4 June 2026
On 3 June 2026. the Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Rev'd Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani delivered the Keynote Address at the HeartEdge Conference in Birmingham, on the theme 'Christ in the Stranger'.
Bishop Guli's address can be read in full below.
Christ in the Stranger - a rather beautiful phrase, isn’t it? Reflecting, I imagine, the faithful instincts of all of us gathered here. Who could possibly disagree? But if we pause for a moment we might recognise the need to examine the word Christ and its derivative, Christianity. I say that because it seems to me that there is a growing polarization in English society at least, about what is meant by these words, Christ and Christianity. Indeed, the chasm that’s opening up in how the terms are used and what is meant by them is making it difficult for the church to speak into a changing political scene and especially to push back against some elements of the far right nationalist agenda.
For example, it’s not easy to find fault with Tommy Robinson’s slogan in the lead up to his ‘Unite the Kingdom’ Christmas carol concert last December, calling for us to put Christ back into Christmas. Difficult to argue with that on one hand, and yet it left most of us bristling, and feeling profoundly uncomfortable. So our starting point with the title Christ in the Stranger must be to dissect what is meant by the word Christ and to say clearly and unambiguously that Christian words and symbols do not have a meaning when divorced from the actions that flow from the life and person of Jesus Christ, and from the teachings of the Church.
It is no longer enough to say ‘Christ’ and assume that everyone is understanding the same thing. Rather, the onus is on us to explain which Christ: and I’d say, it’s the Christ we encounter in the Bible and who demands that if we are to use his name, our actions should be in line with the use of our words.
To make the point about the distinction between words and actions, let me say a little about a recent report looking at Christian faith and practice in Sweden, with which, incidentally the Diocese of Chelmsford has a link with the Lutheran Diocese of Karlstad. Sweden, as I’m sure you know, is often described as one of the world’s most secularised countries, yet in a recent survey, 43% of the population identified as Christian. The report, “Swedes and Faith[1]” outlines this contradiction and reveals a deep divide between those who identify as Christians.
The vast majority, are termed cultural Christians, while a small minority are what the report calls Bible Reading Christians – we might say practising Christians. So, Swedish society, far from moving towards a uniform secular conformity is actually demonstrating a complex landscape characterised by polarisation not only between those who consider themselves Christians or not, but between different strands of those who do call themselves Christians.
It turns out that calling yourself a Christian in Sweden doesn’t mean you ever read the Bible, attend church or even believe in God. Here are some facts and figures from the report. Of those who call themselves Christian, 74% say they never read the Bible, 45% never attend church and 45% never pray to God. Only 26% agree with the statement that ‘there is a God’.
Identity is, therefore, decoupled from religious belief, and belonging to a cultural heritage has little or nothing to do with the practice of faith. Crucially, for people who are cultural Christians there are very few (if any) consequences for how they live their lives or what opinions they hold. They bear the name Christian but lack the substance. They fail to understand that encountering the person of Christ requires a whole life response. That it’s meaningless to call yourself a Christian and hold a cross as you march through the streets, if your actions and behaviours don’t flow from the sacrificial events of Jesus’ life and ministry. It is our actions and the language we use that breathe life into Christian words and symbols.
My sense is that we would probably all recognise something of this picture for ourselves here in England – this separation, amongst some of the population, between Christian words and symbols on one hand and the actions that should flow from them, and give them their true meaning. But let me go back to the report, ‘Swedes and Faith’. While the survey found that Bible Reading or practising Christians were generally more conservative ethically (on issues such as euthanasia and human sexuality), they were more progressive on matters relating to race, and more positive towards globalisation and multiculturalism, both than the population at large, and than cultural Christians. Again, I think, we would recognise echoes of that, here in England.
One article I read about the report suggests that the answer lies in relationships rather than theory.[2] As a rule, for which they provide statistics, Bible Reading Christians have more contact with people of other nationalities and faiths which, in turn, leads to greater openness and tolerance. In other words, it is the practice of Christianity – reading the Bible, going to church, praying – that helps shape values and then behaviour. The label, Christian, on its own is not enough.
If we are truly going to engage with the idea of Christ in the Stranger we must understand that there is a dividing line, not so much between those who identify as Christians and those who do not, but between those for whom the label Christian demands a Christ like way of life, and those for whom it doesn’t. So it’s all about how the words and symbols are inhabited. I’m reminded here of Jesus’ warning in Matthew 7: 21-23:
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.”
If we are to meet Christ in the stranger, we must be intentional about creating points of contact and fostering opportunities for relationships to develop. It is this that helps us recognise the face of Christ in the other. The late Pope Francis spoke of creating a culture of encounter – of deliberately putting one foot in front of the other, to be with those who are different to us for all kinds of reasons; in order to foster understanding, recognise our common humanity, strengthen bonds and emulate the example of Christ.[3] Our identity as Christians alone will never be enough. We must practice being Christians and deliberately differentiate our use of language and symbols from those whose actions strip those very same words and symbols from their true meaning.
The reason I’ve spent so long dissecting the word Christ in what some of you might consider an unnecessarily laborious manner, is because we are meeting and discussing these issues at a time when the concept of welcoming the stranger is highly charged and laced with political rhetoric. Let me be clear that for the purposes of today, I’m using the term stranger mainly to mean those who are considered outsiders by virtue of their race or nationality, in particular those who are refugees and asylum seekers.
But I think what I’ve said about the charged environment in which we live, is probably also true of all kinds of other minority groups. There are complex dynamics at play around identity politics, how we relate as human beings across the differences that separate us, and in how, as Christians, we regard our baptism as a unifying force, turning strangers into friends and allowing us to recognise Christ in one another.
But for now, and not withstanding a small twist in the tail towards the end of my talk, set aside all the other categories that divide us and think of the term stranger as referring primarily to those who have arrived in this country from elsewhere. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that questions around migration, asylum and the status of refugees are now highly politicised and divisive, making the landscape almost unrecognisable, for example, from the time when I arrived in this country as a refugee in 1980, when broadly I received a warm welcome and the opportunity to contribute, allowing me to begin building a new life and find a place of belonging.
In the current context of suspicion and animosity towards the stranger, it is all the more important that we address and engage with this issue which, within the context of Christian faith is not peripheral, but central. First and foremost, there is the biblical paradigm which provides us with a framework that we cannot escape.
From the time of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden, right through to the New City as envisaged in the book of Revelation – the New Jerusalem where all the nations are gathered around the throne of God – we see that migration and the movement of people is part of the human condition. And, moreover, hospitality to the stranger is an idea with deeply religious roots.
In the Judea-Christian tradition the origins go back to Abraham - you’ll recall the story in Genesis 18 about God appearing in the guise of three strangers whom Abraham invites into his tent, providing welcome and hospitality. Throughout the Old Testament and continued into the New, there is a tradition that prioritises the most marginalised – the foreigner, widows, the poor and those who are on the edges of society, all of whom represent the face of God whom we meet in the stranger.
But in recognising Christ in the stranger, we are not only honouring the stranger and those most in need; we are also honouring the God whose image they reflect. (Remember Matthew 25 in which Jesus tells the story of the Son of Man coming in glory and judgement to separate the sheep from the goats and the people say, “And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”)
To see Christ in the other, demands more than kindness when we feel like it – it is a form of religious duty that demonstrates our love both for God and for God’s people.
And even more than that, this kind of generosity which requires us to see Christ in the other, reflects something of God’s generosity to us in the gift of creation and most supremely in the gift of Godself who through the incarnation became one of us – God offers God’s very self, crossing the boundary between heaven and earth, to be born of flesh and reside amongst us. An act of unrivalled generosity in which Christ shows us the face and character of God, and calls us not to be strangers or – reminiscent of John 15. 15, not to be servants but to be friends – to be those in whom God’s image is reflected, and who must in turn see Christ reflected in the face of others.
And there’s even more. To see Christ in the stranger - we ourselves must be conformed to Christ – we must become more Christ like. Not only are we emulating Christ, in kindness towards and recognition of others, we are also aligning ourselves with God’s ultimate generosity through Christ’s incarnation and his sacrifice on the cross. So, to truly recognise Christ in the stranger is costly, for it means creating space for the stranger, not just to be welcomed and allowed a small corner whilst they learn to conform to our ways, but space to be who they are; to contribute, perhaps even to bring fresh insights and to challenge our ways. And to create space in this way may sometimes mean giving up something of what we consider our own, something precious and greatly valued.
These are deeply Christian themes which lie at the heart of what it means to see Christ in the stranger and then to live according to the actions that flow from saying that. To truly see Christ in the stranger may well include an element of sacrifice, for it is about a posture which puts others first and self second. And in this we might experience encouragement but we’ll likely also experience challenge.
For the stranger or the outsider who reflects the face of Christ in the form of the neighbour in need, may also be the one who comes to disrupt, to bring healing, to hold up a mirror so that those who consider themselves to be insiders, can examine themselves and notice what has become unhelpfully habitual, where there may be need for reconciliation, for change or transformation.
This is neither easy nor automatic but demands of us a level of insight and self-reflection, a good degree of humility and the ability to sit light to precious things that we may be holding on to tightly. Al Barrett and others have written about the concept of receptivity – of knowing not just the importance of generosity and kindness, of being good hosts if you like; but of being good guests, able and open to receive gifts from others. Barrett challenges us not just to ask ‘what would Jesus do?’, seeing ourselves as those called to fulfil the needs of others; but to ask ‘what would Zaccheus do?’[4], and to put ourselves in the place of one who recognises his or her own need of receiving from others, even from the Christ who comes in the guise of stranger and outsider.
So seeing Christ in the stranger requires a kind of self-emptying, a Christ like kenosis that creates space not just for us to be diminished in the giving but rather space for us to receive and to be changed and transformed through our encounters with others. We might think that all we are called to do is give to those who need our generosity but, in the process we often discover that the one accepting our generosity also has something to offer which, if we are prepared to receive it, might challenge us, but will likely enrich us tenfold, twenty fold, a hundredfold.
This is about unconditional openness to the Other, without judgement and without expectation of anything in return other than the gift of being transformed through the experience. But it’s costly for we have to be willing to change and to receive, and that requires as much generosity of spirit as does the act of giving. The 20th century Austrian Philosopher and theologian Martin Buber developed the idea – I’m sure many of you will be familiar with it - that existence is based on encounter; he spoke of what we might describe as a sacred space that is created between the “I and thou”. All our relationships are about a push-pull between me (I) and the Other (thou); in conversation for example, constantly attention is drawn from one towards the other and back again. But in fact, God resists the binaries and meets us in the space between the “I and thou”, and if we are open to it transforms us through the way we are prepared to be generous both in giving and in receiving.
There is a challenge in all this not just to us as individual Christians but to church communities. This openness to ‘receiving’ can pose quite a problem to our churches when they seek to be welcoming and generous and hospitable. A friend told me recently how his church had given over their hall to a group of refugees from Afghanistan who wanted to cook a meal to say thank you for the care they had received from their English hosts.
It was hard, my friend told me, to let them get on with it and the temptation was to take over. Church members were uncomfortable being served by those they perceived to have less than them; their instinct was to be the providers. But in truth the act of being hosts brought more joy to the asylum seekers who, housed in temporary hotel accommodation, had no access to kitchens of their own.
My sense is that it’s often harder to be a good guest than a good host. A host has an element of power and control, is on home turf and sets the rules, as it were. A guest is vulnerable, on unknown territory, trying to fit in with what is expected. The challenge of faith is to learn to be both: host and guest as the situation requires.
Receiving well – being guests rather than hosts - requires a change of mind-set. We are not just about inviting people in, being welcoming and expecting them to become like us, but we are challenged ourselves to be prepared to change in the encounter so that together we become a new creation. This is much more difficult and involves taking risks and letting go of our priorities and our fears. It’s a million miles from the benefactor/beneficiary model which is often how giving is perceived. And as we become less self-orientated and less fearful, so too we might find that in turn we become more generous in our giving. The call to Christians is to be both host and guest – like Jesus on the Emmaus Road, guest of the two disciples with whom he walked, but host in the act of breaking of bread and blessing of wine.
In this, as in so many Christian themes, I’m reminded of the need for us to be able to hold on to the contradictions and to live at the heart of the paradox – just like the space between Martin Buber’s I and Thou. To see the face of Christ in the stranger draws out of us a giving and a receiving; it is both/and, not either/or. Richard Rohr, in writing about the cross, explores the tensions and intersections of the two sides of all human dilemmas: “divine and human; matter and spirit: male and female: good thief and bad thief”.
He says, “when you try and hold the contraries together you will always be crucified” and goes on, “we are supposed to be the people who hang on the contraries, who hold the dilemmas that life presents us with and suffer them. Now you have the meaning of the cross. You absorb the tension, you don’t release it …, you hold it.”
As I begin to draw to a close, I want to introduce a theme which might, in the context of this gathering, pose a greater challenge than recognising the face of Christ in the stranger from a different country or culture. Remember the sting in the tail I mentioned earlier? Well, here I’m referring to the face of Christ in the strangers within our family – the different factions and tribes within the Christian tradition and the Church of England specifically; those who have become strangers to one another, both through identity and practice, to take us back to the Swedes and Faith – those who identify as different sorts of Christians and in practice often seem to avoid one another rather than creating places of encounter.
A few weeks ago we had friends from the Netherlands staying with us for a few days. They’d recently been part of an annual gathering of Christians in Germany called the Kirchentag or Church Congress. Roman Catholics and Lutherans take it in turns to organise the event which has become increasingly ecumenical over the years and now brings together in the region of 100,000 people over four days – Christians of every shape and flavour.
The event includes many and diverse workshops and sessions, including one offering services of blessing for same sex couples, and for thruples, yes – you heard me right – the blessing of thruples. I asked how this went down with the many who would find such practices difficult or unacceptable and was told that it really wasn’t a problem. People chose sessions they wanted to attend and avoided ones they wouldn’t find helpful but all were happy to gather for the plenary events including the closing act of worship held in the open air.
100, 000 Christians of widely and wildly different views and traditions, gathering in one place to worship and to recognise in one another the face of Christ. I can’t help but compare this to what appears to be a growing practice in the Church of England where increasingly it is common for us to isolate ourselves from one another, based on certain beliefs and practices; where, as a sign of protest, we refuse to meet or pray together, and where the different faith networks hold more sway than the fact we are all Anglicans, never mind Christians, together. We are making strangers out of the people who should be friends and we are struggling to see Christ in one another, failing in our response to Jesus’ command that we should love one another and strive towards unity.
Now, in some ways I’m not surprised. I think it’s very human to find it more difficult to engage with strangers who are one step removed, than those who are part of the family. Think of the family rift that is so difficult to heal; of how painful, sometimes impossible, it can be to address deep differences within families, and still stay in good relationship.
A good number of years ago, in the early 2000s, I think, when the Islamic Republic of Iran was going through a relatively open and liberal phase - and please hear me emphasise the word relatively open and liberal - delegations were invited to Iran from churches in Britain and Germany to participate in mutual learning and interfaith dialogue with Islamic Scholars and practitioners in Iran.
Now there was nothing wrong with this. Indeed it was a good thing and one or two bishops from the Church of England also joined in the conversations. But I remember noticing the irony, that the Anglican Church in Iran was excluded from the gatherings. So there was a kind of pretence to the world about the respect with which the Islamic Republic held people of other faiths, whilst it kept at a distance other Iranians, not only refusing to engage with them but continuing to diminish and persecute them. I remember wondering if any of the German or British delegates even noticed, let alone questioned the approach.
It may be an unusual example, but it’s stayed with me as a reminder that the closer the relationships, the more difficult it can be to address deep divisions and in Christian terms to truly recognise Christ in one another.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I have no easy answers and regarding those things that currently divide us as Anglicans, I’m speaking as much to myself as to you. There are profound differences around ethical and theological lines. Somehow these differences must be honoured and for each of us, our sense of integrity has to be navigated faithfully.
But it remains the case that we are called to see Christ in the stranger, whoever they are. Not just the stranger we like or find easy or feel pity towards, but the stranger who challenges us and makes our hackles rise; the one who makes us deeply uncomfortable and with whom we disagree profoundly. Love your enemy, Jesus said, the ones who are in close proximity and the ones who are at arms length. And see my face in the stranger when it’s easy and when it’s hard.
And all this takes me once more to the place of paradox and of trying to search for truth in the space between binary opposites and reminds me of a favourite quote of mine from the 13th century Persian poet, Rumi, who said, “There is a field beyond right and wrong, I’ll meet you there”.
Maybe, just maybe, that field beyond right and wrong is the place where each of us can meet Christ in the other most fully, and maybe it’s no surprise that the Christian icon of redemption is of a man offering love whilst hanging on a cross.
+Guli Chelmsford
[1] In the original Swedish, Svenskarna och tron.
[2] Fredrik Wennell, “Inside Sweden’s Split Spirituality” in Seen and Unseen, 24 February 2026.
[3] A Culture of Encounter. BBC Radio 4, 9 am, 14 November 2017.