BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND — “What if the regime wasn’t there? What if we were still in Iran?”
The questions seem to hang in the air, creating a lull in an hours-long dinner conversation.
Three Iranians — a married couple, Iliya and Naghme, and a guy who goes by Fred — sit at a backyard picnic table in a suburb of Birmingham. They’ve eaten their fill, but there are still plates full of grilled steak kebabs and sangak, Iranian whole wheat flatbread. Plenty to take home.
A worker at an Iranian supermarket in Birmingham, England, prepares a to-go order of sangak.
The conversation, in a mix of English and Farsi, roams from football to child-rearing to, inevitably, the war. The Iranians share the latest phone apps they use to reach their families back home. The government keeps shutting down access to the outside world, so the refugees search constantly for new ways to connect, new lifelines. Their host, an American missionary, excuses himself to check on his kids, who are playing inside with the Iranians’ children.
That’s when Fred asks the “what if” questions.
What if the Islamic Revolution of 1979 hadn’t happened? There would have been no hostage crisis, no nuclear program, perhaps no decades of animosity between Iran and the West. No mass killings of dissidents. No wave of refugees flooding from the Middle East into Europe.
But “would I know Jesus?” Fred asks.
The three Iranian Christians are part of what researcher David Garrison calls “A Wind in the House of Islam” that began soon after the revolution. As Iran’s Revolutionary Guard enforced a strict interpretation of Islam, interest in Christianity rose. The country went from fewer than 500 Christian converts to countless thousands meeting in secret, underground churches, Garrison wrote in his 2014 book.
Two years later, waves of Iranians, fleeing political and religious persecution, began a dangerous and deadly exodus into Turkey, then Greece. From there they spread across the European Union, Scandinavia and the British Isles as they petitioned for asylum.
Many, including Fred, brought their Christian faith to the post-Christian continent. Others, like Iliya and Naghme, became Christians here.
Iranian and American Christians prepare a meal at a missionary’s home near Birmingham, England.
Now, despite attacks on their homeland by the U.S., they worship alongside Americans, Brits, Kurds and other nationalities.
Perhaps none of it would have happened, Fred says, without Iran’s hardline regime.
“I think that’s God’s plan,” he adds. “God’s plan makes someone’s heart hard, like Pharaoh, to show his glory.”
Ramadan at the Ramada
“Peaky Blinders,” Ozzy Osbourne and mosques.
Birmingham is known for all three.
People in Birmingham walk past a tribute mural for Black Sabbath and its frontman, the late Ozzy Osbourne.
The United Kingdom’s second-largest city was home to the Peakys, notorious street gangs in the early 1900s who inspired the gritty Netflix series. Decades later, Birmingham gave birth to Osbourne, the self-proclaimed “Prince of Darkness,” and his heavy metal band, Black Sabbath.
Now, nearly one-third of Birmingham’s residents claim Islam as their faith, making them the largest religious group in the city. Their parents and grandparents came from Pakistan, Bangladesh and other former British colonies to fill labor shortages after World War II. In recent years, Birmingham has welcomed refugees from war-torn nations including Sudan, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Iran. Since the mid-1990s, Iranians who profess Christ in Britain have grown from about 100 to several thousand, according to estimates by the Evangelical Alliance, a London-based church network.
A sign points to the Ramada Hotel, a temporary home for many Iranian refugees in England.
Many of the refugees find shelter in an old Ramada hotel, which most pronounce like “Ramadan,” the Islamic holy month of prayer and fasting. The missionary who hosted Fred, Iliya and Naghme at his home has made many friends at the hotel in the past three years.
The missionary, who goes by C.M., and his family moved here as part of a disciple-making movement supported by Churches of Christ in the U.S. Like most of those interviewed by The Christian Chronicle for this report, he requested that his full name be withheld, citing security concerns.
Members of Birmingham’s Kurdish community participate in a demonstration by the Dakok Support Centre, a charity that supports the Kurdish community in the United Kingdom. Kurds are an ethnic minority in Iran.
C.M., a marathoner, works with a refugee running club — a therapeutic activity for those coping with trauma. The camaraderie can lead to discussions about Christ, he says.
Iranians are among “the most hospitable people I’ve ever met,” C.M. says. “They’re so community centric. We’ve had to learn that. Any time you go over to somebody’s house, or whenever they come to ours, it’s basically a minimum four-hour gathering. We have adapted and really enjoy the amount of time that we get together.”
Faith through dystopia and dreams
In addition to running, the missionary and the Iranians have bonded over their love of movies, especially “Interstellar,” Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending epic from 2014 about mankind’s flight from a dying Earth and its search for a new home. The film has become a running gag in the missionary’s home. Whenever there’s a spare moment, an Iranian Christian inevitably asks, “Can we start ‘Interstellar’?”
The dystopian movie’s plot and its hopeful conclusion resonate with Iranian Christ-seekers, as do their own dreams. Since 2018, Iranians interviewed by the Chronicle have described visions of the cross and dreams about Jesus that played a role in their conversion.
For Iliya and Naghme, “what really drew us in was the way Christians treated us,” Iliya says. “We saw kindness, support and genuine care in the people around us. They welcomed us without judging us and helped us feel accepted and valued.”
A “narrowboat” navigates a canal in Birmingham, England. The city has 35 miles of canals, which played a pivitol role in the development of Birmingham’s economy in the 1800s and early 1900s.
When they fled Iran and moved to Birmingham, “we were searching for peace, purpose and a deeper connection with God,” Iliya says. As they studied the Bible with their new friends, “we were inspired by the teachings of Jesus — especially about loving others, forgiving people, helping those in need and having faith during difficult times. … Life is still not perfect, but we feel like we have more direction, purpose and comfort now than before.”
The gospel message appeals to those who grow up practicing Iran’s state religion, Shia Islam, Garrison writes in “A Wind in the House of Islam.” Unlike Sunni Muslims, Shiites believe that spiritual and political authority resides in a lineage of imams descended from the prophet Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima. Most Shiites believe in a divinely ordained line of 12 imams, the last of which disappeared after his birth. Shiites believe that this imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, will return at the end of time to establish peace and justice and redeem Islam.
Iranian children know this messianic prophecy, but they aren’t taught the truth about Christianity, says an Iranian Christian named Bita.
Locks adorn a bridge over one of the many canals in Birmingham, England.
“In Iran, they told us that Christians have three gods,” Bita says. That’s what she believed until political persecution forced her to flee Iran. She spent time in Istanbul, Turkey, where a friend gave her a Bible. During a health crisis that required surgery, Bita prayed to God and recovered. She moved to Birmingham and got a job in customer service. She studied her Bible with Christians and learned more about the faith, including the nature of the Trinity.
“In Iran, they told us that Christians have three gods. … I never thought Christianity could be like this.”
Three years ago, she was baptized. Now she’s part of a community that loves, prays for and supports each other.
“I never thought Christianity could be like this,” Bita says.
Praying for ‘an early jubilee’
One night after the backyard gathering, Bita, C.M. and other Christians gather for a prayer service hosted by a Birmingham church. The believers form circles of chairs and listen to a brief devotional from the book of Exodus focusing on the word “magnify.”
A Muslim man walks through a neighborhood in Birmingham, England.
When the Israelites were trapped between Pharaoh’s army and the Red Sea, they chose to magnify the impossibilities of their situation rather than God, one of the church’s ministers says. In the same way, Iranian Christians may be tempted to magnify problems with their asylum applications or the uncertainty of their nation’s future.
“God is so much greater than these little impossibilities,” the minister says. “You’re helping your mental health when you say, ‘I cannot sort this all myself.’”
The Christians take turns sitting in chairs in the middle of the circles as their fellow believers surround them in prayer. They ask for healing, for blessings, for the safety of their loved ones and for their homeland to know peace and justice.
“Can I have an early jubilee? Would you do that for us?” asks Graham Vallis, a British Christian, as he prays with one hand on the shoulder of his Iranian brother. In the book of Leviticus, God instructed his people to observe a year in which debts are forgiven, land is returned to its original owners, and slaves are set free. It was to happen every 50 years.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has been in power for 47.
Regardless of how the coming years unfold, Iranian Christians believe that God is at work in their lives and their homeland.
At a missionary’s home in Birmingham, American and Iranian Christians enjoy desserts including a box of gaz (nougat filled with roasted pistachios) as they play hokm, an Iranian card game similar to spades.
“Sometimes you are sleeping, and God needs to wake you up to have you travel to another land, just like Israel,” Fred says.
Even living under a repressive regime, people can cling to their families and become comfortable. “But something is missed,” he says. “It’s God’s presence, the real God’s presence.”
Across Iran and the Middle East “God is shaking,” Fred adds with a grin. “God is shaking those countries to let his people out.”
ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org.
