This paper examines how asylum adjudications based on conversion to Christianity expose the paradoxes of religious freedom within secular nation-states. While the 1951 Refugee Convention upholds the right to change religion as grounds for asylum, European courts overwhelmingly reject such claims. Decision-makers assess not only persecution risk but also the “genuineness” of conversion, thereby constructing a “Christian orthodoxy” that is far removed from the lived religion of converts or their German supporters.
Drawing on ethnographic research in Germany, this paper argues that courts “secularize” Christianity by transforming it into a legal category, using religious freedom as a mechanism of exclusion rather than inclusion. Asylum seeking converts to Christianity must navigate a contradiction: invoking religious freedom while seeking cultural belonging to a secular state with a Christian history that distrusts overt religiosity. This process reveals how secularism does not simply protect freedom but also constrains it, reinforcing racial and national boundaries.