam to Christianity." That officer, Lt. Colonel Malcolm Hitchcott, 77, recalled (again, in the words of the Times) "how Al Swealmeen arrived at the cathedral in August 2015 saying he wanted to convert. Hitchcott, who was helping to hold Bible classes for asylum seekers, said the visitor took an Alpha course to teach him about Christianity. He was confirmed as a Christian in March 2017" at Liverpool's Anglican cathedral. At that time, he changed his name to the more European sounding Enzo Almeni.

The Times continues:

Continued below.
The Liverpool Bomber and Fake Muslim Conversion to Christianity

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Admittedly, I'm always skeptical of Muslims claiming conversion. Especially if it seems to have happened quickly or easily. If only because of their practice of Taqiyya, become like your enemy to deceive your enemy.

Apparently after I moved away the Coptic Orthodox parish into which I was received in 2012 baptized a woman from Saudi Arabia. Cases like that seem much more pat, since joining a tiny parish of 6 families (or at least that's how many were there when I was there, 2011-2015) in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico does not confer any asylum benefits or whatever on anyone. But maybe it would behoove the western churches taking in interested possible converts to take a page from their eastern brothers and sisters and treat Christian initiation as an informal thing undertaken under the watchful eye of the priest and wider community, rather than a set of classes (whatever this 'Alpha course' is; sorry, I don't know anything about the process to convert to Anglicanism) to be taken discreetly and finished at a set point, after which it would appear baptism is given. I mean, hey...he finished the course, so why not...

This whole story is why not. It could happen to any church, but I'm just saying it seems less likely in less program-driven models of integration into the Church. I have heard even of people who are discouraged from requesting baptism in cases where the priest does not think they are there yet (not as a judgment of the person, but to make sure that they understand what a great commitment that is, so as to hopefully not be a waystation on the person's way to something else), though that wasn't my own experience. I wonder if the Anglican Church ever puts the breaks on things like that?

At any rate, what a tragedy for both the young man the cab driver he injured, but thanks be to God that he basically foiled his own plan before more damage could be done. God will also deal with the religious deception involved, so I trust that when the young man comes before the judgment seat of God he will have a lot to answer for. Lord have mercy.